In the 21st century, our water is becoming a commodity. Some want toprofit from it and others are ready to go to war over
it, but every form oflife must have it. Water use is growing twice as fast as population, but thereis no more water today than there ever has been. Who will control this sourceof life? We are taught in schoolthat the Earth has a closed hydrologic system; water is continually beingrecycled through rain and evaporation and none of it leaves the planet’satmosphere. Not only is there the same amount of water on the Earth today asthere was at the creation of the planet, it’s the same water. The next timeyou’re walking in the rain, stop and think that some of the water falling onyou ran through the blood of dinosaurs or swelled the tears of children wholived thousands of years ago. While there will always bethe same amount of water, we can render water unusable for ourselves and forthe planet. The growing scarcity of potable water stems from a variety of all.The water industry is touted by the World Bank as a potential trillion-dollarindustry. Water has become the “blue gold” of the 21st century. The move to privatize watercoincides with the rise of the Washington Consensus as the dominant worldeconomic philosophy. This philosophy calls for trade and investmentliberalization, and turning responsibility for social programs and resourcemanagement over to the private sector. In this case, it is an assault on theancient commons of water.Global trade agreementshave become perhaps the most important tool for corporations trading in waterand their allies. All of the multinational governing bodies, the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs(GATT), and the World Trade Organization (WTO), define water as a commodity. Asa result, water is now subject to the same rules and regulations governingother commodities like oil and
natural gas. Under these combined internationalrules, a country cannot prohibit or limit the export of water without riskingcensure by the WTO. Nations are also restricted from denying the import ofwater from any country. NAFTA’s “proportionality clause” means that if acountry turns on the tap to export its natural resources, it cannot turn offthe tap until it runs out of that resource.In addition, the push toprivatize water
services will be greatly enhanced by new rules governingcross-border trade in services at the WTO, known as the GATS (General Agreementon Trade in Services). Under the proposed GATS rules, not only will governmentsface added pressures to deregulate and privatize their water systems, but oncea city’s water services have been taken over by a foreign-based corporation,efforts to take these services back into public hands will invite severeeconomic penalties under the WTO.Leading the charge forprivatization are three big transnational corporations based in Europe:Vivendi, Suez, and RWE. All three have systematically bought out smaller rivalsto become the dominate powers in the business of water all over the globe. Thelong-range strategy of these companies began with their efforts to take overthe public water systems in Third World countries where they hoped to positionthemselves as the saviors of the water crisis. Instead, a series ofprivate-sector fiascoes in the Third World derailed their plans.