Australia
ADELAIDE, Australia, February 14, 2003 — Fifteen months after Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to a private consortium controlled by Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, which became known as "the big pong.'' >>
SYDNEY, Australia, February 14, 2003 — For two months in 1998, more than 3 million residents of Sydney were forced to boil their drinking water to kill parasites. While blame for the contamination was never established, a government-commissioned probe showed that a private water company's operational practices had risked the safety of the water supply. >>
