by Orli Cotel
When I arrived in New Orleans just out of college in August of 2002, with six others from Green Corps, the Field School for Environmental Organizing, I knew we’d have to hit the ground running. In only six weeks, the New Orleans’ Sewerage and Water Board would vote on whether or not to sell the city’s water system to the world’s two largest water companies, companies with a track record of dumping raw sewage into the Mississippi River, contaminating drinking water in other cities and driving up local water rates.