As part of MuckRock’s collaboration with Food & Water Watch, we’ve submitted a request to the City of Harrisburg to learn more about their plans and existing conversations with private water companies.

Food & Water Watch intern Gabrielle Rosenthal shares what she learned working on our project to look into water privatization across the country.

Today, Food & Water Watch and MuckRock are announcing a joint project to identify and shed a light on efforts to privatize the country’s public water systems. The organizations will be submitting public records requests to the largest water systems in the United States - from Puerto Rico to California and in between - looking for the latest corporate attempts to absorb community water supplies into their revenue streams.

With three months to go, 12 of 20 Amazon HQ2 finalist cities haven’t released their proposals, citing either a need to maintain privacy to keep a competitive advantage, or that outside, often non-public organizations were the actual entities handling the bid process.