Who owns the water?
IIt is hard to believe living as I do in Ireland, but we live in a world fast running short of fresh water, and a debate now rages: should private companies be free to control and exploit “blue gold”?
After all they’re allowed to exploit other available natural resources like black gold, or oil, gas, diamonds, platinum, even fellow human beings.
It raises the simple question: Is water a human right or a commodity?
The water supply to 230 million people around the globe, from U.S. cities like Atlanta to urban centers across the Third World, is controlled by just two French companies. And both Suez and Vivendi expect double-digit annual growth in their water business, and each already has contracts that add up to more than $10 billion a year. Puerto Rico just hired Suez to distribute its water.
RWE, a German energy conglomerate, is buying small water companies to challenge the French companies. Hundreds of other private operators hold concessions to pump, treat, and distribute water.
Although companies are granted rights to market water — not ownership of the water itself — experts worry that an inevitable expansion of the private sector might escape essential public control.
“Privatization has the potential to grow enormously because of the desperate need for water in the developing world, but water is too important to be left in purely private hands,” said Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Berkeley, Calif.
A report at the weekend from the Asia-Pacific Water Summit informed us that the planet faced a water crisis that was especially troubling for Asia. Poor management of current water resources was condemned, but the report made a stark warning, stating;
‘Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict’.
And guess who’s investing billions in water projects? The banks….because that’s where massive future profits lie, even at the cost of misery and disease to fellow human beings.
It is not enough that they have the western world enslaved through our greed for consumer items and endless credit, they have enslaved the rest of the world through the demand for basic human needs such as food, shelter and water.
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Follow up post in April2008
In December I posted a blog titled, Who owns the water?
Further to that post, I have since found a great information resource at The Silver Bear Cafe, and the site owner, Johnny Silver Bear wrote a remarkable article on 'The Game' we are all playing, whether we know it or not.
On one side, the forces of darkness are arrayed, the bankers, schemers and power brokers who have controlled and driven the world and it's population to the point of collapse that we have reached today.
On the other, us, the people, or the sheep, that are mindlessly herded and milked for the value of our labour.
Here's a direct quote from this fascinating insight:
'In 1998, the World Bank refused to guarantee a $25 million loan to refinance water services in Cochabamba, Bolivia, unless the government sold the public water system to the private sector and passed the costs on to consumers. Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in the world, finally acquiesced. Only one bid was considered, and the company was turned over to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of a conglomerate led by Bechtel, the giant San Francisco engineering and construction company.
In December 1999, before making any infrastructure investments, the private water company, Aguas del Tunari, announced the doubling of water prices. For most Bolivians, this meant that water would now cost more than food; for those on minimum wage or unemployed, water bills suddenly accounted for close to half their monthly budgets, and for many, water was shut off completely.
To add to the problem, the Bolivian government, prompted by the World Bank, granted absolute monopolies to private water concessionaires, announced its support for full-cost water pricing, pegged the cost of water to the American dollar and declared that none of the World Bank loan could be used to subsidize water services for the poor. All water, even from community wells, required permits to access, and even peasants and small farmers had to buy permits to gather rainwater on their property.
The selling-off of public enterprises such as transportation, electrical utilities and education to foreign corporations has been a heated economic debate in Bolivia. But this was different; polls showed that 90 percent of the public wanted Bechtel out. Debate turned to protest and one of the world's first "water wars" was launched.
The people of Bolivia revolted against the government over the privatization of water. A broad-based movement of workers, peasants, farmers and others created the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life to "de-privatize" the local water system. Between January and early February, 2000, hundreds of thousands of Bolivians marched to Cochabamba in a showdown with the government, and a general strike and transportation stoppage brought the city to a standstill. Police reacted with violence and arrests and the army killed six people and injured more than 100 when it opened fire on demonstrators. In early April 2000, the government declared martial law.
Could this happen here? Is it possible that you could someday be charged for collecting rainwater off your roof? You would be surprised at how many trans-national companies already have stakes in water delivery in this country.
Globally, we have already entered water scarcity. The Middle East will run out of fresh water within the next ten years. Sub-Saharan Africa will run out in the next 5 years. China is considereding moving the capital to another location because there is no more water in Beijing.
Closer to home, the mighty Colorado river no longer makes it to the Sea of Cortez. It trickles out somewhere in the Mexican desert south of the Arizona border. The Rio Grand, which use to flow into the Gulf of Mexico now stops some 20 miles short of Brownsville, Texas. Aquafers all over the country are being depleted far more rapidly than they can recharge themselves. We are on the verge of a national water crisis right here in America.
In the next two decades, the struggle for water will tear apart communities, exacerbate differences between social classes, and challenge governments and private organizations to change how they perceive their roles.
The Forth Quarter; an End Run
According to the World Trade Organization, "human needs can be supplied by private entrepreneurs for a profit, unlike a human right which accrues equally to everyone." National and international trade associations like the WTO and NAFTA define water as a "commodity" and have agreements requiring governments to permit water exports under specified conditions.
Commodification and privatization go hand in hand. Even though the evidence for water scarcity is overwhelming, governments and global bureaucracies, influenced by lobbyists, and, in many documented cases, outright bribery, are disposed to call water a commodity, to transfer what remains to private corporations, and to let the market determine who gets water and the price they pay for it.
The commodification of water, internationally, is on the horizon. The day will come when no one will be able to collect it without a permit. Many persons throughout the world will be prosecuted for its illegal possession.
It will happen here.'
Read the rest of this article here.
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