> One of the things the environmental law clinic at Northwestern does is identify municipal water/sewer systems that are not in compliance with the Clean Water

> One of the things the environmental law clinic at Northwestern does is identify municipal water/sewer systems that are not in compliance with the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. There are many such systems, and invariably they remain out of compliance because citizens are unwilling to raise water/sewer rates to fix the infrastructure. Err. That just seems like it’s the fault of the regulators refusing to do their jobs these days. (And also because the regulators have been declawed and coopted by industry.) If you have a regulation that says “water must be clean” and then the regulator doesn’t test or fine or force the municipality to fix it then that’s where the problem lays. The idea that somehow a private water company would be better is absurd in this example, why because the citizen who you’re blaming for not upgrading the water supply would somehow chose to go with another water supply provider who was cleaner?