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A few months later! Suez bankrolled a $12!000 holiday for Campbell and a companion in Paris! where the mayor posed for snapshots at Napoleon1s Tomb and the Arc de Triomphe. Suez executives later said they1d intended Campbell's visit as a legitimate business trip, but Campbell met with company officials for just 2 1/2 hours during his five-day stay. Meanwhile! complaints about water quality and unresponsive service proliferated, peaking in the summer of 2002. Gordon Certain{ president of a north Atlanta neighborhood association, said poor maintenance and equipment failures caused recurrent water main breaks and boil-water alerts! at times producing tap water lithe color of very well-brewed tea." Mayor Shirley Franklin, who succeeded Campbell in early 2002{ said United Water and Suez neglected basic repairs! violated federal drinking water standards! failed to regularly flush impurities out of the system and billed the city for work not done. Company officials blamed old pipes and power outages and said haphazard city records had made it impossible to calculate how much it would cost to run the system before they signed the deal. The two sides agreed to terminate the 20-year contract in 2003! after four years. By then! FBI investigators were focusing on Campbell's relationships with a wide number of city contractors! including Suez. In February 2006{ during Campbell1s corruption trial in federal court! a handwriting expert testified that Campbell had signed secret amendments to the contract that would have been worth as much as $80 million to Suez over the life of the deal. Campbell denied signing the documents or otherwise approving the $80-million increase. In Marchi a jury acquitted him of taking bribes but convicted him of three counts of tax evasion! charges that prosecutors had supported with testimony about his extravagant lifestyle and trips paid for by Suez and other companies. Suez officials say that their dealings with Campbell were proper and that he did not receive favors for helping the company on its contract. .Atlanta runs its own water system again and is spending $3.9 billion to upgrade the water- sewer infrastructure. Atlanta and other cities looked to private companies after years of mismanagement and budgetary neglect left their public systems in poor shape. In 19931 the failure of Milwaukee!s waterworks to screen out a parasite led to a flu-like outbreak that sickened 400,000 people and killed more than 100. TwO years agol Los Angeles agreed to a $2-billion sewer upgrade to settle allegations that the city had allowed thousands of spills. Mayor Dean Mazzarella of Leominster, Mass.{ said private-sector expertise was a boon to his city of 44{0001 which was struggling with a leaking waterworks until it struck a deal a decade ago with USFilter. The company designed and built a new treatment plantl and now Veolial which bought USFilterl oversees Leominster's water and sewer operations. "We've got nothing but good things to say{tt Mazzarella said. llThey1re such a big company{ they have the ability to tap into a larger talent pool{ to reach for people on the cutting edge of technology and understanding. I! Water rights groups doubt such success stories will be widely repeated. Privatization breeds corruption and reduces accountabilitYI they contend. Earlier this yearl residents of Toms River and Camden! N.J.! complained about a lack of ~ccountability after United Water admitted it had failed to warn customers about contamination of drinking water. In Toms River! the company neglected to notify some customers for six months of elevated levels of naturally occurring radium in the water. In Camden, the company delayed 3