Is water going to be the next OIL?????????

Try googling "World Bank, Water privatization, BECHTEL, IMF" and see how many hits you get. Bolivia was going to be a nice quiet test run. La Paz seemed to have gone as planned. Surprsingly, it was the little city of Cochabamba that put up a battle and won.

From 1993 to 1997, the Bolivian government made privatization a key component of its economic policy. encouraged the Bolivian government to sell its public enterprises. As a result the Bolivian government signed a 40-year contract with Aguas de Tunari in 1999, granting the corporation private control of Cochabamba’s water system
http://www.queensjournal.ca/article.php?point=vol131/issue21/features/lead2




http://www1m.mesh.ne.jp/~apec-ngo/english/water/2002_speech_Pablo_Solon.htm


Stop Privatizing Water, NGOs Tell Developed Countries
http://www.geocities.com/ericsquire/articles/g8-2003/ow030527.htm

Privatizing water in Bolivia by US corporations
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/2003-November/018969.html

People need to be more aware of what clean water means, and what its value is.

in many African countries

or so i hear.

about this issue. (drama not documentary)

It took place in the near future. Water was the scarce resource. The US was looking to Canada to supply its needs.

http://www.cbc.ca/h2o/

Water is the most valuable resource we have.

Petty,(she was in "A League of Their Own"). It is not a drama, but is worth seeing.
Here is a plot summary:
Based on the British cult comic-strip, our tank-riding anti-heroine fights a mega-corporation, which controls the world's water supply.
Tank Girl (Rebecca) and her friends are the only remaining citizens living in the wasteland that is Earth, where all the remaining water is controlled by Water and Power, the mega corporation/government that runs the territory. While incarcerated at W + P, Tank Girl and her new friend Jet Girl break out and steal... a tank and a jet. After meeting some mutant kangaroo/humans, and rescuing her little girl (adopted by her friends), the kangaroos and the girls kick Water and Powers' butt.

What alternative is there for water?

... everybody should be watching what Canada does with regard to fresh water privatization. Throw "Blue Gold" into that Google search and see what happens....

What bothers me is that T. Boone Pickens has been busily buying up all the water rights he can in Texas, especially over the Ogalalla aquifer, and if there's a market for fresh water somewhere, he'll suck that aquifer dry all by his lonesome.

This is why Republicans are so anti-science. Any innovation in technologies means that their businesses lose out. In the future I would imagine that the desalinization process will be more efficient and less costly, so that we will have have an abundant source of water in our oceans. Don't look for that technology to be made available by the Republicans or big business though. They want just enough science to maintain the status quo and specialized science that can't be applied anywhere else but the defense industry. This is the mechanism for maintaining "the rich get richer". It also fits in with their Christian fundamentalist cohorts where science conflicts with their belief in a supreme being. Science is education and an educated populace is a dangerous one to the Republican fascist juggernaut.

water barons are already fighting with other water barons and the oil barons want in on the water money too.

Jeb recently worked a deal with Ga. and Ala. over water.

Pumping oil, pumping water. Pumping stations, pipelines, compressors, storage facilities pretty much the same hardware.

http://starhawk.org/activism/cochabamba-dec.html

The Cochabamba Declaration:

Here, in this city which has been an inspiration to the world
for its retaking of that right through civil action, courage
and sacrifice standing as heroes and heroines against
corporate, institutional and governmental abuse, and trade
agreements which destroy that right, in use of our freedom and
dignity, we declare the following:
For the right to life, for the respect of nature and the uses
and traditions of our ancestors and our peoples, for all time
the following shall be declared as inviolable rights with
regard to the uses of water given us by the earth:



1) Water belongs to the earth and all species and is sacred
to life, therefore, the world's water must be conserved,
reclaimed and protected for all future generations and its
natural patterns respected.



2) Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to
be guarded by all levels of government, therefore, it should
not be commodified, privatized or traded for commercial
purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of
government. In particular, an international treaty must
ensure these principles are noncontrovertable.



3) Water is best protected by local communities and
citizens who must be respected as equal partners with
governments in the protection and regulation of water.
Peoples of the earth are the only vehicle to promote earth
democracy and save water.

the water belongs to us all , just as with air , anyone else sick of the IMF and world bank playing God. Fight privatization as if you were fighting for life...

The drop of Water
hangs from the faucet
pulsing, the heart
of the well still beating

I never drink water
Harold Elm told me
even from the sink
without saying
a prayer of thanks

the drop of water
trembles, holding
the face of all the worlds.

--Joseph Bruchac

programs on PBS about this issue and just check out what T. Boone Pickens, oil speculator, multi-millionaire, based in Dallas has been up to the last several years.

http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/bulksales/texas/index.cfm

T. Boone Pickens in Texas

The notorious oilman has acquired land overlying the Ogallala aquifer and wants to pump and sell as much as 200,000 acre-feet of groundwater annually to one of Texas’ metropolitan centers.

A new undertaking by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is even more disconcerting. Pickens has been acquiring acreage overlying the Ogallala aquifer with hopes that he could pump and sell the as much as 200,000 AFY of water to one of the state’s metropolitan centers – El Paso, Lubbock, San Antonio, or Dallas-Fort Worth. Ogallala is already severely depleted. The West Texas farmers rely on the aquifer for water. The aquifer’s minimal recharge rate of less then one AFY means that its users are mining fossil water that will not be replenished.


http://southwestfarmpress.com/mag/farming_either_drained_boone/

Either that, or be drained: T. Boone Pickens floats his ideas for selling water

Mar 21, 2002 12:00 PM
By Ron Smith Farm Press Editorial Staff


T. Boone Pickens, best known as a Texas oilman, is in the water business, looking for a customer to buy up to 200,000 acre-feet per year from his Roberts County, Texas, ranch.



Pickens discussed the potential for water marketing and inter-basin transfer during a water planning forum on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock recently.

He explained that he got into the water business to protect property, specifically the water under his ranch.

“Two interests bought water fields near my ranch, and I had the options of selling water or being drained,” Pickens said. “I put together a (coalition) with neighbors and we have 150,000 acres under our control. I have options on other property.

“I set about trying to sell 150,000 acre-feet of water. I've found some interest but not as much as I expected.”

He has peddled water all over the state and has also discussed water marketing with Oklahoma and planned to talk to parties in New Mexico. He said moving water from the area could reduce supplies for irrigation by 10 percent.

snip to the end:

Pickens said water resources are vital to the state and “must be managed. Control is coming.”

is what the republicans will be bombing us up here in canada for sooner or later.

off forests you kill off rain? Can you imagine how angry they must be every time it rains and all that free water just drips everywhere.

I hear the aqueduct under the mid-west has about 30 years left in it and then... well the invasion of Canada will start - eh?