German Utility Soured on American Water
Julia Scharlemann, a spokeswoman for RWE, said by E-mail from the company's headquarters in Essen, Germany, that RWE would have no comment on the excerpts. "Any minutes of RWE Supervisory Board meetings are confidential and were provided to public utility commissions in the United States only on that basis," she said.
Excerpts of the RWE minutes were given to U.S. News by the Washington, D.C.-based public interest group Food and Water Watch, which has been fighting water privatization efforts across the country. "These minutes demonstrate that RWE doesn't believe that private water companies in the United States are a good investment," says the group's executive director, Wenonah Hauter. "The company is dumping their bad investment on Wall Street investors and American ratepayers." Various portions of the redacted minutes also have emerged in the course of the legal wrangling that American Water has faced in its effort to obtain state regulatory approval for its IPO.
The company this month won approval for its IPO from the California Public Utilities Commission, but that commission's division of ratepayer advocate, which opposes the sale as placing an undue financial burden on ratepayers, submitted comments to the record including portions of the minutes. In Kentucky, where American Water has had numerous battles over its operation of Lexington's water system, Attorney General Gregory Stumbo has challenged RWE's efforts to keep the minutes confidential.
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