PELL CITY — A national food and water watch official says the city is moving in the wrong direction by hiring a private company to manage one of its vital resources — water.

“Privatizing water systems is not the answer to Pell City’s infrastructure and management needs,” said Jorge Aguilar, Southeast regional organizer for Food & Water Watch. “In fact, privatization only exacerbates issues relating to poor service delivery and infrastructure maintenance. Communities across the country have suffered from the empty promises of water privatization, be they in the form of full assets sales, leases or management contracts.”

Food & Water Watch is a non-profit consumer advocacy organization based out of Washington, D.C., that works to ensure the public has clean water and safe food.

Aguilar said results from “management contracts” with private utility companies have been devastating to cities and communities across the country.

“They include cost-cutting measures that jeopardize public safety, job cuts to essential staff, maintenance and water quality problems, lack of infrastructure investment, corruption, environmental degradation, outrageous rate hikes and political meddling,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar said Food & Water Watch is seeing more “management contract” offers between cities and private utility companies, because private utility companies have lost footing with total utility privatization plans.

“Private companies are negotiating management and operation contracts as a way to gain a foot hold in the complete control of water delivery systems, because they have been unsuccessful in securing leases and/or full ownership, which is ultimately what they want,” Aguilar said. “There are a whole range of contracts that can give private companies a complete hold on a public utility system. … It’s all in the details, how the contract is worded.”

He said private utility companies look for ways to streamline expenses. Using shoddy construction materials, deferring maintenance, backlogging service requests and massive downsizing of the workforce are common tactics for a profit-driven water corporation, he said.

Aguilar pointed out private utility companies must answer to their stock holders, not to the rate payers.

He said private utility companies have no incentives to perform preventative maintenance on city equipment when a municipality is generally required to replace all faulty assets or equipment.

He said it’s impossible for a city to prove the breakage of equipment resulted from the lack of proper maintenance.

“They can blame the breakage on a wide range of things,” Aguilar said.

He said companies will also tend to go after benefits to cut operation costs and reduce the number of workers, which causes service problems once skilled workers are lost.

Aguilar said companies often tout the idea that the private sector is more efficient and can upgrade systems at a lower cost.

“We know this is not true,” Aguilar said. “Across the board, private corporations deliver poorer service at a higher cost than do most public utilities.”

He said when city officials are confronted with tough choices, many elected officials fall prey to the “quick fix offer” by private utility companies.

Aguilar said there are steps Pell City can take that could help solve its Water Department problems.

“There are organizations that help governments find proper engineers and staff,” Aguilar said.

He pointed to the American Water Works Association, as well as to The Community Resource Group, which can help rural cities tap into money for water infrastructure projects.

Councilman Donnie Todd, a supporter of hiring a company to manage the city’s Water Department, said a private company could manage the department more efficiently than the city, and it is more cost effective for the city.

Todd wanted to hire ClearWater Solutions of Opelika last month to run the city’s Water Department, but withdrew his motion to enter into a contract with the company when it was apparent he did not have full support of the council.

The city recently received proposals/bids from companies wanting to manage the city’s Water Department. Four private utility companies submitted proposals/bids, including ClearWater Solutions, Artesian Utilities Systems Management, ESG Operations Inc., and SouthWest Water Company.

It appeared SouthWest Water Company submitted the low bid last Friday, offering to manage the city’s Water Department for $50,000 per month, using city facilities and equipment, and $55,000 per month without the use of city facilities and equipment.

The mayor and council are holding a public hearing at 6 p.m. in the council chamber at City Hall to discuss the possibility of the city entering into an agreement with a third party to manage the Water Department.

Aguilar said it is difficult for the public to offer any comment when there are no details as to what the City Council is going to agree on.

“Nobody has any details,” he said, “so how can you have public comment?”