What I mean by stealing: If they continued to use the nice Detroit water, but they didn't pay Detroit for that water, it would be stealing. Detroit would shut o

What I mean by stealing: If they continued to use the nice Detroit water, but they didn't pay Detroit for that water, it would be stealing. Detroit would shut off the water. If they then reopened the valves or broke into the pumping stations to continue getting Detroit water, that would be even worse. The savings produced by switching to the bad water shouldn't be viewed in isolation. The rest of the city budget matters too. If they are not in the black, then bills can't be paid. That includes important things like water treatment chemicals. Basically, bad stuff happens when you are out of money. Budget problems started long before the emergency managers took control. If somehow the city was in the black, then I'll agree that the emergency managers screwed up. I don't however think that they should be held to a standard of perfection, so "screwed up" doesn't mean anything criminal or even seriously malicious or inappropriate. Mistakes happen. If the city was still in the red, as I'm led to believe, then disaster of some type was unavoidable. It's just a matter of choosing the disaster. They could have laid off the entire fire department for example, which would likely mean that fires spread from building to building. They could have shut down much of the school system, eliminating school lunches and school buses. Tough choices had to be made.