Mike Baron, former water conservation manager for the city of Greensboro, is bringing an end to his efforts to expose what he calls "the harm caused by municipalities driven to sell water-for-profit."
Mike claims that water shortages were intentionally engineered in Greensboro and water-use projections exaggerated to justify the Randleman Dam. His seemingly empirical data appears to back up his claim that water capacity increased "by 75% during a 15 year decline in water sales."
It is a shame that the traditional media who have the resources to investigate these kinds of issues have not taken this on. Nobody. Maybe there are other parts of the story that explain what Mike sees as wasteful practices at taxpayer expense. Maybe Mike is just wrong. Maybe he is right. One thing is certain, those with the time and resources to tackle a complicated story like this have ignored it. That's too bad.
Typical Greensboro, nothing to see here move along. It is truly sad when courageous people such as Mike Baron and Mary Johnson take a stand for what is right without any regard to what may happen to them and they are marginalized and dismissed as kooks or nuts all in the name of protecting personal,corporate or government ass. The rich get richer, powerful get more powerful and the rest of us can should be happy with the crumbs they provide.
ReplyDeletethat stinks but hopefully mike will keep the site up so that maybe people can still read what he has to say
ReplyDeleteRoch, thanks for moving this question!
ReplyDeleteLet me beef up what you refer to as my "seemingly empirical data." It is not my observation but the City of Greensboro’s own publications that claim the water works is expanding by 75% with the addition of Randleman Reservoir.
From Chapter 8 of the City of Greensboro WATER AND SEWER: SUMMARY HIGHLIGHTS web page found here:
http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6FAEC2EE-5B56-4803-9DB0-59C4D1E9FC4F/0/GSDBWatSew.pdf%20page%2010
It states, “The addition of the Randleman Reservoir will increase Greensboro’s water capacity by 28
mgd or approximately 75%.”
The 75% expansion is the city's claim, not mine.
And all the numbers in my chart were given to me by GSO water supply manager Steve Drew. Anybody wishing to discredit my chart could have called Steve Drew 2 years ago and asked him if my yearly numbers were accurate. To date nobody has apparently done that.
A provocative headline describing a government monopoly that's expanding by 75% after a 15 year decline in water sales still gets no attention....except from you.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Mike
Thanks for commenting, Mike. It was not my intention to suggest that your numbers may be suspect, merely to indicate that they had not been independently verified, including by me. The City's source document you cited does indeed say that the city's water capacity will increase by 75%.
ReplyDelete