| Stockton to unveil multimillion-dollar bids
By Cheryl Miller
Record Staff Writer
Published Sunday, September 8, 2002
Costly problem of aging pipes, pumps drives privatization
Stockton on Monday will finally unveil the multimillion-dollar proposals of three corporate suitors vying to operate the city's water utilities. Sewage, storm runoff and water delivery hardly seem like enticing assets, but the three multinational companies have poured thousands of dollars into technical bids and public-relations campaigns designed to woo the city into a 20-year public-private operations marriage.
Which partner the city chooses -- if any -- could have far-reaching impacts: what Stocktonians pay for water; how millions of gallons of Delta-bound wastewater are treated; and the fate of 130 city utility jobs.
"The stakes in terms of service and costs can be quite high," said Neil Grigg, a Colorado State University engineering professor who specializes in urban water affairs and has written extensively about privatization.
Any partnership also promises to catapult Stockton into an increasingly divisive international debate over the privatization of long-public water systems. Just last week, environmental groups rallied at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa to protest the emergence of corporate interests in water utilities throughout the world.
Public Citizen, one of the protesting groups, worked with Stockton residents critical of privatization and the League of Women Voters to gather more than 18,000 signatures to force the local water-contracting issue on to the ballot. The measure could go before voters early next year.
But even with all that is at stake, any resident who doesn't possess an engineering degree may struggle to understand just what each beau is offering. Mayor Gary Podesto, the father of local privatization efforts, expects the bids released Monday to contain thousands of pages of obscure water-talk.
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