“Good Job” to WNYW Fox 5 Investigates: Nassau County, NY, Water Companies

December 20th, 2010

Two nights ago (Saturday), New York’s Fox Television Channel 5 investigated the status of New York’s Nassau County (Long Island) water companies. The investigation revealed well in excess of twenty water companies for this single New York county – a county that has one of the highest costs of living in the United States. As we all know, the public water companies are typically small government-sanctioned monopolies. And, as confirmed by a public watchdog group during the investigation, all these water companies are providing water to the county residents from the same water source. So, the investigation asked, why does Nassau county need more than twenty water companies for a single county especially when the water is all coming from the same source? Furthermore, the investigation displayed these water companies as being typically bastions of nepotism and apparently often an example of the wasting of government funds as well. For example, each of these water companies have a superintendent/director that makes $130,000 to $200,000 (+/-) per year plus tens of thousands in per diem expenses for attending meetings of the water company (per diem policies such as in keeping with the mode of corrupt, ousted, investigated, and recently arrested city officials from Bell, California).

As I have longed asked in this blog: what is with the dysfunctional manner of operations of the water systems in our nation, this Fox 5 Investigates has displayed the other side of the coin which clearly illuminates at least a potential reason why our public utilities are so screwed-up in our nation – at least assuming Nassau county is any example of what is happening in the rest of the nation.

“Thumbs up” and “good job” to WNYW’s Fox 5 Investigates for such a socially-relevant expose. The nation clearly needs more of these types of investigations for the current times in which we are trying to reign in our massive, expensive, and out of control government entities which seem to care little for the financial well-being of the taxpayer. Again, kudos to WNYW’s Fox 5 Investigates!


Adam Trotter, P.E. / AVT