Whose Water Is it Anyway?

http://tehelka.com/whose-water-is-it-anyway/?singlepage=1

by smadaan • 13 years ago

58 14 13 years ago

rayiner4• 13 years ago

Water rights are going to be the defining political issue of our time, and the fundamental challenge of our generation. No resource is more necessary and less replaceable. Our reaction to this challenge is going to define our political and social institutions. We will either meet that challenge, or let the usual petty squabbling and infighting and opportunism get in the way and the fallout will either kill or enslave huge swaths of the population.

Jach2• 13 years ago

This seems obviously false to me for several reasons. Are you being serious? Perhaps I'm ignorant and you can enlighten me, but I think the water rights situation in the United States is pretty clear-cut.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

The water rights situation in the U.S. is a total disaster. You have California, Nevada, Arizona, etc, fighting over ever more overstrained output from the Colorado river. Even in wet places like Florida you're having to dig deeper and deeper to hit water (1,000+ feet in some cases). Aquifers in the western midwest are threatened by fracking.

And in the midst of potential scarcity, the law is a total mess. Basically, you can do whatever the hell you want with groundwater as long as you can pump it out, even if it decreases the water table for people around you.

The reaction to this is that some people now see the potential for profit. There are forces that want to privatize water resources, taking water from the places that still have it to water lawns in fucking Scottsdale and Phoenix (which shouldn't even exist). That's where the "slavery" part comes in.

noonespecial• 13 years ago

Its not entirely clear whether you'll even be able to catch the rain that lands on your own roof. Clear as mud (which you might only own the dust part of).

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/water-wars-in-wild-wes...

sgpl• 13 years ago

The question that the author asks is great from a theoretical standpoint but more money provides better access to resources, natural or otherwise, regardless of geographical location. It is true in the African continent as well in North America.

The more interesting take that is almost never discussed in the main-stream media is the high cost associated with providing access to clean water in the Middle East & its implications in the next few decades for the region, and for less prosperous nations that lack capital & resources to secure access to basic human necessities.

For example, UAE & Qatar have among the highest per capita consumption of water in the world, and they would probably top the charts if you discount the vast no. of migrant workers that consume relatively few resources but swell up the population statistics. All this clean water is sourced from the sea, desalinated in energy-intensive plants, which take multiple years to build. When I was living in Qatar, fuel was less expensive than water, partly because Qatar (& UAE) have high oil/gas reserves but mainly because they have to expend a lot of resources to build desalination plants, often licensing technology & building materials from western nations. They can probably scale up water production relatively quickly in the coming few years to keep up with increasing water consumption, however other nations, including India, probably might not be that lucky in securing access to clean water for its citizens at an affordable cost.

igul222• 13 years ago

I don't understand why water is such a scarce resource: the price of water will never increase past the cost of desalinizing seawater with energy from, say, solar panels.

jmathai• 13 years ago

Desalinization is extremely expensive to the point that we can't yet rely on salt water.

The water crisis affects developing nations who can and will be taken advantage of (referred to here as slavery). As the article explains, as water continues to be a scarce resource there becomes more and more power in controlling it.

I think wars over oil are bad but the ethical questions around water are significantly more fundamental.

rogerbinns• 13 years ago

Don't forget transmission costs too since not everywhere is by the coast. I live in a California coastal town that has spent 20 years just to come up with a project plan. They are currently doing an environmental review because it turns out that pumping concentrated brine back into the ocean can have detrimental effects. Read all about it at http://www.scwd2desal.org/

There are other problems too. For example my city has had excellent success in water conservation. However the fixed costs of the water infrastructure haven't changed so they have to keep increasing the water rates as consumption decreases, in order to maintain revenue covering the costs. (Arguably the fixed cost of the bill should be higher and the consumption charge should be lower to better reflect reality but that falls hardest on the poorer households and would discourage conservation by the larger consumers.)

I also recall reading somewhere about other unexpected consequences of conservation - sewage pipes had significantly reduced lifespans because effluent was more concentrated resulting in greater corrosion.

Whose Water Is it Anyway?

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