Essay On Water Privatization

Water, like food, is a necessity for human life that is used for many purposes such as agricultural, industrial, and domestic systems. While water is a common element around the world not all of it is clean and able to be consumed or used by humans. With only a percentage of the world’s water being clean and the use of water increasing, the availability of water around the world has become a common issue in the developing and even the developed world. This may be a smaller problem in areas close to clean water sources compared to areas far from a clean water source but, the availability of water is not strictly based on location, it also depends on the specific political and social needs and issues of the area as well. These all become issues that must be accounted for when deciphering whether water is a basic human right or a commodity and what action must be taken to aid the developing water systems in community’s that lack them.

The main religion in Bolivia is Catholicism more than 80% of the population are catholics. The large Roman Catholic church is located in Bolivia .The monetary unit in Bolivia is bolivian boliviano (BOB) . 100 U.S. dollars will equal 691.08 BOB. Bolivia’s government is set up as presidential representative democracy. The president is head of state and government.

The city of Cochabamba, Bolivia put its water system up for auction in 1999. The company Aguas del Tunari promised to expand water services, in exchange the contract guaranteed the company a fifteen percent profit. The first people to question water privatization were local professionals and peasant farmers who rely on irrigation. Citizens began calling public meetings to speak their concerns. Sadly, the government ignored them and their concerns. With no disregard for the public voice, people began to protest. With that, in early 2000, the historic water wars began.

Water bottling companies have been under fire recently in Ontario as citizens complain about the minuscule amount their water is being sold for. Further research reveals that Ontario’s current policies may be the real enemy, setting the rate for water taking at $3.71 per million litres. After receiving a lot of press, the government has proposed a moratorium on new and expanded water permits. This would give them time to review the current system. An improved system would include planning for future change, increased scientific knowledge, more public involvement, and higher prices, among other changes. Improved framework is integral to protecting Ontario’s water resources for the future.

Bolivia has the weakest economic system in South America (Murdock). The country is so poor that they had no other option than to sell of their railroads, mines, oil and gas fields, electric companies and so much more (Hennigan). Yet, Bolivia’s economy had not gotten any better. The government of Bolivia asked the World Bank what should be done (Shultz). The bank encouraged Bolivia’s government to continue to sell their resources to foreign companies because doing so “opens the door to needed investment” into the country (Shultz). Bolivia did just that. They government sold Cochabamba’s water in 1999 (Murdock). The buyer was a Aguas del Tunari, a division in a company called

Not unlike many of the Southern American countries which were colonized by Spanish conquistadors, Bolivia was imperialized by spaniards in the 16th century through the defeat of the Incan Empire. The native population of Bolivia was thrust immediately into poverty and slavery, though they avoided the major devastation of European disease which ravaged through other native settlements which had been imperialized. Spaniards put slaves to work mining and “By the end of the 17th century, the mineral wealth had begun to dry up.” (Infoplease) Bolivia gained its independence in 1825 and suffered from much turmoil within and without its borders. It lost much land to outside forces, and political instability, as is common among recently independent countries, contributed to a loss of diminishing wealth. The country currently sits on the second largest natural gas deposit in the world, and also contains much oil, but due to lack of capitalism in the country, it has yet to draw upon this large advantage. Currently, “the country ranks 108th out of 187 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index” (IFAD) About 60% of Bolivians are impoverished, and most of this poverty is among the indigenous population. The country suffers such poverty due to: Lack of capitalism, lack of rural roads or forms of easy transportation, limited access to institutions such as schools and hospitals. There are several solutions to the problems present in

Before starting the ditch irrigation process, all water rights in the state of Pennsylvania, as well as Bedford County, would need to be followed. According to the Pennsylvania water use and water rights under the Riparian Doctrine for the use of water in streams, each landowner adjacent to a stream can withdraw unlimited amounts of water for domestic use and reasonable extraordinary use on the property without depleting the water source or do any harm to existing habitat. Bedford County itself does not implement any further water rights or restrictions other than what the state of Pennsylvania already implements. For this reason, a medium to low level of magnitude of the impact is foreseen, as long as landowners abide by the rules to maintain the watershed and uphold environmental standards. However, landowners who abuse the water usage and drain the creeks and streams down to unsafe levels will cause numerous problems.

Ineffective or corrupt government makes things worse by opening the doors to illegal logging and other crimes in the developing countries. Kenyan government denies using forest land for patronage, and says the areas will be used to resettle poor, needy landless people, but in truth the forest land is being handed over by the government to supporters as a way of currying favor before the next elections. It is too bad that the poor and needy happen to actually be the rich and politically powerful people of Kenya. It is not the poor that the environmentalist and ecologist are dealing but the government and their corruption where they encourage mismanagement of resources and complain that they are poor. Before the election in 1997, Kenyan President

Water is just as important as air, it is a basic need for life, ever since the

In 2000 between 90,000 residents of Havana had to receive water in tanker trucks, because the antiquated water supply system was unable to provide them with water. Since then, the system has been repaired and this number has been considerably

The concept of race outlives slavery and limits emancipation through the manifested ideals of white supremacy and white privilege. The criminal justice system sets back colored communities by arranging political boundaries and looking back on the precedent set by the emancipation proclamation. With the ideologies shared within the Doctrine of Discovery, the Tenets of the Eugenics Movement, and Neoliberal Capitalism, some multinational companies attempt to privatize water. While water has remained an unpriced commodity for most of the world, consumption and scarcity have raised some questions on whether the world can benefit from water privatization.

As we all known, humans can survive weeks without foods, but only days without water—for special conditions, only hours. That's why we call water as "blue gold". This "gold" occupies 71% of the Earth and 60% of our bodies and is a rare resource over the world. So what will happen when some private companies control this scare resource? When a private company operates public water facility is often considered as a solution to improve the overall water supply and make water systems more efficient. However, this more often cause some social issues. I will talk about water privatization from two sides.

In chapter 5, ‘Global Water Lords’ Barlow and Clarke describe the hydras, and the model of privatization they use to grow themselves. In contrast to what you may believe, sustained company expansion isn’t the goal of most multinational companies. The basis of their business model is expand, collect, sell, and destroy, essentially. This is why they can do horrible and sometimes illegal things so efficiently. These companies will expand into a resource rich environment and employ swathes of poor local people to harvest it. Since that level of resource harvesting isn’t usually sustainable, neither is their ability to provide employment, and as soon as there are more workers than absolutely necessary they fire them (Barlow, Clarke, 124). When the resources run dry, or at least to the point of operational costs being too high for too low a yield, they fire everyone. This leaves the people who work for them back in their original position, except usually with a poorer environment than before. This chapter really demonstrates the point that the previous chapter made that the kind of capitalism these companies employ hurt more people than help them.

Water is just as important as air, it is a basic need for life, ever since the

Several plans have been made in hopes of creating solutions to the shortage of water. Some of these projects have not been successful. In June, the governor of Sao Paulo launched a system connecting a river named River Guaio to the water supply of Sao Paulo. Unfortunately, the plan did not go as expected. The poor flow of the river was not able to reach the intended 265 gallons of water transfer to the water supply. This project alone cost 8.3 million dollars (Rigby, 2015). Other ideas and projects to help this issue are in progress, including one that is worth more than four times the cost of the one that began in June. If the outcome is anything like the one previously mentioned the cost of these attempts may cause damage to the economy. Investing a great amount of money may not be worth it if it does not lead to positive results.