Call to Keep Water Clean of Privatisation
BRUSSELS - Water supply could increasingly be managed by private firms once a new European Union treaty enters into force, experts warned Monday.
Delivery of drinking water from the tap is mostly controlled by public utilities in the EU, but fears are being voiced that new policies promoting competition are skewed in favour of giving a greater role to the private sector in this area.
Under the Lisbon treaty, exclusive power for setting competition rules would be entrusted in the EU as a whole, rather than in member governments. A clause stating that national and local authorities would continue to have “wide discretion” in providing “services of general interest” has been included in a protocol attached to the treaty, but not in the main body of its text.
The treaty, signed by EU leaders in December, is largely identical to a proposed EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Still described as a ‘constitution’ by many of its critics, the treaty will come into effect after ratification by all 27 countries in the Union. Ireland is the only country which has given a commitment to hold a referendum on the treaty.
Jan-Erik Gustaffson from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden says that there have been several waves of water privatisation in Stockholm. These have seen substantial job losses during 2007, when several divisions of the Stockholm Water Company, Sweden’s biggest water utility, were sold off.
Further redundancies and a deterioration in services are feared this year because the company plans to reduce its core business costs by one-fifth.
“If the (EU) constitution goes through, it will be even more difficult to fight against privatisation of all public services, including water,” says Gustaffson. “There are articles in this constitution that put pressure on everybody to apply competition rules.”
Gustaffson was a speaker at a Jan. 7 seminar in Brussels, which addressed the extent of water privatisation in Europe and how to keep water in public ownership.
Emanuele Lobina from the University of Greenwich in Britain said that experiences in Amsterdam, Milan and Grenoble illustrated how water management can be more efficient when it is publicly, rather than privately managed.
Situated in the French Alps, Grenoble is often cited as a case study of how water privatisation can go wrong.
In 1989, responsibility for water and sewage in Grenoble was taken over by Lyonnaise des Eaux, part of the global water company Suez. Following revelations that the deal was tainted by illegal payments to elected representatives and company executives, the water service was eventually returned to the public sphere in 2000.
Over the past few years, Grenoble has been said to offer the cheapest water of all French cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Information campaigns aimed at cutting the amount of water wasted have proven successful, according to some campaigners.
Lobina argued that the public sector has played a key role in ensuring there is “virtually universal” access to water in the industrialised countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Although he acknowledged that underinvestment and fiscal constraints can present headaches, he suggested that these are not insolvable. “Problems can be addressed and have been addressed,” he told IPS.
He expressed concern, too, about how the EU’s executive, the European Commission, is “pushing principles of competition in a way that public companies are restricted in scope and scale.”
He applauded a recent proposal brought before Italy’s national parliament to exempt water from competition rules. “This is too important to be left to competition,” he said.
Margaret Cuthbert, a Scottish water analyst, said that when Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s then prime minister, oversaw privatisation of England’s water in the 1980s, predictions of major investment were made.
“There hasn’t been any major investment of private capital,” she said. “In England, private companies have time and time again been making huge profits. And customers have been paying over the odds for their supply of water.”
Tommy Kane from the Public Interest Research Network at Strathclyde University in Scotland, said that EU law has been used as a pretext to give private firms a greater stake in his country’s water services. Despite widespread public opposition to water privatisation in Scotland, the authorities have maintained that private funding is needed to provide sewage treatment facilities needed to meet EU standards.
Türkel Miniba, lecturer in Istanbul University, complained that gold mining companies are pushing for greater water privatisation in Turkey. New laws have been passed opening up water basins to mining firms, she added. Protection for ecologically sensitive areas has been overruled as a result.
Pippa Gallop, a representative of CEE (Central and Eastern European) Bankwatch, noted that in mid-2007 the Georgian government issued a tender for the total sale of the main water provider in capital Tbilisi. The eventual awarding of this contract to a Swiss company with no previous experience in water delivery may be illegal, she added, as the city’s local authority had not been consulted.
While there has been some political opposition to the sale, this has been overshadowed by political upheaval in the former Soviet state.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
Prior to their demise, Enron was posturing to control the water market. With so much profit potential, it is unlikely that the Enron players and others have abandoned this goal.
Why can’t people figure out that essential services need to be publicly administered - in spite of Libertarian opinions. It isn’t just adding on the extra cost of profit, but the temptation to reduce service and maintenance to improve profits. The government is there to serve us, corporations are there to make as much money as they can.
The difficulties faced in Scotland with sewage treatment facilities makes it clear that the public should not be consulted about how to pay for infrastructure, since they have a reflexive NO built in on raising taxes for any reason. But what they should have is oversight to keep public officials honest.
the trouble with Libertarians, is they are concerned with government power, when it is a monarchy or dictatorship, not when it is us…we are the power, that is why populism frightens the power mongers, the whores that control the medi-military-petroleum complex, when calls for nationalization of oil and government run arsenal, scares the chickenshit out of them, they might have to WORK, making plowshares, what a world it will be when control is truly by the people and for the people, a true democracy we can all aspire for, we are all in this together, not as ants stocking up for the queen, but as equals, EQUALS, remember that, Equals,
Just wait till them big companies want to charge for the air they themselves have polluted
In 2000 I exhibited at the 2nd World Water Forum at the HAGUE. The argument over water issues were extremely sharp, particularly when the idea of privatization of water erupted in full rancor at the final draft discussions, the World Bank argued that water was a commodity for sale like any other. The rage of a number of delegates erupted, their argument: water is a basic human right as is air and therefore not for sale.
The commercialization of water has reached a point where we see the abuses that can occur. For example, companies purchasing aquifers and than charging exorbitant rates for the water to the public. The bottled water industry is a commercial scam, selling so called pure water which is often bottled directly from taps that sometime contains impurities including the leaching of toxic chemicals from the plastic bottles. Bechtel Corporation took over the management of the water supplies in Cocachamba, Bolivia which led to public to rioting, causing the company to leave the country. The excessive charges, to the population, sometimes doubled the cost of water leaving the poor unable to feed their families.
If one follows this argument we come to realize that business ethics are prevailing in ever more in areas of basic human need. Water and waste treatment services have traditionally been provided by municipalities dating back to ancient Rome. The public is increasingly being squeezed of its life’s needs and means of survival by industry.
This must come to a halt but will not occur until the public becomes aware and begins to protest in mass. We are seeing this occur on the American political scene. The public has become angered by the corporate gouging in collusion with government who is supposed to act in the public interest. The present corporate model leads to abuses to the life of people, giving them very little time from their slavery of survival.
The public wants a change to entrenched politics and their abuses. Life must have some free time to understand the reason for being and to enjoy the pursuit of happiness guaranteed in the constitution of the United States. This is being denied by ever more productivity being demanded by corporations, Also, the very commodities for survival and basic needs of life have now become marketable items. Its the same historical company store idea on a massive scale. Corporations increasingly are controlling water, health, and sanitation to extract maximum profit. They foul our air and create the very toxic environment, thus creating many of the health problems that are later charged to the public.
The pursuit of happiness has a lot to do with simply enjoying one’s family life: to see to the development of ones children the most important reasons for life and human development. The central idea being, we are here raise the next generation to have a better more fulfilling life than was possible for our own. All inventions and reasons for human development begin with the family motive. Labor saving devices were imagined to save time for other pursuits. This goal is being eroded by the global economic model of the Democratic Capitalist system of free enterprise that has no limit to growth or profits. In essence this is why anything at all can be used for profit including basic needs and sold in the present economic model.
A major revaluation of human ethics and goals, in terms of the capitalist ethic and globalization is necessary. The system has gone out of balance we need only look at climate change, one of its prime examples, to know that human survival and the development of the species is in jeopardy with an economic system out of control.
it comes down to infrastructure: those who own the pipes get paid, while those who own the taps pay. if the bastards could figure out a way to put meters on your lungs, air wouldn’t be free either.
The AIR is not free, we the Taxpayer will pay for any cleanup, or change in technology that bring a semi carbon free world, just like we pay for three quarters of the drug research, give oil company subsidies, pay for site clean up , do research for NASA, Farmers, Loggers, public education, defend corporations outside the country, militarily, do the geologic research for mining and oil companies, example, UNOCAL, which to it’s taxpayer funded pacific rim oil field research company to Brunai, for tax evasion purposes, real loyal,,, make me want to pay 3 bucks a gallon, same with water, it will become more apparent that the corporation sknow of the upcoming doomsday scenario, with global warming, and typically are trying to cash in on the planets last gasp, (sad) to say the least, we are all in this together, if we want we can make it a paradise for everyone, but we need to get rid of greed, and the inherent shortsightedness it impalls everyone on
WORLD IDEOLOGIES AS EXPLAINED BY REFERENCE TO COWS
DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful. Barbara Streisand sings for you.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support
a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from
your government.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you
for the milk, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have down sized
and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don’t milk them because you cannot touch any creature’s private
parts.
Then you kill them and claim a US bomb blew them up while they were in
the hospital.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.
POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who like the brown one best, vote for the black
one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best
looking cow.
CALIFORNIAN
You have a cow and a bull.
The bull is depressed.
It has spent its life living a lie.
It goes away for two weeks.
It comes back after a taxpayer-paid sex-change operation.
You now have two cows.
One makes milk; the other doesn’t.
You try to sell the transgender cow.
Its lawyer sues you for discrimination.
You lose in court.
You sell the milk-generating cow to pay the damages.
You now have one rich, transgender, non-milk-producing cow.
You change your business to beef. PETA pickets your farm.
Jesse Jackson makes a speech in your driveway.
Cruz Bustamante calls for higher farm taxes to help “working cows”.
Hillary Clinton calls for the nationalization of 1/7 of your farm “for
the children”.
Gray Davis signs a law giving your farm to Mexico.
The L.A. Times quotes five anonymous cows claiming you groped their
teats.
You declare bankruptcy! and shut down all operations.
The cow starves to death.
The L.A. Times’ analysis shows your business failure is Bush’s fault.
FEUDALISM
You have two cows.
Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM
You have two cows.
The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s
cows.
You have to take care of all the cows.
The government gives you a glass of milk.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers.
You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the
chicken farmers.
The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you
should need.
FASCISM
You have two cows.
The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells
you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM
You share two cows with your neighbors.
You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who
has the most “need.”
Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead
of starvation.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows.
You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black
market.
DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows.
The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows.
Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows.
Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows.
At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you
can milk them.
Then it pays you not to milk them.
Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk
down the drain.
Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing
cows.
CAPITALISM
You don’t have any cows.
The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have
any cows to put up as collateral.
PURE ANARCHY
You have two cows.
Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take
the cows and kill you.
ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica
lessons.
OLYMPICS-ISM
You have two cows, one American, one Chinese.
With the help of trilling violins and state of the art montage
photography, Bob Costas narrates the moving tale of how the American
cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced
parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten
every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered
before its eyes.
The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in
a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to
endorse Wheaties.
The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government
officials, though no one ever hears about it.
McDonald’s buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing
restaurant.
NEO-LIB
You have two cows.
The CIA causes ‘unrest’ or ethnic-division/tribal-conflict near you,
necessitating placement of a Dictator receptive to WorldBank or IMF
development-loans for his Coronation, and brings required Privatization to
your country of formerly-Public water/health/other-Commons, requiring you to
sell-one to feed the other.
Sold cow is given a WHO free-inoculation for an almost unheard-of and
non-local disease, and mysteriously/promptly develops Mad-Cow Disorder
thereafter, resulting in a law-suit awarding remaining-cow to a nearby
wealthy-Plaintiff who has in-interim ‘confiscated’ the second-owner’s Right
to Redress.
You are caught stealing-milk for your kid’s from your former remaining-Cow’s
new-owner, and he uses his nouveau-influence with the newly-militarized
Security-Forces to label you a ‘domestic terrorist’ sans-Trial, and has you
hooded, stripped, and shipped-off to an E. European ’secret’ torture-castle
for Questioning, where you accidentally die from a one of their mild
“fraternity-pranks”, but your family never hears of your Fate — so
years-later those kids still Spit whenever hearing your-name.
NEO-CON
You have two cows.
Now, we do.
REPUBLICAN REALITY
You have 1000 cows, a gift from a lobbyist. You want to sell organic
milk, so you change the rules so that you don’t have to do anything
differently, but can charge more. When you neighbors complain, you
spread rumors that they are unpatriotic, and that the wife of one of
them is a CIA operative (Cows In America). Your neighbors go into
chapter 11 due to your unfair business practices. You buy their land
and cows in foreclosure auctions, pollute the groundwater and streams
with unmanaged manure runoff, have the legal levels of e. coli increased
so that you’re legal again. You offer jobs to your once neighbors, at
half minimum wage. You start a war and have their children killed for
their patriotic beliefs. When the neighbors can no longer fend for
themselves, you allow them to eat genetically modified grass from your,
formerly their, pastures, fertilized with irradiated sewage sludge.
This makes both the men and women grow udders, and you bring in milkers
from India on H1B visas. Life is good. God is on your side.
The only corporations that should control such a vital resource as water are municipal corporations which are answerable to the voting public whom they serve and whose purpose is to provide a safe, reliable service and not make a “profit” for shareholders (the voting public).
Meanwhile, get a filter, a reverse osmosis system, and (for good measure) ultraviolet sanitizer–or invest in an under the counter distiller. Water gets very contaminated going through its delivery system and your body does not need any dosage of chlorine, floride, or other additives commonly used to detoxify the water that must travel through contaminated delivery systems.