The big news is H488 needs only Governor Pat McCrory’s signature to become law. If passed, Asheville’s water system will leave a hole in the city’s balance sheet and fall under the jurisdiction of a regional water authority headed up by the Metropolitan Sewerage District. To reiterate, one stated reason for the maneuver is misattribution of pipe rot, allowed by the previous regional water authority, to the city, which has been diligent in investing in capital improvements.
Perhaps in response to the prayers of Mayor Terry Bellamy and her facebook friends, maybe combined with the machinations of a Greenpeacenick, an MSD pipe just happened to break yesterday, spilling millions of gallons of raw sewage into the French Broad River. Rep. Susan Fisher tried to use this to show the MSD was no less inept than the city. She was shot down, because the official spin is that the spill is good because it doesn’t happen every day. Just stay out of the river, mind you. (1, 2)
The main takeaway from this whole experience is that, in North Carolina, if somebody doesn’t like you, they can get the General Assembly to squash you like a bug.
