One of History’s Great Atrocities: The Corporate Theft of the Public’s Natural Right to Water

by Ashley Powdar
The Growing Debate on who will Control the World’s Water Supply

The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries. In fact, many are clueless to the magnitude of the victims — present and projected — of the growing water crisis as well as to the inhumane implications of the role of the private sector in regards to treating water as a commodity that can be owned and sold for profit. As of now, 2.6 billion people are at high risk for not having access to potable and an additional 1.8 million children die each year from water-related diseases.

In the mix of chaos, despair, and confusion, which most affects the poorer elements of society, it is important to note the private corporations’ role, which some critics have identified as being among the major culprits in causing the crisis. Within recent decades, water privatization firms such as Suez, Vivendi, and RWE have bought control of a number of communities’ municipal water services, and then drastically increased the price of water; with some of them failing to effectively purify the water resources they had come to monopolize.

An Innate Right

The heightened trend towards water privatization has gone almost undetected by the general public for well over a decade, despite the huge ramifications it is having on many lives. Public water advocates argue that it is a necessity of life and no individual or corporation has the right to seize ownership and place a value on the resource. Water is for life, not for profit. Author Vadana Shiva resolutely states that “water is a commons because it is the basis of all life. Water rights are natural rights and thus usufructuary rights, meaning that water can be used, but not owned.” Water privatization has caused considerable strife around the world, specifically in less industrialized nations. Major water companies, with the help of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), continue to divest communities of their natural right to water, thus undermining the essence of democracy as well as contributing to an insidious form of global deprivation.

Water is a Means to Life

At a 2 percent water loss from the body, one is thirsty. At 5 percent, one is dehydrated, and at 11 percent, one is immobilized. It is estimated by WaterAid that in less industrialized countries, one child dies every 15 seconds from the lack of water. This disturbing figure has the potential to grow into an even harsher reality with much greater numbers at risk in the next 20 years, given that the global water supply is predicted to be depleted by 30 - 40 percent.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/01/8655/

This is an excellent article. Further down it names the places where they are privatizing.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne98.

This is an absolute travesty. Not only have they sold us on having to buy our water, they package that water in plastic contributing to pollution and oil dependency. :banghead:

:kick: