[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Flow

Sun Feb 1 18:15:14 MST 2009

Who Owns the World's Water?

by Jessica Mosby

Culture Change (January 09 2009)

After seeing the new documentary, Flow {1}, my 2009 New Year's
resolution is to stop buying bottled water. Over $100 billion is spent
annually on bottled water, but it would cost only $30 billion to provide
clean drinking water to the entire world. Unlike tap water, bottled
water is not regulated for cleanliness. And don't even get me started on
the mountains of plastic bottles created by the bottled water industry.

For 84 terrifying and informative minutes, filmmaker Irena Salina makes
a very persuasive case for stopping the commoditization of water and
ensuring that everyone has access to clean drinking water. Salina
interviews an array of researchers and activists who all describe the
frightening international situation: dirty water kills more people than
wars, the world is quickly running out of clean water, and water has
become a valuable commodity for multinational corporations to exploit
for profit. Flow is currently available on DVD.

The film is grounded in the question: Who owns the world's water?
Without water life cannot exist. But 1.1 billion people worldwide do not
have access to clean drinking water, and over five million people die
annually from water-related illnesses. While Flow is a wake-up call that
documents all that is wrong with the world's attitude toward water, the
film also profiles a number of technologies that could dramatically
improve international access to clean drinking water at a nominal cost.

Those who exclusively drink bottled water may think they're safe. But
according to the National Resource Defense Council Director of Advocacy,
Erik Olson, water-borne chemicals can enter the body through the skin
when showering. Bathing in bottled water doesn't guarantee safety
either; organic chemicals, bacteria, and even arsenic were found in
one-third of popular bottled-water brands.

The film's most surprising revelation is that water has become a highly
valuable commodity instead of a human right. Water is now the third most
valuable commodity behind oil and electricity. And the film blames the
World Bank for colluding with multinational for-profit water companies,
which has led to the promotion of water privatization in developing
counties. In Bolivia, short-lived water privatization at the insistence
of the World Bank polluted rivers with blood and sewage flowing from
slaughterhouses into Lake Titicaca.

Though many Americans take their access to clean water for granted, many
people throughout the world are not able (or do not want) to pay for
privatized water {2}. Maintaining the infrastructure that brings
unlimited clean water to kitchen sinks across the country is an
unnoticed luxury for most Americans, though they do pay for it: either
directly in monthly bills from water treatment facilities, or indirectly
in taxes.

Flow profiles the heartbreaking situation in South Africa where the
world's poorest citizens cannot afford clean water. Instead of paying
for clean water from privatized wells, many desperate South Africans are
forced to drink free water from dirty stagnant rivers, even if that
means contracting cholera. During an onscreen interview, Maude Barlow,
author of the book Blue Covenant (2007) and co-author of Blue Gold
(2002), discusses the contradiction in providing affordable clean water
to people through for-profit private companies. She describes
privatization as a "disaster" because multinational corporations cannot
help people gain increased access to clean water while also pleasing
their shareholders. Several countries have recently built enormous dams
to divert and store water in an effort to resolve their water crises.
According to Patrick McCully, Executive Director of International Rivers
Network {3}, dams alter ecosystems while displacing thousands of people.
One example cited in the film is China's Three Gorges Dam - a project
also depicted in the beautiful documentary Up the Yangtze {4} - that
relocated two million people as water levels rose. McCully believes that
there are better ways to store water, especially for individuals; he
cites the archaic practice of collecting rain water as a low-cost and
effective way to ensure a steady water supply.

The most inspiring interviewee in Flow is Ashok Gadgil, Senior Staff
Scientist in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of
California, Berkeley professor, who knows the dire consequences of
biologically contaminated water firsthand. While growing up in India, he
lost five cousins to unhealthy drinking water. To help solve this
widespread problem, Gadjil invented a water disinfector that uses
UV-light to kill water-borne bacteria and viruses. This "financially
viable, self-sustaining model" is maintained cooperatively in local
communities - not by multinational for-profit corporations. For only $2
per person per year, over 500,000 Indians living in rural villages now
have clean drinking water.

Flow captures the complex nature of water supply and accessibility
issues with well-researched and entertaining information. But at times
there are too many people saying the same thing. The film could have
benefited by focusing more on inspiring new technology, such as Gadgil's
water filtration system, and creating a narrative structure, instead of
a barrage of interviews. Still, everyone interviewed drives the film's
message home, and by the end viewers will think twice about their
current habits.

When I finished watching the film, I turned on my kitchen sink in my
Oakland, California apartment and filled a tall glass with fresh clean
water. I had never thought twice about where this water came from, and
assumed the supply was unlimited, especially when taking too many long
showers. But then I remembered Barlow's prediction, "California's water
supply is running out - it has about twenty years of water left in the
state".

Flow could not be a timelier documentary because the world is literally
running out of clean water. The unanswerable question of who owns water
will become irrelevant when there is not any water left to own.

Links:

{1} www.flowthefilm.com

{2}
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/01/murky_waters_why_privatization.html

{3} http://internationalrivers.org/

{4}
http://thewip.net/contributors/2008/07/a_new_china_floods_the_traditi.html

_____

Flow - The Women's International Perspective (WIP)
http://thewip.net/contributors/2009/01/flow_who_owns_the_worlds_water.html

This article is published under Title 17 USC. Section 107. See the Fair
Use Notice for more information:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=266&Itemid=26

"Water Fight: corporate bottom line versus foes of privatization and
plasticization" by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=257&Itemid=65

_____

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=1

TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/