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| 2/21/03 |
Two outstanding speakers came to Wisconsin to describe how developing water problems in the U.S. and the world relate to Wisconsin's water resources, its businesses, recreation, residents, and lifestyles. Another, an expert from Wisconsin, complemented their statements by urging Wisconsin residents to be aware of current and potential future problems with the quantity of water in our state.
A standing-room only audience of environmentalists, conservationists,
and students 
heard
Maude Barlow, author and global activist from the Council of Canadians,
and Robert Glennon, author and Professor of Law and Public Policy at the
University of Arizona, at the 2003 Year of Water Forum in Stevens Point,
sponsored by the Wisconsin Stewardship Network, on February 14.
Barlow, co-author with Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute of the 2002 book Blue Gold: the Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water, spoke about the growing awareness of the role of transnational corporations and how they are exacerbating the growing shortage of water around the world for drinking, sanitation, and nature. As Chair of the Council of Canadians, a 100,000-member public advocacy organization, she lectures widely on the effects of corporate giants such as Suez (France), Vivendi (France), and RWE (Germany) as they enter the market for fresh water in third world countries--and now in developed nations including the U.S.
Robert
Glennon, author of the recently-published
Water
Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters,
described how humans have developed the attitude that with technology,
they can accomplish anything they desire regarding water. However, they
often proceed without fully understanding-- and appreciating--nature.
In particular, they ignore the connection between groundwater and surface
water. In the Southwest, substantial rivers, such as the Santa Cruz
which flowed through Tucson, have dried up because the groundwater which
normally ensures the base flow is overpumped. Overpumping results
in lower water tables when there is not enough rainfall or snowmelt to
recharge the normal level of the aquifer below.
Barlow explained the growing trend of privatization: a private corporation contracts with a government to take over the water service, promising to upgrade the infrastructure (wells, pumps, water mains) and improve water delivery. This process replaces a function that was formerly run by a public entity. The corporation has a monopoly, and it is not directly accountable to the citizens. Since a profit must be made, the price of water is raised, usually substantially.
In developed countries, such as the U.S., large increases in charges for water are for the most part simply obnoxious. In poor countries, however, this has usually resulted in water cutoffs for hundreds of thousands who cannot pay water bills amounting to 25-50% of their income. In South Africa poor people without water go to the cholera-contaminated rivers. In Bolivia, the people rioted, with one death and hundreds injured. Bolivia broke the contract; Bechtel - the U.S. corporation involved - is now suing the Bolivian government for $25 million, far more than it invested in the brief duration of the deal.
Barlow explained that such lawsuits are possible under the relative
new global trade agreements such as NAFTA and GATT. 
They
are literally litigation for "failure to make a profit". The trade
agreements, negotiated between countries, and heavily influenced by the
global water corporations, are gradually defining water as a tradable "good"
which allows it to become an "investment." This process, known as
"commodification," rejects the classification of water as a "right."
The outcome can be that governments which try to preserve their water resources
for its own citizens or for the natural environment are prevented from
doing so; they are forced to allow the foreign corporations to make a profit.
Glennon said that, in the drive for profit, some companies find hydrologists who are willing to report that a planned major project will not harm the groundwater levels, even though the majority of scientific experts would express doubts. Glennon said that ethical experts have a term for their risk-prone colleagues--"hydrostitutes."
Glennon, whose current book focuses on the relationship between groundwater and surface water, became aware of Wisconsin's issue with citizens who wanted to protect the groundwater vs Perrier/Nestle© Waters of North America's project to do megapumping year-round in southern Adams county. He said that this is another case of the "cycle of unrestricted access to resources that belong to the commons." In other words, the groundwater belongs to all (the commons), but current Wisconsin law allows those with the most powerful pumps to remove as much as they wish in rural areas.
Barlow presented several other examples of corporate practice having extremely serious effects on society and the environment. She said we need policies and life styles based on equity and conservation, but the nature of business is to encourage people to use more of the product. She concluded by rhetorically asking: "What are we doing about this?" Then answering: "We're building a movement!" Many informed activists around the world are building an alliance between environmentalists and social justice advocates. There were efforts to raise consciousness of the problems at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in August of 2002.
Two major upcoming efforts which should be followed by interested citizens
are the Third
World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan in the latter half of March, and
a Teach-In sponsored by the International Forum on Globalization which
will coincide with the World Trade Organization Ministerial in Cancun,
Mexico in September.
A supply of Blue Gold and Water Follies sold briskly and all copies were gone by the end of the first day of the two-day conference.
For more
information, check out these resources:
