And, yes, I DO take it personally: Fighting water privatization in the U.S.

H₂O

is arguably the single most important component of all living organisms... but, if there's a way to make a buck, the already super-rich holders of the world's capital resources will find a way to do it...

All across the United States, municipal water systems are being bought up by multinational corporations, turning one of our last remaining public commons and our most vital resource into a commodity.

The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival.

The effects of the federal government's actions are being felt all the way down to Conference of Mayors, which has become a "feeding frenzy" for corporations looking to make sure that nothing is left in the public's hands, including clean, affordable water.

[...]

"The administration has backed language in legislation to reauthorize existing federal water funding assistance programs that would require cities to consider water privatization before they could receive federal funding," reports Public Citizen. "And in lockstep with private industry's goals, the EPA is increasingly playing down the role of federal financial assistance while actively encouraging communities to pay for system upgrades by raising rates to consumers -- exactly the strategy the industry hopes will drive cash-strapped and embattled local politicians to opt for the false promise of privatization." [The U.S. Conference of Mayors Urban Water Council

it isn't just "all across the united states..." it's happening worldwide, and, interestingly, today seems to be the day to look south for guidance...

the global scenario...

Today 460 million people around the world are dependent on private water corporations for their daily supply - compared to 51 million in 1990 - because of the privatization polices promoted by the World Bank and IMF.

argentina...

Aguas Argentinas is a case study of the rush to privatize water services in the last decade by European and U.S.-based companies, backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The deal made between Argentina's water authority and a consortium that includes the Suez group from France, the largest private water company in the world, and Spain's Aguas de Barcelona, in May 1993, established a new private entity, named Aguas Argentinas, with the help of the World Bank which also bought a small stake in the consortium. According to a study by Dr. Malpartida's Ecology and Environment Foundation, the new company was "the biggest transfer of a water service and watershed into private control in the world" encompassing a region with over 10 million inhabitants.

As a result, according to Daniel Azpiazu, a researcher at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, residential water rates increased 88.2% between May 1993 and January 2002 although there was "no relationship between this rate and the consumer price index (inflation rate), which was 7.3% for the same period."

Azpiazu says this provided the company with net profits of 20%, which he says is far higher than is "acceptable or normal" for the water industry in other countries: "In the United States, for example, water companies earned between 6-12.5% profits in 1991. In the United Kingdom a reasonable rate of profit for the sector is between 6-7%. In France, 6% is considered a very reasonable return on investment."

Yet this rate increase did not translate into higher quality or quantity of service. In 1997, the company was found to have failed to honor 45% of its contract commitments for improvement and expansion of services, resulting in massive pollution.

argentina's response...

President Néstor Kirchner rescinded the contract in March [2006], and announced the creation of a new state company, Aguas y Saneamiento Argentinos (Argentine Water and Sanitation).

bolivians took to the streets...

On January 10 [2005] the citizens of El Alto [Bolivia] took to the streets en masse to demand that their water system, privatized in 1997 under World Bank pressure, be returned to public hands. Three days later Bolivia's president issued a decree canceling the water concession, led by the French water giant Suez, and an arm of the World Bank itself. The El Alto water revolt follows, by five years exactly, the now famous revolt against water privatization in Cochabamba, in which a company controlled by the Bechtel Corporation was ousted from the country.

uruguayans took action as well...

Voters in Uruguay, for instance, approved a constitutional reform in 2004, declaring water resources a public good and prohibiting the privatisation of water and sewage services.

so, who's the biggest dog in the water-for-profit game...?

suez [pdf]...