State Legislators: Introduce legislation that would prohibit the sale of a municipal authority without ratepayer approval through referendum.

Chester Water Authority (CWA), an award-winning, superbly-managed, municipal water authority in Southeastern Pennsylvania is under attack in a hostile corporate takeover attempt by a for-profit water company. CWA serves over 200,000 people (about 42,000 customers) in Delaware and Chester Counties.

As a community, we have everything to lose and nothing to gain by this sale.

What's at stake?
• Higher water rates
• Loss of recreational use of the Octoraro reservoir
• Loss of open space
• Loss of control of our public water

For-profit water companies are beholden to making money for their shareholders. CWA is a non-profit municipal authority; it’s beholden to clean water and us! As it should be.

There should be no sale of a municipal authority without approval by the stakeholders. The ratepayers should have the final say through a referendum. We must stop for-profit companies from hijacking our public resource that is guaranteed to us by the Pennsylvania State Constitution.

from the Pennsylvania Constitution,
Article I, Section 27:
"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."