WaterInCrisis.com

By Sita Wickramsinghe

 

The idea of “Water wars” is something we will be hearing about for future generations to come. Water wars have already begun, in fact.

 

Water is taking over from oil as the likeliest cause of conflict in the world. We all agree that without water there is no life. Water is needed for industries, agriculture and populations. Water should be safe enough for humans to use.  Since everyone is affected by water consumptions then we can say that everyone is a stakeholder to this global issue. 

 

Water rights to the River Jordan precipitated the 6-Day War in the Middle East.  For more than 10 years in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Israel and Syria struggled over rights to the waters of the Jordan River. In 1964, Israel began a water program which reduced water flow the the Kingdom of Jordan. Subsequently, Syria and other Arab states began diverting water from one of the Jordan’s tributaries. These activities led to a series of border disputes and, ultimately, the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967 between Israel against Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. During that war, Israel captured the Golan Heights and the site of the Banyas headwaters, which enabled Israel to prevent the diversion of the Banyas by the Syrians. Israel also gained control of the West-Bank, the Jordan River as well as the northern bank of the Yarmouk[1]  Sadly, due to overexploitation and poor regional management, the Jordan River today is dying.[2]

 

I’ve concentrated on three fights going on today. The first is the  Nile River in Africa which affects nine countries; the next is Lake Lanier in the United States, the rights over which have kept Georgia, Alabama and Florida in court cases since the late 80’s.  Finally, I’ll talk about the “wars” over privatization of water.

 

Controlling the Nile

 

While it is agreed that water can not be owned, there are methods in which water supply can be controlled.  Such as the case with the 4,100 mile long Nile River.  In 1929 the colonial power, Britain sponsored an agreement over the usage of the Nile River water. Egypt was given the use of almost 80%, Sudan 10%. The seven upstream countries had to share the remaining 10%. [3]Today, these seven upstream countries – Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Burundi and Rwanda are rejecting that colonial deal and asserting their rights to more water. [4]

 

The British rationale was that the upstream countries had plenty of rainfall, while Egypt and Sudan depended totally on the Nile’s water.  Both of these countries have refused to sign a new 2010 agreement that would give all upstream nations equal access to the Nile River water.[5] Egypt is talking about the use of airpower to threaten Ethiopia.

 

Ethiopia, through the Blue Nile tributary, contributes most of the Nile waters.

 

Figure 1  Map of the Nile River showing countries which draw from it.  The Nile flows from South the North.  It begins as the White Nile in Uganda and flows north into Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

 

About 85% of the Nile waters originate in Ethiopia, which nation sees hydro-power dams as a potential cash cow in exporting electric power.[6]  Construction of the Merowe Dam in Sudan, will irrigate vast sugar and wheat growing areas in the north of this country. The electric power generated from this dam will be sent to the capital city of Khartoum to solve its energy crisis. But this will provoke the upstream nations now unhappy with the old Nile Waters Treaty.

 

To further complicate the political situation, is the coming breakup of Sudan into two nations.  In early 2011, a referendum was held under the UNO. The people of the ‘south Sudan’ voted overwhelmingly to create a new nation.  This new nation will also demand more Nile River water rights. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Battle for Lake Lanier

 

Here in the United States, “Lake Lanier was created by the completion of Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River in 1956, and is also fed by the waters of the Chestatee River. The lake's original and authorized purposes were to provide hydroelectricity and flood control.”[7] But Georgia is now trying to take more water for their city Atlanta, which now has more than 3 million residents that depend on Lake Lanier for their water supply which brings low water levels to Alabama and Florida.

Figure 2 Map showing drainage basin of Lake Lanier

Lake Lanier is actually a reservoir built by the Army Corps of Engineers and is subject to Federal Government Regulation under the Federal Water Supply Act.[9]

Regional Water Wars – The Battle over Water Privatization

The water bottle companies have done so much advertising that they have our society thinking that tap water is unsafe. Many people believe that because the plastic bottle is sealed that it is safe yet studies have shown that tap water has to meet certain rigid regulations; while bottle water is much less regulated. “In fact, unlike tap water, regulations allow bottled water to contain some contamination by E. coli or fecal coli form” [10]

“Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as evidenced by the worldwide recall of Perrier, in which the bottled water was found to have benzene, a poison that has produced cancer in lab animals”

Increasing sales of bottled water have led to increasing privatization of water sources such as springs, lakes, streams and aquifers.  Global bottled water sales have grown dramatically over the past several decades, reaching a valuation of around $60 billion in 2006.  U.S. sales reached around 34 billion liters in 2008.  The global rate of consumption more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2005.  By one estimate, approximately 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per annum in the U.S. and around 200 billion bottles globally.

The volume of pumping has resulted in depletion of water sources and pollution of water sources.  In Mecosta County, Michigan, for example, citizens took the Nestle Company to court, where a judge found that evidence showed that Nestle’s pumping of 400 gallons of water per minute from the Sanctuary Springer Aquifer was depleting the aquifer and harming adjacent wetlands.[11] 

Many other states and communities are fighting Nestle in court over water privatization. 

Nestle, which has 12 U.S. brands of bottled water and almost $4.3 billion in North American sales in 2007 has the ability to fight a lawsuit for years. A small community that might depend on the water that Nestle is taking doesn’t have those types or resources, yet many water bottle companies are arguing that they bring local jobs and tax money to the area. Some other water companies from other countries are looking for cash-strapped governments to take over public water services. Contracts are often 25 to 30 year terms.

Citizens of McCloud, California, for example, discovered in 2003 that Nestle had been granted rights to pump 500 million gallons of spring water annually from the area and use unlimited amounts of water drawn from local aquifers in its operation.  The town fought back, and in 2009 Nestle announced it was withdrawing its proposal to build a water bottling facility in McCloud.[12]

Communities and some state government officials in Florida, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan continue to battle Nestle.[13]

The Environmental Registry in Canada is considering charges that Nestle Canada’s pumping there is causing a change in the groundwater discharge volume to Mill Creek and that Surface water from Mill Creek is being sucked into the groundwater as a direct result of Nestlé’s water taking.

Conflict over privatization is not confined to the United States, or to the Nestle company, and conflict over privatization has even led to riots and deaths.  The residents of Cochambamba, Bolivia, waged a six year war against San Francisco’s Bechtel Corporation over the privatization of its water.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to Bolivia in 1988 required  the city of Cochabamba to sell its public owned water agency.  The contract was signed to sell the Municipal water system to a subsidiary of US based Bechtel Corporation on a 40 year concession.  Under the concession terms, Bechtel had gained rights over all of Cochambamba’s water, over wells that had been dug by local communities, and even over rainwater itself..[14]

After privatization, water bills amounted to 20 or 30 percent of the income of poor households.  Families earning as little as 80 to 100 dollars a month began to be charged 20 dollars a month for water.

Under the concession terms, Bechtel had gained rights over all of Cochambamba’s water, over wells that had been dug by local communities, and even over rainwater itself.

Bechtel was granted the power to seize the homes of violators or delinquent customers.

In 2000, riots broke out in Cochambamba over privatization, and some residents were actually killed.  The dispute was settled in 2006 in this official communique from the Bolivian government and Bechtel:  “The Government of Bolivia and the international shareholders of Aguas del Tunari (which includes Bechtel) declare that the concession was terminated only because of the civil unrest and the state of emergency in Cochabamba and not because of any act done or not done by the international shareholders of Aguas del Tunari.  No one was held to blame. 

Other privatization companies moved in and Cochambama still suffers from water problems. 

In 2007, the New Yorker magazine reported: "in Cochabamba, those who are not on the network and who have no well, pay ten times as much for their water as the relatively wealthy residents who are hooked up", and with no new capital the situation can not be improved.  A local resident complained that water-truck operators "drill polluted water and sell it.

In conclusion, water is something we will be hearing more about as it affects our everyday lives in the future. We need to start thinking about where our water comes from and how it is treated. Water is a necessity.

Learning to conserve water especially in America where the knowledge of water is far misunderstood shall help us overcome issues we may find in the near future. Below is a link on 100 ways to conserve water.  Something for all of us to reference. http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/index.php 

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