**** The racism has been deleted(there was a quote here)****
Can't explain the water pricing (normal price is a crime anyway), but do know a little about the gasoline prices.
Here is a link to it at Yahoo's business news site. The only good thing I can say about Michigan's governor is that when she was Attorney General 2 years ago she scared the living *&^% out of the oil companies, suppliers, and franchisees when she prosecuted anyone who raised their prices above $2.50/gal in the aftermath of September 11th. That probably kept the price at $2.00/gal.
A little more background: Detroit (and Dearborn) is supplied gasoline from Chicago, Toledo, occassionally Sarnia, and a little out of Marathon's refinery in Detroit (I think Southfield). The 2 Ohio refineries and the Detroit refinery all lost power (and their ability to refine). The power outage was even blamed for an explosion at Marathon's Detroit refinery. The 3 pipelines supplying gasoline out of the Chicago area all lost power at minimum to their receipt terminals and probably lost power to their pumping stations as well.
That's my $0.02 on it.
~Todd