One afternoon in a low income section of a South African town, the home of a working mother and her two young daughters erupted into flames. Instead of rushing to aid the family, instead of hurrying to put out the fire, the neighbors watched as the small home collapsed into ashes, knowing full well that the two small girls burned to death inside. The thing is, that day was a workday, and the mother had taken with her to her job the precious few tokens that allowed the family access to water. The neighbors could not afford the water necessary to save those children (Bozzo).
I hear a story like that, and I rack my brain with the question: When have I ever wanted for water? …. And I struggle to think of a time when I was truly thirsty for more than, what? An hour? I’ve seen dingy tap water in Eastern Kentucky. I’ve worked outside in the summertime. But I have never watched my neighbors die in an unstoppable fire. So I cannot stand up here, pontificating self-righteous opinions at you and communicate any kind of accurate, weighty message. The victims and heroes of water privatization must tell their own stories.
“Uncontrolled multinational corporations are leading an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic.” Lee Kyung Hae, president of the Korean Federation of Advanced Farmers Association, passed out that statement to fellow protestors in Cancun, Mexico just minutes before he stabbed himself to death atop the World Trade Organization fence. The Korean farmers protested proposals that would allow for free agricultural trade with multinational food-producing corporations, a phenomenon that the Consumers Studies Research Network condemns for raising water prices to the point at which poor, rural farmers must access the only water source they can afford: free, contaminated, deadly water (Redmon). The WTO’s choice, Korean farmers’ lives.
In January 2000, despite a 96% disapproval rate among their citizens, Bolivian officials sold the country’s water resources to a United States-based firm called Betchel. Though the group claimed that rates would only increase by 35% to cover the cost of distribution, water bills at double or triple the cost rattled the citizens of Cochabamba. Desperation gave way to ten days of violent rioting in the city and surrounding towns. Ultimately a policeman killed a 17-year-old boy named Victor by a gunshot wound to the face, six more died, and dozens fell injured. Because of their sacrifice, on April 10, 2000, the Bolivian government rescinded Betchel’s rights to the country’s water (“FRONTLINE”). Victor Hugo’s choice, Bolivian citizen’s lives.
In 2003, Nestle Water Company came to Michigan. Supported by state politicians, the company planned to pump water from the Great Lakes and tributary rivers into an armistice of plastic bottles to ship out of the region, disrupting the delicate water table and desertifying the area. Enraged by the blatantly destructive actions of the corporation, a group of home-spun, inexperienced, grassroots townspeople took on a rich, globally-protected, multinational corporation. Some odds, right? Yet through the fortitude necessary to raise more than $2 million through garage and bake sales, the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation won the Supreme Court case that kicked that insulated company out of their state (Baerren). Citizens of Mecosta County, Michigan’s choices, future Michiganians’ lives.
In 1998, six-year-old Ryan Hreljac colored in the last section of the paper thermometer his mother had created months ago to measure Ryan’s progress in his mission of earning $70 by completing extra chores, money that he planned to use to build a water well in Africa Undiscouraged by his discovery of the true cost to construct an water well–more than $2,000–Ryan continued fundraising and ultimately founded the Ryan’s Well Foundation in 2001, which has since provided access to sanitary water to more than 700,000 people, including Jimmy Akana, Ryan’s Ugandan pen pal, who had to walk almost 10 miles daily to gather water for his family, until the Lord’s Resistance Army kidnapped him and killed his family in 2003. When Jimmy made his escape from the LRA, he fled to a coordinator for the Ryan’s Well Foundation. Jimmy now lives as Ryan Hreljac’s adopted brother in Canada (“Ryan’s Well”). Ryan’s choice, Jimmy’s life.
The roses you give your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, the Cutie Clementine I ate for breakfast, the water bottle you bring with you from class to class each carry the stolen lifeblood of a community. When you transfer water from one watershed to another, the first region desertifies because of lost water, and the second watershed desertifies from an inability to absorb water! Selling water rights to a multinational corporation not only kills local citizens by either thirsting them to death or pushing them to drinking disease-infested waters, it cannot sustain itself economically. These companies will stay in a region until the water disappears and production decreases, at which point they will abandon the destroyed, lifeless community to suck the veins of yet another.
Common Dreams reports that areas around Coca-Cola plants in India experience a drop in ground water levels by several feet a year, with remaining water polluted by the waste expelled by the beverage giant. That stolen Indian water fills your Dasani bottles when it should fill the cups on the tables of the Indian poor.
To be fair, world development organizations benevolently attempted to implement global privatization of water sources in order to extend access to water into rural areas, but that tactic clearly does not work practically, and those organizations must abandon that avenue. By making water a Universal human right and not a commodity for privatized corporations to buy and sell, we can provide stability to the nearly two billion people who live in water-stressed regions of the world. We can provide access to the more than 3 billion people who have no running water within a kilometer of their home. And we can provide life to the 3,942,000 children who die each year from water-borne illnesses, according to a CNN report (Barlow). You have the buying power! Do not support privatized water sources. Do not support the use of local water for international purposes. Do not support products containing water from foreign countries. Our world water wars boil down to one simple statement: Your choice, their lives.
Bibliography
Baerren, Eric. "ERIC BAERREN: Citizens Group Gets a Victory - Themorningsun.com." The Morning Sun : Serving Clare, Gratiot and Isabella Counties. 17 July 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2009/07/17/opinion/srv0000005859518.txt?viewmode=2>.
Barlow, Maude. "Access to Clean Water Is Most Violated Human Right | Maude Barlow | Comment Is Free | Guardian.co.uk." Latest News, Sport and Comment from the Guardian | The Guardian. The Guardian, United Kingdom, 21 July 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jul/21/access-clean-water-human-right>.
Bozzo, Sam, Mark Achbar, Si Litvinoff, Malcolm McDowell, Hannes Bertolini, Thomas Aichinger, Maude Barlow, and Tony Clarke. Blue Gold: World Water Wars. United States: Distributed by PBS Home Video, 2009.
"FRONTLINE/WORLD . Bolivia - Leasing the Rain . Timeline: Cochabamba Water Revolt | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. June 2002. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bolivia/timeline.html>.
Redmon, David. "Privatization Is Suicide." Home Page of the Consumer Studies Research Network. Consumer Studies Research Network, Dec. 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://csrn.camden.rutgers.edu/newsletters/5-1/Redmon.htm>.
"Ryan's Well Foundation | About Us | Jimmy's Story." Ryan's Well Foundation | Home. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://www.ryanswell.ca/about-us/jimmys-story.aspx>.
Srivastava, Amit. "Coca-Cola and Water - An Unsustainable Relationship." Home | Common Dreams. 7 Mar. 2006. Web. 11 Dec. 2011.
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