By Jim Walsh

Atlantic City's drinking water has become a playing card in the game to bail the city out of financial uncertainty.

Water is not a luxury and it should not be gambled with, but that's just what the state Legislature will be doing if they play the hand dealt by Senate President Stephen Sweeney.

Sweeney recently introduced a bill to allow the state to take over Atlantic City's finances, but this bill could subject virtually any community in New Jersey to a stripping of local control over public utilities and the forced sale of community assets to profit-driven corporations.

Over the last year, as the state has debated Atlantic City's financial struggles, private companies have been chomping at the bit to get at the city's water system.

Each approach has been met with opposition from the city council, the mayor, public employees and local families. Having failed to convince Atlantic City's leaders to play with their stacked deck, private water interests seem to have found an ally in Sweeney, whose legislation would allow the state to force the city to "monetize" its water system one way or another. Though he has stated that he prefers a public solution, his bill indicates otherwise.

One might wonder if Sweeney is "carrying water" for Gov. Chris Christie, an unabashed advocate of utility privatization. The governor recently promoted and signed into law, with the support of Sweeney, legislation streamlines the privatization of public water utilities in the state. Or, might Sweeney be bowing to pressure from the unelected South Jersey power broker George E. Norcross III, whose brother Philip conveniently represents New Jersey American Water and has been involved in at least one meeting related to the Atlantic City takeover?

Incidentally, American Water was authorized to receive $164 million in state taxpayer subsidies last year to move its headquarters just a few miles from Voorhees to Camden, under the guise of job creation. It is troubling that the Christie Administration would authorize such a subsidy to a very profitable private water company, while denying state aid to a struggling municipality like Atlantic City.

More importantly, corporate water companies have a terrible track record when it comes to public health and financial security. A new study from the advocacy group Food & Water Watch shows that throughout New Jersey, households with corporate water systems pay an average of $230 more a year for water than those with publicly-owned and operated systems.

And despite paying more of their hard-earned money, private water customers are forced to deal with a company inevitably prioritizing profit over the health and safety of community drinking water.

Sweeney should not see water privatization as a solution to Atlantic City's fiscal crisis. These types of "emergency" deals are nothing more than backdoor borrowing that taxes residents through their water taps. The funding that a city receives by selling or leasing its water system is effectively an expensive loan that a water company will recover from consumers through bloated water bills. Residents are ultimately the ones paying back these high-interest corporate loans.

Access to clean, affordable water is a human right. It mustn't be subjected to corporate profit targets or the type of blatant political manipulation currently being undertaken by Christie, Sweeney and legislative leaders in Trenton.

The hard-learned lesson from Flint, Michigan is that a municipal water system must never be snatched up in the name of a financial crisis and run like a business, putting cost savings before public health. Families pay a horrible price for such short-term thinking.

Jim Walsh is the New Jersey state director at Food & Water Watch, an advocacy organization.