Subject: WATER IS LIFE. Don't let them corporatize your water.

3/6/01

Think of oil and gas in corporate hands.

NOW THINK OF WATER IN CORPORATE HANDS.

Joshua2

=======================================================

> Our New Resource Crisis

> By Peter Phillips

>

> Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in

> that we are used to paying double or triple prices

> for what in the previous century was a small part of

> the family budget. But now we are faced with a new

> shortage that taps another precious resource. Water

> only comes through the tap fours hours a day and we

> are forced to pay ten to hundred times what we paid

> in the 90s. Welcome to the world of privatized

> water, where fresh water is treated like a

> commodity, traded and sold in the international

> market to the highest bidder.

>

> No longer can you assume a God-given right to drink

> from a mountain spring, but instead you will have to

> pay a toll to drink from Enron Springs, Monsanto

> Wells or receive tap water from Bechtel Water Works.

> Global consumption of water is doubling every 20

> years, more than twice the rate of human population

> growth. According to the United Nations, more than

> one billion people already lack access to fresh

> drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025

> the demand for fresh water is expected to rise by 56

> percent more than the amount of water that is

> currently available. Multinational corporations

> recognize these trends and are trying to monopolize

> water supplies around the world. Monsanto, Bechtel,

> Enron and other global multinationals are seeking

> control of world water systems and supplies.

>

> The World Bank recently adopted a policy of water

> privatization and full-cost water pricing. This

> policy is causing great distress in many Third World

> countries, which fear that their citizens will not

> be able to afford for-profit water.

>

> Last year in a little known case of high scale

> international water marketing, a supertanker was

> reported to have filled up with water from Lake Erie

> and after paying the Canadian Government they

> shipped the water to Southeast Asia.

>

> Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians,

> Canada's largest public advocacy group, states,

> "Governments around the world must act now to

> declare water a fundamental human right and prevent

> efforts to privatize, export, and sell for profit a

> substance essential to all life. Research has shown

> that selling water on the open market only delivers

> it to wealthy cities and individuals. The finite

> sources of freshwater (less than one half of one per

> cent of the world's total water stock) are being

> diverted, depleted, and polluted so fast that, by

> the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population

> will be living in a state of serious water

> deprivation." Governments are signing away their

> control over domestic water supplies by

> participating in trade treaties such as the North

> American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in

> institutions such as the World Trade Organization

> (WTO). These agreements give transnational

> corporations the unprecedented right to the water of

> signatory !

> compan

> ies.

>

> Monsanto plans to earn revenues of 0 million and

> a net income of million by 2008 from its water

> business in India and Mexico. Monsanto estimates

> that water will become a multibillion-dollar market

> in the coming decades.

>

> This international water crisis news story was

> selected by over 150 faculty and student researchers

> at Sonoma State University's Project Censored in

> California as the number one most censored news

> story for 2000. Credit for original reporting goes

> to:

>

> International Forum on Globalization: Special Report

> 6/99, The Global Water

> Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water

> Supply by Maude Barlow

> www.ifg.org/bgsummary.html

>

> THIS, July/August 2000, Just Add Water by Jim Shultz

> In These Times, Water Fallout: Bolivians Battle

> Globalization 5/15/00 by

> Jim Shultz www.inthesetimes.com

>

> Canadian Dimension, 2/2000, Monsanto's

> Billion-Dollar

> Water Monopoly Plans

> by Vandana Shiva

> www.purefood.org/Monsanto/waterfish.cfm

>

> Canadian Dimension, 2/00, Water Fallout, by Jim

> Shultz

>

> San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/31/00, Trouble on Tap,

> by Daniel Zoll

> www.sfbg.com/News/34/35/bech2.html

>

> San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/31/00, The Earth

> Wrecker, by Pratap Chatterjee

>

> Peter Phillips is an Associate Professor of

> Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of

> Project Censored. Research for this story is from

> the book Censored 2001, 25th Anniversary Edition,

> scheduled for release in March of this year from

> Seven Stories Press.

>

> Peter Phillips Ph.D.

> Sociology Department/Project Censored

> Sonoma State University

> 1801 East Cotati Ave.

> Rohnert Park, CA 94928

> 707-664-2588

>