BOOTSTRAPPADO.

Detroit Free Press:

Detroit to resume water shutoffs for delinquent customers 

With the harsh winter’s end, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is resuming efforts to shut off water service to thousands of delinquent customers. 

Meanwhile, resources are limited for Detroit residents in need to get assistance with water bills and avoid the health risks associated with having water cut off... 

Crews will be targeting those who have received a shutoff notice and whose bills are more than two months late. Customers with late bills can avoid a shutoff by entering into a payment plan. Typically, it takes a payment of 30% to 50% of the amount owed to start such a plan...

There are 323,900 DWSD accounts in Detroit. Of those, 150,806 are delinquent. Some of those delinquencies are low-income customers who are struggling to keep their utilities on, said some who work in providing assistance to those in need.

Coming soon: An article by Megan McArdle about how having to struggle for water will be good for the poor: "When I waited in line for the first iPhone, I was young, single, and carefree, and thoughtlessly failed to pack a Thermos of water (some of my friends offered me theirs, but all they had was Dasani). I emerged hours hours later absolutely parched. The lesson stayed with me and I profited from it: A few years later I was married, which made me rich, and now I keep a bottle of Resource handy at all times. Wouldn't depriving the poor of this kind of education be the real cruelty?"

UPDATE. Some garden-variety psychopaths have already gotten to the story ("You can certainly tell this story was written by a liberal. Water is not a right, human or otherwise. It is a need, but not a right"), but it won't become a really valuable conservatarian property until someone like McMegan puts a nice, fancy bow on it.