March 14, 2003
<http://sfgate.com/chronicle/>
San Francisco Chronicle
Water is a Matter of Public Debate
by Dennis Kucinich
Every human being has the right to clean water. In the United States, water has long been considered a vital resource and thus managed in the public interest by local governments accountable to their constituents.
The mission of a public water system is simple: Deliver safe, clean and affordable water to you and your family. Public works projects funded and built our existing water infrastructure, which has served us well during the
last century. But our water infrastructure is beginning to show signs of age. Pollution, decaying pipes, depleted aquifers and other problems pose real threats to the U.S. water supply and communities across the nation are looking for ways to bring water systems up to safe and modern standards.
Privatizing water systems, however, is not the answer. Private companies, seeking to extract profits from municipal water systems, dangle lofty promises in order to gain control of local water systems. Corporations
want people to believe that only they can efficiently manage water systems.
They seek monopoly contracts to run water systems for generations, or to expand the outright corporate ownership of water supplies and infrastructure.
Yet, from Atlanta to the United Kingdom to Huber Heights, Ohio, private water providers have charged higher rates, deteriorated water quality and failed to make assured investments. In fact, privatization failed so miserably in Atlanta that the city ousted United Water, only four years into a 20-year contract. Four years of broken promises and managerial debacles was more than enough.
Residents in many California communities are increasingly concerned with local water systems falling into the hands of a distant corporation. In Stockton, where city officials recently voted to privatize the public water system, citizens are responding by going door-to-door to collect signatures in an effort to nullify the City
Council's decision.
I strongly believe that public control and public administration of the public's water supply is the only way to guarantee the universal human right of access to clean water. A grassroots movement of people is working to protect water from privatization by offering many alternative solutions to solve the global water crisis. Direct citizen participation should be encouraged when basic services such as water are being discussed. I hope that
at the World Water Forum, which begins Sunday in Kyoto, Japan, this international movement of people will
be heard.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is the ranking member of the House National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee. For information on the World Water Forum, see
http://www.world.water-forum3.com
>www.world.water-forum3.com.
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 by the Independent / UK
Armed Forces Are Put on Standby to Tackle Threat of Wars over Water
by Ben Russell and Nigel Morris
Across the world, they are coming: the water wars. From Israel to India, from Turkey to Botswana,
arguments are going on over disputed water supplies that may soon burst into open conflict.
Yesterday, Britain's Defence Secretary, John Reid, pointed to the factor hastening the violent collision
between a rising world population and a shrinking world water resource: global warming.
In a grim first intervention in the climate-change debate, the Defence Secretary issued a bleak forecast that violence and political conflict would become more likely in the next 20 to 30 years as climate change turned
land into desert, melted ice fields and poisoned water supplies.
Climate campaigners echoed Mr Reid's warning, and demanded that ministers redouble their efforts to
curb carbon emissions.
Tony Blair will today host a crisis Downing Street summit to address what he called "the major long-term
threat facing our planet", signalling alarm within Government at the political consequences of failing to
deal with the spectre of global warming.
Activists are modelling their campaign on last year's Make Poverty History movement in the hope of
creating immense popular pressure for action on climate change.
Mr Reid used a speech at Chatham House last night to deliver a stark assessment of the potential impact
of rising temperatures on the political and human make-up of the world. He listed climate change alongside
the major threats facing the world in future decades, including international terrorism, demographic changes
and global energy demand.
Mr Reid signalled Britain's armed forces would have to be prepared to tackle conflicts over dwindling resources. Military planners have already started considering the potential impact of global warming for Britain's armed forces over the next 20 to 30 years. They accept some climate change is inevitable, and warn Britain must be prepared for humanitarian disaster relief, peacekeeping and warfare to deal with the dramatic social and
political consequences of climate change.
Mr Reid warned of increasing uncertainty about the future of the countries least well equipped to deal with flooding, water shortages and valuable agricultural land turning to desert.
He said climate change was already a contributory factor in conflicts in Africa.
Mr Reid said: "As we look beyond the next decade, we see uncertainty growing; uncertainty about
the geopolitical and human consequences of climate change.
"Impacts such as flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land,
poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure.
"More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water; climate change will worsen
this dire situation."
He added: "These changes are not just of interest to the geographer or the demographer; they will make
scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer.
"Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely... The blunt truth is
that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see
unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign."
Tony Juniper, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The science of global warming is becoming
ever more certain about the scale of the problem we have, and now the implications of that for security and politics is beginning to emerge."
He said the problems could be most acute in the Middle East and North Africa.
Charlie Kornick, head of climate campaigning at the pressure group Greenpeace, said billions of people
faced pressure on water supplies due to climate change across Africa, Asia and South America.
He said: "If politicians realise how serious the problems could be, why are British CO2 emissions
still going up?"
Tony Blair will be joined by the Chancellor Gordon Brown, the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett,
and the International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, at today's talks in Downing Street.
They will be meeting representatives of the recently created Stop Climate Chaos, an alliance of
environmental
groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Oxfam. It will also meet opposition parties.
The alliance will call for the Government to commit itself to achieving a 3 per cent annual fall in
carbon dioxide emissions.
The facts
* On our watery planet, 97.5 per cent of water is salt water, unfit for human use.
* Most of the fresh water is locked in the ice caps.
* The recommended basic water requirement per person per day is 50 litres.
But people can get by with about 30 litres: 5 litres for food and drink and another 25 for hygiene.
* Some countries use less than 10 litres per person per day.
Gambia uses 4.5, Mali 8, Somalia 8.9, and Mozambique 9.3.
* By contrast the average US citizen uses 500 litres per day,
and the British average is 200.
* In the West, it takes about eight litres to brush our teeth,
10 to 35 litres to flush a lavatory, and 100 to 200 litres to take a shower.
* The litres of water needed to produce a kilo of:
Potatoes 1,000
Maize 1,400
Wheat 1,450
Chicken 4,600
Beef 42,500
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
http://itemonline.com/articles/2005/01/06/news/local/news2.txt
The Huntsville Item
Hot issues light up meeting
By Tom Waddill/News Editor
Lois Kolkhorst expects fewer fireworks during the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature. There might not be any
lawmaker walkouts or billion-dollar shortfalls like in 2003, but there will be plenty of challenges for those headed to
Austin next week.
On Thursday, Kolkhorst talked about many of the state's hottest issues with people from the Huntsville area during
a town hall meeting at the Walker County Courthouse. A near-capacity crowd came out on a chilly evening to listen
to the state representative from District 13.
....
Sam Houston State political science professor John Holcombe questioned Kolkhorst about one of her pet projects and
wondered if there were going to be any water issues to watch during the next few months.
"What's going on in water is pretty incredible," Kolkhorst replied. "Water will be one of the top five issues for
the next five to 10 years, and it probably should be No. 1. We fight wars over oil, I wonder if we'll ever fight
wars over water."
East Texas, she explained, has a tremendous amount of surface water from lakes like Livingston, Sam Rayburn and
Toledo Bend, but East Texans don't want to trade their water yet. Kolkhorst said people in East Texas are starting
to see the value in their surplus of water, and soon might be willing to share it for a price with metropolitan areas
that need it.
"Water is very interesting. It's contentious," she said. "People don't like their water to be taken away. If you move
water from rural areas, you should be compensated for it and compensated handsomely."
www.csmonitor.com/2004/1230/p13s01-sten.html
from the December 30, 2004 edition
Forget OPEC. The next cartel may export drinking water.
Already, companies are locking up resources and selling abroad.
By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Forget OPEC. Some experts say the next cartel will be an organization of water-exporting countries. Others see more danger in local privatization of water, which could restrict access to the poor within nations.
"Water is blue gold, it's terribly precious," says Maude Barlow, who chairs for the Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based citizens' watchdog. "Not too far in the future, we're going to see a move to surround and commodify the world's fresh water. Just as they've divvied up the world's oil, in the coming century there's going to be a grab."
www.ifg.org/bgsummary.html
#1 Project Censored story for Year 2000
www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=20020902&s=barlow
Who owns water?
www.cia.gov/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/index.html
CIA's "2015" report predicts water shortages, increasing inequities and public health emergencies
Billions of people may suffer severe water shortages as glaciers melt:
WWFMILAN (AFP) Nov 27, 2003
Billions of people will face severe water shortages as glaciers around the world melt unless
governments take urgent action to tackle global warming, the environmental group WWF said
Thursday, ahead of a UN conference on climate change.
"Increasing global temperatures in the coming century will cause continued widespread melting
of glaciers, which contain 70 percent of the world's fresh water reserves," it warned in a new study.
"An overall rise of temperature of four degrees Celsius before the end of the century would
eliminate almost all of them," it said.
Average temperatures have risen between 0.6 and 0.7 degrees Celsius since 1860, according
to WWF, which urged countries to curb emissions of carbon dioxide to ensure the increase
stays well below a threshold of two degrees.
The Switzerland-based conservation group released its study on climate change and global glacier
decline in Milan where more than 180 countries are due to gather from December 1-12 for the UN
Climate Change Convention to assess progress in addressing problems concerning global warming.
"The melting of glaciers will lead to water shortages for billions of people, as well as sea levels
rising and destroying coastal communities worldwide," WWF said.
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where major cities rely on glaciers as their main source of water during
dry seasons, would be worst affected, it predicted.
In the Himalayas, there was a grave danger of flooding, the group said, noting that glacier-fed
rivers in the region supply water to one third of the world's population.
"Glacial meltdown is a clear sign that we must act now to fight global warming and stop the
melting," said Jennifer Morgan, director of WWF's climate change programme.
The environmental organisation called on the ministers who will attend the Milan conference to
act faster to combat global warming, urging those from developing nations in particular to
demonstrate their will to tackle the issue.
WWF wants strong rules governing the use of forests, which play a vital role in absorbing
carbon dioxide.
The group also asked governments to ensure Russia ratifies the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which
establishes a set of goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Already ratified by 119 countries, the text just needs a commitment from Moscow to become
international law, it said.
On Tuesday, Italian officials said the European Union has pledged 390 million dollars
(325 million euros) a year to help developing countries from 2005 fight the damaging
effects of climate change.
In 2001, 20 countries including the 15 EU members pledged to provide 410 million dollars
annually to poorer countries until 2005.
All rights reserved. © 2003 Agence France-Presse.
People's Water Forum Urges World Water Parliament
By Vanya Walker-Leigh
FLORENCE, Italy, March 24, 2003 (ENS) - The Iraq conflict is partly about
future control of Iraq's huge water resources, an Italian Catholic missionary
told an alternative world water forum in Florence, endorsing the meeting's
closing call for a new world water deal based on public sector control and
a legal right to water for all by 2020.
http://ens-news.com/ens/mar2003/2003-03-24-01.asp
http://truthout.org/docs_03/040703A.shtml
(*Editor's Note: In all of the stories that have come and gone in recent months, this could well be the most offensive of them all. ''It's simple," says Evangelical Christian Army chaplain Josh Llano. "They want water.
I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized." In so many ways, this represents the true mindset of the individuals who have pushed this war. It is right down the line with the actions of this administration over the past three years; recall that, when our airmen were being held in China back in 2001, Mr. Bush was only concerned with whether or not they had Bibles. - wrp)
Army Chaplain Offers Baptisms, Baths
By Meg Laughlin
Miami Herald
Saturday 05 April 2003
CAMP BUSHMASTER, Iraq - In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat
support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon
pool of pristine, cool water.
It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept
thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity.
''It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized,'' he said.
And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the
first time in weeks.
''They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed,'' Llano said.
First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor
tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible.
''Regardless of their motives,'' Llano said, ``I get the chance to take them closer to the Lord.''
A blue-eyed 32-year-old with an abundance of energy, Llano goes out every day to drum up
grimy soldiers for his pool.
He talks to truck drivers, tank drivers, computer specialists -- anyone and everyone. He goes out
to the combat zone to the fighting soldiers and the combat support soldiers who keep them in
supplies.
''You have to be aggressive to help people find themselves in God,'' he said.
He calls himself a ''Southern Baptist evangelist,'' and justifies the war and killing with a verse
from the Gospel of Matthew, which he often recites: ``Give unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.
''This means we are called upon by our government to fight and that is giving unto Caesar,
as the Bible tells us,'' he said.
Earlier this week, word went out that portable showers might be installed here soon, but Llano
was undaunted.
''There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes and fruit rolls to pull out,'
' the chaplain said optimistically.
Broadcast on April 1, 2003 by the New York Daily News http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0401-14.htm
Deal to Sell Water All Wet, Critics Charge
by Richard Sisk
UMM QASR, Iraq - The U.S. military came up with a solution yesterday for the penniless people of this port town begging for water: Sell it.
Despite general mayhem at distribution points - including knife fights - the Army has struck a hasty agreement with local Iraqis to expedite distribution of water to the roughly 40,000 living here.
Under the deal, the military will provide water free to locals with access to tanker trucks, who then will be
allowed to sell the water for a "reasonable" fee. "We're permitting them to charge a small fee for water,"
said Army Col. David Bassert. "This provides them with an incentive to hustle and to work," said Bassert, an assistant commander with the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade. He said he could not suggest what constitutes a reasonable fee and did not know what the truckers were charging. He said the tradition here of haggling at markets would help the system work. "People know when they're being gouged - we'll deal with it," Bassert
said.
But with the population badly in need of water, food and medical supplies, the arrangement drew its share of critics. 'This is crazy' Several Iraqi-Americans originally from this region, who are working as interpreters and guides with the U.S. military, were incensed at what they consider an attempt to jump-start a free-market economy during a crisis. "This is bull----," said an Iraqi-American who asked to be identified only as Ahmed.
"They are selling water and this is crazy. Nobody has any money, nobody knows what is money [to use] - Iraqi money, American money, nobody knows." A British military spokesman angrily objected to the water deal. The British control the city of Umm Qasr while the Americans are in charge of the port.
"We're not going to have any charging for water. What kind of an aid plan would that be? These people don't
even have shoes," the spokesman said. Ahmed and the others said they had seen fights with fists and knives among desperate locals trying to get water from the truckers.Ill at ease The reports could not be independently confirmed because a promised military escort for reporters into town never took place. Officers said the trip was canceled because of widespread clashes between remnants of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supporters and British troops, although no firing could be heard and the Iraqi-Americans who spent the afternoon in town said
no clashes had taken place.
But the general situation was far from secure. A heavy mortar or artillery round launched toward the port shook buildings and rattled windows but exploded beyond the fence and caused no casualties.
Editor's Note: The military has confiscated the satellite phones of a certain make used by journalists traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq, including those used by reporter Richard Sisk and photographer Todd Maisel of the Daily News, for fear that Iraqi forces could intercept the signal and target U.S. positions. This dispatch has been sent by other means approved by the military, but military officials did not review or restrict its contents.
© 2003 Daily News, L.P.
