When Blue Becomes Gold.

A worldwide water crisis looming on the horizon is expected to reach dire proportions within the next ten to thirty years. Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project, notes that it takes 1,000 tons of water to raise one ton of grain. At this rate, the 2.4 billion people projected to be added to the world's population over the next thirty years would require a quantity of water equal to twenty Nile Rivers or ninety-seven Colorado Rivers. And today's agriculture already uses about 65 percent of the Earth's available fresh water.

Early signs of this imminent crisis have appeared in some Middle Eastern countries, as well as parts of Asia and Africa, in the form of water shortages and threats of water wars. And in the United States, according to a June 16, 2000, New York Times report, there is widespread drought from Florida to New Orleans, in the hills of western Texas, and in Georgia and Alabama. Even in Nebraska, the governor has had to declare a state of emergency because of drought.

The United States as a whole, however, is lucky in that its agricultural production is large and varied, with a multitude of grain and produce grown and distributed coast to coast. But in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, the agriculture is limited and therefore more endangered by severe drought conditions. A report in the May 12, 2000, National Catholic Reporter notes that this is "the third year without significant rain." And the United Nations warns that sixteen million people are currently facing hunger in those countries as a result.

Beyond drought, there is another aspect of the impending water crisis. "Water tables are falling on every continent--in the southern Great Plains of the United States, the southwestern United States, most of India, and almost everywhere in China that the land is flat," warns the World Watch Institute in its 1999 State of the World report. In the north China plain, for example, the water table is dropping an average of five feet per year. Furthermore, many rivers are running dry before they reach the sea, including the Colorado, a river in Asia that used to feed the Aral Sea, the Yellow River in China, and others that periodically run dry.

A survey by Sandra Postel of the world use of irrigated water reveals:

   At present 34 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are classified
   as water-stressed and all but two of them--South Africa and Syria--are net
   importers of grain. Collectively, these water-stressed countries import
   nearly fifty million tons of grain a year--about a quarter of the total
   traded internationally.

Postel concludes that by the year 2025 the number of people living in such water-impoverished countries "is projected to climb from 470 million to 3 billion," that there won't be "enough exportable grain to meet increased import demands at a price the poorer countries can afford," and that it is "a risky strategy" to rely on the "generosity" of grain surplus nations to fill food gaps.

Thus the implications of this water crisis are enormous and stretch from national and global security problems to efforts by major corporations to privatize and control entire water systems.

The security threat is revealed by the actions of the U.S. National Intelligence Agency (the umbrella over all intelligence organizations in the United States) in having monitored the water situation in China and other countries for a number of years. China, which depends on irrigated land to produce 70 percent of its grain, is facing the problem of some major rivers running dry and aquifers being depleted, forcing it to import more food and pay more for grain on the world market at a time when grain may be in short supply. What are the risks to global stability when suppliers must choose between China, India, Pakistan, Middle Eastern countries, and others when they all require or demand grain at the same time? Will nations go to war to feed their people? Will Americans accept food rationing in order to feed millions of people worldwide?

As for the move toward privatizing water, major corporations have forged ahead in the hope of making huge profits from water sales. One of their efforts is to get global authorization to sell water across national boundaries, using supertankers. Another effort is to privatize municipal water plants and distribution systems.

These efforts have received scant media attention. One little-noticed report in the August 22, 1999, Washington Post quoted Tom Osborne, a member of Newfoundland's legislature, as saying, "Water is the commodity of the next century and those who possess it and control it could be in a position to control the world's economy." Another blurb by John Tagliabue in the August 24, 1999, business section of the New York Times reported:

   A brawl between two giant French utilities for a piece of the fast-growing
   United States water-treatment market intensified ... when Suez Lyonnaise
   Des Eaux S.A. agreed to buy a leading American water-management business
   [United Water] for $1 billion.... Donald L. Correll, United Water's chief
   executive ... said that 85 percent of the United States population
   continued to be served by municipal water companies, and roughly 95 percent
   of waste-water treatment remained in municipal hands, and that many of
   those services would be transferred to private contractors in coming years.

Maude Barlow with the Council of Canadians first called attention to the corporate drive to privatize water in a special report, Blue Gold, released in June 1999 by the International Forum on Globalization. That report indicates that corporate goals are included in the language of World Trade Organization agreements. The key term is national treatment (also found in the North American Free Trade Agreement), which means that, when it comes to trade, a country cannot treat a foreign company differently than a domestic company "under like circumstances." In other words, a government cannot reduce or restrict the export of a resource such as water to another signatory nation once the export flow has been established. According to Barlow, "If the export of water were to commence between NAFTA countries, the tap couldn't be turned off even if new evidence found that massive movement of water were harmful to the environment."

It is important to remember that water is not only a resource or commodity; it is also a service. And the General Agreements on Trade in Services can be expanded to include public services. So if towns and cities are defined as service providers (an issue that was to be renegotiated at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle this past November), then, according to Ruth Caplan, cochair of the Corporate Globalization Positive Alternatives Campaign, "It would be discriminatory to distinguish between private and municipal providers. Municipalities could be forced to compete with foreign corporations in providing these services, under the principle of national treatment." They "would no longer have a choice about whether they want their services to remain in the public sector or not."

An illustration of what can happen when control of water is privatized occurred in Bolivia in 1999 when the Bolivian government, under pressure from the World Bank, sold the city of Cochabamba's public water system to a consortium of British-led private investors. The consortium--consisting of the Italian company, Edison; the U.S. company, Bechtel Enterprises Holdings; a Spanish firm; and two Bolivian companies--raised the price of water by 35 percent. Residents of Cochabamba (the third largest city in a poor landlocked country of eight million people), many of whom live on less than $100 a month, began a general strike, blockading roads and transportation and effectively shutting down the city for almost a week. Farmers' unions also blocked several national highways in five of the nine provinces. When the military tried to clear the highways, a number of civilians were shot and killed. Finally, according to an April 11, 2000, New York Times report, the international consortium decided to pull out of Bolivia.

And still the corporate drive for privatization hasn't ended--despite the fact that there are too many poor people around the world who can't afford to provide profits to the water companies. Are there any solutions to this crisis?

Desalination of ocean water is one suggestion frequently proffered. But even assuming this is possible on a large scale, and assuming it thus becomes feasible to supply all seacoast cities and industries with fresh water, that doesn't automatically provide for transportation of water hundreds of miles to interior agricultural areas in North America, Africa, or elsewhere.

In the end, there appears to be no substitute for an effort long called for but inadequately made: that of decreasing the growth of population. Such an effort requires widespread availability and use of contraceptives, voluntary sterilization of women and men who have already produced children, legalized abortion, and equality for women where patriarchy exists. Though the Vatican and allied religious groups continue to fight such measures, even while claiming that the culture of death they promote is really pro-life, religious dogma must not be allowed to create conditions that will lead to massive suffering and death over a shortage of water.

John M. Swomley has a Ph.D. in political science and international affairs from the University of Colorado and is professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri.