To the Honorable Members of the Pennsylvania Senate and House of Representatives who represent ratepayers in the Chester Water Authority service area
RE: Chester Water Authority (“CWA”) Update No. 17
January 27, 2022
TITLE: Proof that the Governor’s Office was behind a statewide program to sell off the water and sewer authorities of municipalities with distressed pension plans
The attached emails (heavily redacted by DCED) are from a RTKL production by DCED to CWA. Pay careful attention to the identities of the senders and receivers of the emails.
The emails provide clear evidence of the Governor’s office involvement (during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic) in a statewide program to sell off the water and sewer authorities of municipalities with distressed pension plans. All Authorities in your district should be warned and shown copies of the emails. Please feel free to share the emails with your colleagues in other parts of the state.
It is apparent that the Commonwealth has been implementing a behind closed doors effort to privatize publicly controlled water and sewer systems for the benefit of investor owned utilities in order to distract from the Commonwealth’s failures in its control of Act 47 communities.
This state effort is undoubtedly why the DCED (later with Aqua’s assistance in the form of a lawsuit) derailed the settlement discussions between CWA and the City of Chester in 2019 and why Aqua sued both CWA and the City. The lawsuit is still pending and has been used to block CWA and the City from engaging in direct settlement negotiations.
The DCED through its appointed City Receiver and his team, with the backing of the Governor’s office, has been waging a war of words (and now lawsuits) with the duly elected government of the people of the City of Chester to try and force the City to sell the Chester Water Authority. Is this what the legislature intended with the failed DCED Act 47 program?
The City has real fiscal problems that need to be solved. DCED, after more than a quarter century of visiting the City’s struggles, is only interested in engineering the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the region, one billion dollars per generation from the Chester Water Authority ratepayers to Aqua shareholders and the Canadian pension fund. How does this solve the City’s structural financial problems? The sale should be stopped.
DCED and the Receiver have no plan for the City other than selling CWA. It’s about time for DCED and the Receiver to go home before they do any more damage to the residents of the City and all of CWA’s customers.
Any questions or comments should be directed to Chester Water Authority. It is best to communicate with CWA via email, info@chesterwater.com
