November 10, 2007

Let Them Drink Sand II

The AP reports that Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen says the state won't help communities improve their water systems. Which begs the question of why the state bothers to regularly compile updated reports on the status of public water systems infrastructure across Tennessee - reports showing worsening conditions over the past five years which the Bredesen administration has ignored. Here's some info the AP could have included to counterbalance Bredesen's attempt to avoid sharing in the blame:

A review of reports from the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) shows that the water infrastructure needs have increased by nearly 13 percent across Tennessee under Bredesen's watch, a sign of the Bredesen administration's neglect of this critical infrastructure.

TACIR estimates that total water infrastructure needs statewide have increased from $2.83 billion as estimated in the report issued in April 2001 to $3.19 billion today, an increase of $364 million.

In 2005 the Department of Environment & Conservation counted more than 112,000 households across Tennessee that lack access to a public water system, and put the cost of fixing that problem at $1.7 billion. The Bredesen administration put less than $2 million into the state's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund in fiscal year 2006.

And consider this fact: the Bredesen administration, through the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, is willing to spend millions of your tax dollars to upgrade water systems in order to accommodate new industry, but when it comes to upgrading water systems to help ordinary people in small communities that can't afford to do it on their own, Bredesen cares not at all.

I'm beginning to think Bredesen's new multi-million-dollar party bunker, costing taxpayers $3.86 million, is really just meant to be a place where he can hide from the people he's trying to pretend don't exist.