Conceiving 'Peak Water': Is Water Becoming ‘The New Oil’

[marmar]

from CSM, via CommonDreams:



Published on Friday, May 30, 2008 by The Christian Science Monitor
Is Water Becoming ‘The New Oil’?

Population, pollution, and climate put the squeeze on potable supplies – and private companies smell a profit. Others ask: Should water be a human right?

by Marc Clayton


Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water - and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies - notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.

But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say.

“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need - water - is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need are just inherently in conflict.”

Will “peak water” displace “peak oil” as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/29/9305/

[End Of The Road]

1. Water is going to be a huge problem in parts of the US

It's already a problem in many parts of the southwest. Watch industry & mfg (the few that are left, LOL) relocate to states that have good supplies -- that oughta help Michigan out. But it's not just a drinking water problem. It's an agricultural problem as well. Water shortages = food shortages.

[ourbluenation]

6. the world over, actually. Check this out... www.worldwatercouncil.org/

[ensho]

2. yes, clean water is life

nt

[acmavm]

3. Yes. And major corporations (i.e. Carlyle Group) are trying to get

control of it just like they have everything else.

[KamaAina]

5. Guess who was among the pioneers in corporatizing water?

That's right,



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azurix

Enron acquired the British water utility Wessex in July 1998 with an all cash purchase of $2.4 billion. This formed the core of Azurix and its main asset. Wessex was one of the most profitable utility companies operating in the UK, earning $232 million profit on $436 million in revenues the year before its sale to Enron. However, the British regulators required the company to cut its rates by 12% starting in April 2000 and an upgrade was required of the utilities aging infrastructure, estimated at costing over a billion dollars. By the end of 2000 Azurix had an operating profit of $100 million and $2 billion in debt....

It is known in particular for operating in Argentina, where in June 1999 it bid $438m to win a 30-year concession covering two of the three regions of the Buenos Aires Province (excluding the Buenos Aires city concession, which is run by Suez). In October 2001, Azurix announced it would withdraw from the contract as of January 2002, accusing the regional government of "serious breaches", and later filed a compensation claim with the ICSID (Azurix Corp. v. Argentine Republic (Case No. ARB/01/12)). The concession was terminated in March 2002; in 2006 the ICSID awarded Azurix $156m in compensation (substantially less than the $620m Azurix originally claimed).

Azurix was also part of a consortium (with SAUR) that won a concession in Mendoza in June 1998.

[acmavm]

10. Nothing new. Here's two articles to show what to expect...

Water wars
California's 'liquid gold' shouldn't be entrusted to private conglomerates
Joseph W. Cotchett

Sunday, July 11, 2004

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/11/INGBJ7I02E1.DTL


Corporatized Water: L.A. Times Reports on Impacts of "Privatization" in California

By Tim Reiterman
First published by the Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2006

http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/articles/2006/corporatized_water_california.php

[DCKit]

4. Water, Food and Energy - the Republicon/Corporate Trifecta.

Even ONE gives you the power of life and death, all three and you won't have to work another day in your life. Bechtel, Monsanto, etc....

Henry Kissinger (y'know, the boy from Brooklyn with the fake accent and denture breath), is on record saying this (about food) in '68 and it's all the Republics have been working toward since. Check the fine print of any USAID, WTO, Free Trade or World Bank "contract" and you'll see what they're really aiming for. Yeah, the Europeans are, if not more intelligent, then certainly better informed.

If the people who are currently in control believed in ANY God (aside from Bacchus, Thor and $$$) they wouldn't be acting as they do 'cause hell is for bad people and Jesus didn't advocate rape.

[JCMach1]

7. We desalinate so much here in UAE, you are almost superbuoyant when you swim in the Persian Gulf

It has to be done, but everything has a price...

[ensho]

8. does desalinated water have a distinct taste?

nt

[JCMach1]

9. You don't drink it! So, the answer is yes

Everyone has delivered bottles and water coolers. It requires reverse osmosis to become palatable.