Privatize Water

June 23, 2004

The New Blue Gold

By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet. Posted June 23, 2004.

The rush to privatize water is underway across the world. In the new

documentary 'Thirst,' filmmakers Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow set out

to explore the consequences.

Bay Area-based filmmaking duo Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow.

There are untold profits to be made from controlling the simplest and most

vital ingredient of our survival: water.

The only question, from a profit standpoint, is why it has taken this long.

" You can't do anything without water, " says Alan Snitow, co-producer and

co-director of Thirst, a groundbreaking and provocative new film about the

rush to privatize what the filmmakers rightly define as the very " essence

of life. "

In their third collaborative documentary film after the successes of

Blacks and Jews (1997) and Secrets of Silicon Valley (2001), Bay

Area-based filmmaking duo Deborah Kaufman and Snitow take an unflinching

and multifaceted look at water privatization in Bolivia, India, Japan and

the U.S.

What Kaufman and Snitow find is that the " water rush " is likely to turn

into one of the most volatile and potentially galvanizing issues of the

21st century.

" This is an incredible struggle, and yet it's still so far below the radar

that we're trying to give it a voice, " Kaufman says. " People are already

willing to die for [water], but it's something that many of us still take

for granted. "

The grab for corporate control of water is indeed already here in our own

backyards. But the conflict over water supplies perhaps most familiar to

news-savvy audiences is the place where Thirst goes first: to Cochabamba,

Bolivia. After the country auctions off the water system of its

third-largest city to U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation in 1999, residents

experience water price hikes of 30-300%, and the situation eventually

erupts in a cross-class protest that makes headline news worldwide.

By April 2000, the government responds to civil unrest by declaring

martial law. Shortly thereafter, Victor Hugo Daza, a 17-year-old peaceful

protester, is shot dead in the streets by a government sniper.

Daza's death doesn't quell dissent the way it was intended to. In fact,

protests heat up to the point that water consortium execs beat a hasty

retreat, and Cochabamba's water system gets handed over to a community-run

utility. In an unlikely turn of events, the citizens actually get what

they want; water gets treated like a human right, not as the last frontier

of the commercialization and privatization of earth's natural resources.

" They're on the defensive in the global South, " Kaufman explains. " In many

ways, they're ahead of us responding to what's in the near future for all

of us. "

In point of fact, American cities and towns are the new staging ground for

rapid and strategic power plays over who controls water supply. In 2004,

85% of U.S. municipal water systems are publicly owned, with a shocking

15% already in the hands of corporations. Unbeknownst to most residents,

municipal governments are being heavily courted in the here and now to

turn over control of their water supply to multinational companies like

Suez Water, whose U.S. subsidiary took control of Atlanta's water in 1999.

The incentive for local governments is hard to miss; with an estimated

cost of a trillion dollars, the prospect of replacing aging pipes and

improving the condition of public water plants is increasingly seen by

city leaders as a budgetary drain best dealt with through privatization.

To exemplify the point, Kaufman and Snitow turn their camera to Stockton,

California, where a well-run locally controlled water purification and

distribution system is about to be offered to the highest bidder. (Notably,

the public utility itself isn't allowed to be one of the bidders.)

The transfer of power over the water supply is intended to take the form

of a " public-private partnership, " and Stockton Mayor Gary Podesto is a

firm supporter.

" This can be done for less dollars, " as Mayor Podesto says.

A subsequent, well-orchestrated grassroots mobilization by city residents

-- baristas, orthodontists, environmentalists, utility employees and union

members among other unlikely allies -- fails to capture any attention from

the national media. But Kaufman and Snitow have the instinct to jump into

the heart of the conflict, meeting and talking with all sides of the

privatization debate.

But there is no storybook ending in Thirst where Stockton's citizenry are

concerned. By February 2003, in fact, the Mayor and a severely divided

City Council hand over the $600 million, 20-year contract to a two-company

consortium of corporate water giants: OMI and Thames.

All along, Stockton residents who did their research were emphatic that

corporate claims of cost effectiveness, quality and safety had not been

realized elsewhere.

In Atlanta's case, for instance, the city's $428 million, 20-year contract

with Suez-subsidiary United Water Services was cancelled after a series of

citywide EPA alerts advising residents to boil their tap water because of

toxic contaminants. Finally, after five such " boil-alerts, " staff cutbacks,

leaking water mains, and rising sewer bill costs, city administrators

yanked back control of the utility.

Little victories aside, corporate water grab is still fully underway,

working in collusion with governments and international financial agencies,

wreaking environmental havoc and inflating water prices all the while. In

the final analysis, the battle over water, says Kaufman, has more to do

with democracy than what's coming out of your tap. And it's toward this

end, say the filmmakers, that they fully intend their documentary to spur

further activism and to educate audiences about the extent to which water

has already been commodified.

As captured in Thirst, John Briscoe, the Senior Water Advisor to The World

Bank, puts it this way to an assembly at the Third World Water Forum in

Kyoto, Japan.

" What does it mean to say that water is a human right? " he asks. " Those

who proclaim it so would say that it is the obligation of [governments] to

provide free water to everybody. Well, that's a fantasy. "

In touring the U.S. with their film, Kaufman and Snitow have already

become cautiously optimistic that the tide of privatization can be turned.

A model ordinance to safeguard water as a public trust has already been

drafted in concert with Madison, Wisconsin Mayor David Cieslewicz, and

will be presented at the upcoming 72nd U.S. Conference of Mayors in Boston,

which runs from June 25-29th. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, the

conference's website is being sponsored by Veolia Water, which has become

North America's leading private " service provider " for local government

water and wastewater supplies.)

" It's a festival of privatization, " as Snitow says. " But what they don't

yet fully realize is that for many people, water is the final boundary

that can't be crossed. "

Check local listings for screenings of 'Thirst.' To coincide with the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, 'Thirst' will show at the Boston Museum of Fine

Arts on June 26th. It will have its national P.O.V. broadcast premiere on

PBS stations on Tuesday, July 13th at 10 p.m.

To learn more about related issues -- and a growing campaign to boycott

bottled water -- visit http://www.sierraclub.org/cac/water/bottled_water/.

Silja J.A. Talvi writes for In These Times, the Christian Science Monitor,

The Nation and other publications. Her work appears in the anthology,

" Prison Nation " (Routledge, 2003).

" I will defend my rights and those of others too weak to fight "

--common phrase stitched on many scottish lass' samplers from the 1700's

and earlier

June 24, 2004

sounds like it would be a good horror movie. you know, water is owned by private

companies who charge sky high prices, and everyone who isn't rich dies. ick. the

whole desert population (although fairly small) would have to move in where

there's high rainfall and collect it in buckets. the population of florida would

soar.

elisa

The Stewarts <stews9 wrote: