The Battle for Water

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The Battle for Water

 

By Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, YES! Magazine

December 9, 2003

 

We are taught in school that the Earth has a closed hydrologic system; water is

continually being recycled through rain and evaporation and none of it leaves

the planet's atmosphere. Not only is there the same amount of water on the Earth

today as there was at the creation of the planet, it's the same water. The next

time you're walking in the rain, stop and think that some of the water falling

on you ran through the blood of dinosaurs or swelled the tears of children who

lived thousands of years ago.

 

 

 

While there will always be the same amount of water, we can render water

unusable for ourselves and for the planet. The growing scarcity of potable water

stems from a variety of causes. Per capita water consumption is doubling every

20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth, which itself is

exploding. Technology and sanitation systems, particularly those in the wealthy

industrialized nations, have encouraged people to use far more water than they

need. Yet even with this increase in personal water use, households and

municipalities account for only 10 percent of water use.

 

 

 

Industry claims 20 to 25 percent of the world's fresh water supplies, and its

demands are dramatically increasing. Many of the world's fastest growing

industries are water intensive. For example, in the U.S. alone, the computer

industry will soon use over 396 billion gallons of water each year.

 

 

 

Nonetheless, it is irrigation that is the real water hog, claiming 65 to 70

percent of all water used by humans. Increasing amounts of irrigation water are

used for industrial farming. These water-intensive corporate farming practices

are subsidized by governments and their taxpayers, and this creates a strong

disincentive for farm operations to move to conservation practices such as drip

irrigation.

 

 

 

Along with population growth and increasing per capita water consumption,

massive pollution of the world's surface water systems has placed a great strain

on remaining supplies of clean fresh water. Global deforestation, destruction of

wetlands, dumping of pesticides and fertilizer into waterways, and global

warming are all taking a terrible toll on the Earth's fragile water systems.

 

 

 

The world is running out of fresh water. By the year 2025, there will be 2.6

billion more people on Earth than there are today. As many as two-thirds of

those people will be living in conditions of serious water shortage, and

one-third will be living with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will

exceed availability by 56 percent.

 

 

 

Water as a commodity

 

 

 

The combination of increasing demand and shrinking supply has attracted the

interest of global corporations who want to sell water for a profit. The water

industry is touted by the World Bank as a potential trillion-dollar industry.

Water has become the " blue gold " of the 21st century.

 

 

 

The move to privatize water coincides with the rise of the Washington Consensus

as the dominant world economic philosophy. This philosophy calls for trade and

investment liberalization, and turning responsibility for social programs and

resource management over to the private sector. In this case, it is an assault

on the ancient commons of water.

 

 

 

Global trade agreements have become perhaps the most important tool for

corporations trading in water and their allies. All of the multinational

governing bodies, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General

Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the World Trade Organization (WTO),

define water as a commodity. As a result, water is now subject to the same rules

and regulations governing other commodities, such as oil and natural gas. Under

these combined international rules, a country cannot prohibit or limit the

export of water without risking censure by the WTO. Nations are also restricted

from denying the import of water from any country. NAFTA's " proportionality

clause " means that if a country turns on the tap to export its natural

resources, it cannot turn off the tap until it runs out of that resource.

 

 

 

In addition, the push to privatize water services will be greatly enhanced by

new rules governing cross-border trade in services at the WTO, known as the GATS

(General Agreement on Trade in Services). Under the proposed GATS rules, not

only will governments face added pressures to deregulate and privatize their

water systems, but once a city's water services have been taken over by a

foreign-based corporation, efforts to take these services back into public hands

will invite severe economic penalties under the WTO.

 

 

 

Leading the charge for privatization are three big transnational corporations

based in Europe: Vivendi, Suez, and RWE. All three have systematically bought

out smaller rivals to become the dominate powers in the business of water all

over the globe. The long-range strategy of these companies began with their

efforts to take over the public water systems in Third World countries where

they hoped to position themselves as the saviors of the water crisis. Instead, a

series of private-sector fiascoes in the Third World derailed their plans.

 

 

 

The case of Buenos Aires is especially instructive. Buenos Aires was to be the

flagship operation of Third-World water privatization. Suez, through its

subsidiary Aguas Argentinas, took over the Buenos Aires water and sewage system

in 1992. A common argument for privatizing water systems is that, unlike the

cash-strapped public sector, the private sector has the capital necessary to

update or refurbish aging water systems. But public sources like the World Bank,

International Monetary Fund, and other smaller banks supplied 97 percent of the

$1 billion necessary for the Suez privatization experiment. Suez did expand

water and sewage service by a small increment, but failed to meet its projected

targets in both areas. Nonetheless, the company managed to reap annual profits

of around 25 percent in the mid-1990s. Recently, Suez announced that it plans to

pull out of Argentina because the country's currency crisis has cut into its

profits. There have been other private-sector fiascoes in

places like Johannesburg, New Delhi, Manila, and most famously in Cochabamba,

Bolivia.

 

 

 

The effort to privatize Third World water systems has become a target of civil

society protests. Representatives of an international civil society network

appeared at a meeting of chief executive officers at the World Water Forum in

Kyoto, Japan, in March. The group took over the microphones and offered a series

of testimonials about the impact of water privatization around the world. Toward

the end of the event, a water activist from Cancun, Mexico, stepped to the

microphone and held up a glass of pitch-black, putrid-smelling water. He

explained that he had taken the water from his home tap in Cancun, where Suez

runs the municipal water system. He then requested that the moderator pass the

glass of black, smelly water up on stage to the CEO of Suez, inviting him to

drink it.

 

 

 

Targeting First World water

 

 

 

The big water companies are now changing their strategy and concentrating their

operations and their investment on more secure markets in North America and

Europe. Eighty-five percent of all water services in the U.S. are still in

public hands. That's a tempting target for conglomerates like Suez, Vivendi, and

RWE. Within the next 10 years, they aim to control 70 percent of water services

across the United States.

 

 

 

They have positioned themselves to move aggressively. Vivendi, Suez, and RWE

have bought up the leading U.S. water companies, U.S. Filter, United Water, and

American Water Works, respectively. These water companies had largely serviced

small towns and communities, but under the tutelage of the global giants they

have become the engines for privatization in the United States.

 

 

 

When transnational water conglomerates take over a municipal water system, it

feels like a local problem, but because the same corporate players are targeting

communities all over the world, we must build alliances and connections, learn

from one another, and start to build a frontal attack.

 

 

 

At the Polaris Institute, we propose a three-pronged strategy. First, develop a

water-alert network so we can know where companies are operating and where they

are going next. How are they going to move? And how can we get ahead of them?

 

 

 

Second, we need water-action teams that bring citizens together to build local

water-watch coalitions and develop campaigns to protect their water supplies and

services from conglomerates. Then we should link those local campaigns with the

national campaigns of groups like Public Citizen or the Council of Canadians.

 

 

 

Third, we need to offer alternatives. It is not enough to say we want to defend

our public water systems against private takeovers. There are problems with

public water systems, and we must find new ways of revitalizing them in our own

communities through citizen participation. Engaged citizens can act as watchdogs

for their local water systems.

 

 

 

Our local actions should be informed by three global principles. One is water

conservation. We cannot kid ourselves about water scarcity. Water may be

abundant in one place, but scarce in others. Water conservation must be a top

priority.

 

 

 

The second principle is that water is a fundamental human right. People need

water to live. Water must be provided equitably to all people and not on the

basis of the ability to pay.

 

 

 

The third principle is water democracy. We cannot leave the management of our

most precious resource in the hands of bureaucrats in government or the private

corporations, whether or not they are well intentioned. We, the people, must

preserve this special trust, we must fight for it, and we must take our proper

role and demand water democracy.

 

 

 

Reprinted from Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, PO Box 10818, Bainbridge

Island, WA 98110. Subscriptions: 800/937-4451 Web: www.yesmagazine.org

 

 

 

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