Definition: "World Water War"
"This is a term devised by environmentalists for a type of conflict (most probably a form of guerrilla warfare) due to an acute shortage of water for drinking and irrigation. About 40 per cent of the world’s populations are already affected to some degree, but population growth, climate change and rises in living standards will worsen the situation: the UN Environment Agency warns that almost 3 billion people will be severely short of water within 50 years. Possible flash points have been predicted in the Middle East, parts of Africa and in many of the world’s major river basins, including the Danube. The term has been used for some years to describe disputes in the southern and south-western United States over rights to water extraction from rivers and aquifers." --Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, 1996-2006.

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It's National Drinking Water Week
From May 4-10—Communities across North America will celebrate all those things that "Only Tap Water Delivers" during Drinking Water 2008. Drinking Water Week provides a natural opportunity for all of us to pause and consider the immeasurable value that a safe, reliable water supply plays in our daily lives. We have some of the highest quality water in the world and this week we can all celebrate that achievement and also remind ourselves not to take it for granted.

Troubled Waters
The greatest natural resource in a four-state area, Lake Michigan's safe keeping has increasingly become the center of concern and controversy. Many are asking questions. Is the lake safe for recreation? Is drinking water drawn by numerous communities pure? Is pollution lessening? Who are the polluters? And most of all, what is being done to safeguard the lake?

New European Networks Strengthen Efforts
On March 18 Aqua Publica Europea, an association of public water utilities, was launched at the Water Pavilion in Paris, France. The network will promote efforts to exchange information, expertise and collaboration between public sector water utilities in order to improve water and sanitation service delivery. Publica Europea highlights the many efforts in public systems to improve water services, work for conservation and increase public participation. In addition, European civil society groups have taken steps to initiate a network of social movements, non-profit groups, and associations. The European Network plans to promote water as a fundamental human right and common good. It furthermore plans to work for public, participatory water management. The initiative builds on the extensive experience of its member groups and is planning sustained outreach in Europe this year to strengthen the programme. A number of groups, which are also active on the global level, will work to establish the network. These groups include: Corporate Europe Observatory, CeVI - Comitato Italiano Contratto Mondiale Acqua, France Libertes, Ingenieria sin Fronteras, and Forum Italiano Movimenti sull'acqua.

Prepaid Water Meters
Imagine having to insert a coin in your faucet every time you wanted a glass of water or needed water to cook rice. It sounds absurd but it’s a reality that many poor people are forced to suffer. Imagine having to insert a coin in your faucet every time you wanted a glass of water or needed water to cook rice. It sounds absurd but it’s a reality that many poor people are forced to suffer. There are several types of prepaid water meters but the outcome is the same: If you cannot pay upfront, you are unable to access water. Water from prepaid water meters typically costs more than water billed from the utility. Prepaid water meters are typically used in the poorest areas and, as a result, those in most need are denied access to water. Following privatization of water in the U.K. in the 1990’s, and the higher rates that followed, several utilities installed prepaid water meters in low–income areas. They were subsequently outlawed due to the negative social and economic impact. But prepaid water meters are still widely used in South Africa, as well as in countries such as Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Brazil, Nigeria, and Curacao.

Sedatives and Sex Hormones in Our Water Supply
Saturday was World Water Day, and the United Nations estimates close to 1.5 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water. What about here in the United States? The Associated Press has conducted an extensive investigation into the drinking water in at least twenty-four major American cities across the country, which contain trace amounts of a wide array of pharmaceuticals. The amounts might be small, but scientists are worried about the long-term health and environmental consequences of their presence in the water supplies of some forty-one million Americans.

Retailer Bans Some Plastic Bottles
December 8, 2007 OTTAWA, Dec. 7 — A line of water bottles that had become a symbol of environmental responsibility has been removed from the shelves of Canada’s leading outdoor gear retailer over concerns about a chemical used in its manufacture. Skip to next paragraph Polycarbonate plastic bottles are transparent and almost as hard as glass. The Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, removed the bottles, sold under the brand name Nalgene, and other polycarbonate containers from its 11 large-scale stores on Wednesday. The retailer said that it would not restock the bottles, which are made by Nalge Nunc International in Rochester, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, until Health Canada completed a review of bisphenol-a, or B.P.A., a chemical used to make hard, transparent plastics as well as liners for food cans.

WARNING: The chemical bisphenol A has been known to pose severe health risks to laboratory animals.
It's in baby bottles, soda cans and 93% of us. It causes breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes and hyperactivity in lab animals, according to 80% of studies analyzed by the Journal Sentinel. But U.S. regulators side with the chemical-makers and say it's safe. PART 2

The real cost of bottled water
The Environmental Law Foundation has sued eight bottlers for using words such as "pure" to market water that contains bacteria, arsenic and chlorine. Bottled water is no bargain either: It costs 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water. For the price of one bottle of Evian, you can receive 1,000 gallons of tap water. Clearly, the popularity of bottled water is the result of huge marketing efforts. The global consumption of bottled water reached 41 billion gallons in 2004, up 57 percent in just five years. Even in areas where tap water is clean and safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing -- producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. So what is the real cost of bottled water? Most of the price of a bottle of water goes for its bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing and profit. Transporting bottled water by boat, truck and train involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. More than 5 trillion gallons of bottled water is shipped internationally each year. Here, we can buy water from Fiji (5,455 miles away) or Norway (5,194 miles away) and many other faraway places to satisfy our demand for the chic and exotic. These are truly the Hummers of our bottled-water generation. Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to the Container Recycling Institute. Billions of plastic water bottles end up in landfills each year, taking up valuable landfill space, leaking toxic additives, such as phthalates, into the groundwater and taking 1,000 years to biodegrade. That means bottled water may be harming our future water supply.

Do you use too much water? Find out
If we are to stay within the bounds of our planet's resources, we need to consider much more than just carbon. A next step is water. Many of us in the developed world rarely give it a thought. We turn on our drinking and shower taps, and clean water comes out. We flush our toilets and magically, the waste disappears. We turn on our sprinklers and green lawns abound. We run our dishwaters and washing machines and fill up our pools and hot tubs, often without thought. As our climate crisis becomes a part of daily consciousness, our energy future will need to match our water future. The two are inextricably linked.

No Pristine Oceans Left
February 14, 2008 — No areas of the world's oceans remain completely untouched by humanity's influence, according to a new study. The project revealed that more than 40 percent of the world's marine ecosystems are heavily affected.

World Water Day 2008
'Coping with Water Scarcity' was the theme for World Water Day 2008, which is celebrated each year on 22 March. This year's theme highlighted the increasing significance of water scarcity worldwide and the need for increased integration and cooperation to ensure sustainable, efficient and equitable management of scarce water resources, both at international and local levels. Speaking at the World Water Day celebration at FAO Headquarters in Rome, FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf called coping with water scarcity the “challenge of the 21st century”. The bulk of that challenge lies in finding more effective ways to conserve, use and protect the world’s water resources. Global population is expected to reach 8.1 billion by 2030. To keep pace with the growing demand for food, 14 percent more freshwater will need to be withdrawn for agricultural purposes in the next 30 years.

The Growing Battle for the Right to Water
From Chile to the Philippines to South Africa to her home country of Canada, Maude Barlow is one of a few people who truly understands the scope of the world's water woes. Her newest book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, details her discoveries around the globe about our diminishing water resources, the increasing privatization trend and the grassroots groups that are fighting back against corporate theft, government mismanagement and a changing climate.

Water = Life
Each day all over the United States people have their water turned off in the ultimate gun-to-the-head move by water authorities to make people who are struggling to make ends meet, face death as an alternative to paying their overdue water bill. While there are countries where carrying water to meet ones needs, in order to sustain life, is commonplace, in the United States it is patently impossible to walk to a nearby water source and collect what is needed for survival. We in the United States have come to rely on pipes carrying water to us. We may or may not have hot, as well as cold water, but overall we generally have water provided by a system of pipes if we live in a city. In the country we may have our own well, and that is entirely aside from the questions I want to raise here. The first question is: Do we agree that water is necessary for life? Is this a clever turn of a capitalistic thumb screw (read faucet handle) in the best interests of compliance? Or is it a technique as ethically questionable as waterboarding? If it's all right to subject a possible terrorist to a near death experience in order to make him or her talk, is it all right to subject an ordinary person who is short of funds -- for all necessities, not just water -- to an experience which will end in death if prolonged?

Water makes US troops in Iraq sick (Dick Cheney is still on the payroll of this former company owned by him )
WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says. A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

Sustainable water
Have you ever dreamed of building a rainwater collection system for your home -- one that will make you totally water independent? Sustainable rainwater catch systems are becoming more reliable, and perhaps more affordable, than you might expect.

Senate overrides Bush's veto on water projects
November 8, 2007 – As expected, the U.S. Senate today concluded the first-ever override of one of President George W. Bush’s vetoes, easily approving a bill full of water-related projects across the nation with bipartisan support. The vote was 79-14 two days after the House overrode Bush’s veto of the Water Resources Development Act, which authorizes some $23 billion in projects, including many for the Great Lakes region and Michigan.

Bottled Water Bad for Environment
Bottled water, one of the world's fastest growing beverages, faced fresh criticism this week for contributing towards increased packaging that ends up in landfill sites. The report, published last week, will fuel proposals being considered in the EU that would impose sanctions against companies that do not meet prevention, recycling and reuse targets. Environmental researchers, Worldwatch, said the growing trend towards non-carbonated healthier drinks has led to an increase in the demand for bottled water packaging, the recycling rates of which are falling. While global consumption has doubled between 1997 and 2005, reaching $10bn (€7.4bn) in the US alone, the country sends two million tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottled water packaging to landfill each year.

Much of the U.S. to See Water Shortages
An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year. Across America, the picture is critically clear - the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst. The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

The Bottled Water Backlash
The bottled water industry is on the defensive as restaurant owners and cities are canceling their bottled water contracts and advocating for tap. New it may be, but the eatery has joined a growing backlash against bottled water by restaurants, city governments, religious organizations and ordinary consumers, who reject it on environmental, economic and even moral grounds. At a time when Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming, and consumers are lining up to buy hybrid cars and fluorescent light bulbs to reduce their carbon footprint, they see bottled water as a glaring example of needless environmental waste.

It's Not Even Real Grass
It's not even real grass. But in the midst of what may be the worst drought ever in North Carolina, Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Cha pel Hill are watering the synthetic turfs used by their field hockey teams.Durham, which has about 69 days left in its water supply at the current use rate, has banned all outdoor watering. Duke, which could not supply a number for the gallons used on turf watering, gets a business exemption to spray the field and other places on campus.

World's Water Supply at Risk
One of the world's leading water experts explains how our local water supplies are threatened across North America and across the globe. Surface waters are being polluted, and we are mining our groundwater at unsustainable rates. At the very time when corporations are privatizing everything, our governments are allowing corporations to move in and take over the ownership of essential resources like water. The more our water becomes polluted, the more precious it becomes. The more desperate people are, the more they will pay for their water, and the more money there is to be made from cleaning it up.

Murky Future for Rights Treaty on Water
A proposed international treaty to guarantee water as a basic human right has received mixed reviews from experts, environmentalists and political activists. by Thalif Deen “If someone thinks that a global convention on water as a human right will solve the world’s drinking water problem, I have to say that person is living in cloud cuckooland,” Professor Asit K. Biswas, president of the Mexico-based Third World Centre for Water Management, told IPS. He pointed out that food has been declared a human right for decades, yet hundreds of millions of people are still hungry.0831 02 1 Furthermore, “Anyone who has even marginally followed the discussions at the U.N. on human rights knows that the possibility of getting a convention approved and ratified on water as a human right, in the foreseeable future, is zero,” said Biswas, winner of the 2006 international Water Prize, a prestigious award given by the Stockholm International Water Institute. He pointed out that the main problem today is not water scarcity, but poor water management. “Even if a convention on water as a human right is approved and ratified by an absolute miracle, it will at best improve access to water only marginally.

Pharmaceuticals in Our Water Supply Are Causing Bizarre Mutations to Wildlife
From inter-sex fish in the Potomac River to frog mutations in Wisconsin, federal officials are studying the effects of pharmaceuticals such as pain killers and depression medicine in our water supply.

Aquafina: It's Tap Water
The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water, the brand's owner said Friday. A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices. Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." The new labels will spell out "public water source."

The Environmentalist Within
If farmers continue pumping at current rates, they’ll be forced to revert to dry-land agriculture and livestock grazing within decades. With encouragement from government farm policy, they could make that switch now. Then, limited primarily to domestic uses, the aquifer could continue supporting life on the High Plains for hundreds, if not thousands of years. My father embraced irrigation’s arrival, as did most of our neighbors. The water seemed limitless, and it removed one of the many wild cards that make farming such a gamble. Before and after he died, I complained about the waste. But he left other heirs as well, and not irrigating would have reduced our farm income by two-thirds. I found it very difficult to war against my family’s financial interests. Not only are farmers implicated in environmental problems. Many city dwellers water lush lawns in desert climates, spray those lawns with chemicals every time a dandelion appears, and buy unsustainably grown food that travels 1,500 fuel-consuming miles to reach the supermarket. They drive SUVs to work for companies that also waste resources and pollute. Yet most of us would like a healthy environment and want our resources conserved. A 2005 Roper poll found that 90 percent of SUV owners want government to require higher fuel efficiency. Fortunately, we still live in a democracy where we can choose lawmakers who will pass environmental protections. Only such government action can halt or reverse the damage we’ve done. Instead of demonizing the environmentalists, we should vote for them. But making that choice in the voting booth requires that we acknowledge our own internal debates. Instead of dividing the world into “opposite halves,” we would then begin to appreciate the unity of our self-interest and that of the general good.

Bottled Water Bad for Environment
Bottled water, one of the world's fastest growing beverages, faced fresh criticism this week for contributing towards increased packaging that ends up in landfill sites. The report, published last week, will fuel proposals being considered in the EU that would impose sanctions against companies that do not meet prevention, recycling and reuse targets. Environmental researchers, Worldwatch, said the growing trend towards non-carbonated healthier drinks has led to an increase in the demand for bottled water packaging, the recycling rates of which are falling. While global consumption has doubled between 1997 and 2005, reaching $10bn (€7.4bn) in the US alone, the country sends two million tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottled water packaging to landfill each year.

The Death of the Ocean
We have pushed our seas to the brink. The ocean is vital to life on earth. Can they be saved? Can we be saved? Assaulted by pollution, overfishing, climate change, trash, and noise, our oceans are approaching a point of no return. The health of the world they feed and protect won't be far behind.

The Nestlé Deal of the Century! A 50-year term, renewable for another 50 years The right to take 1,250 gallons per minute of spring water The right to take qualified water on an interim basis from district's springs for bulk delivery to other bottling facilities located in Northern California The right to construct pipelines and a loading facility Use of an unknown quantity of well water for production purposes Exclusive rights to one of the town's three springs One hundred years of exclusivity, during which time no other beverage business of any type may exist in McCloud Use of an undisclosed, perhaps unlimited amount of ground water The right to require the McCloud Community Service District to dispose of process wastewater The right to require the McCloud Community Service District to design, construct and install one or more ground water production wells on the bottling facility site for Nestlé's use as a supply for nonspring water purposes.

Rural Communities Exploited by Nestlé
California—Across the country, multinational corporations are targeting hundreds of rural communities to gain control of their most precious resource. By strong-arming small towns with limited economic means, these corporations are part of a growing trend to privatize public water supplies for economic gain in the ballooning bottled water industry. With sales of over $35 billion worldwide in the bottled water market, corporations are doing whatever it takes to buy up pristine springs in some of our country's most beautiful places. While the companies reap the profits, the local communities and the environment are paying the price. One of the biggest and most voracious of the water gobblers is Nestlé, which controls one-third of the U.S. market and sells 70 different brand names -- such as Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Perrier, Poland Spring and Ice Mountain. Four years ago, residents learned that Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, intended to build a 1 million-square-foot water-bottling facility in McCloud. Without any public input or environmental impact assessment, the multinational was given a 100-year contract to pump 1,600 acre-feet of spring water a year and a seemingly unlimited amount of groundwater. Nestlé is not really the best model of a parent corporation. For over 20 years, it has faced pressure for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in countries with little clean water, which has led to a reduction in breastfeeding and increased risk for infants. According to Global Exchange, the policy "has cost the lives of over 1.5 million infants around the world. Nestlé's irresponsible attitude towards children doesn't end there. As a leading exporter of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, Nestlé has also been implicated in the ongoing abuse and torture of child cocoa laborers." And Nestlé's own contribution to the local economy in McCloud is questionable. In Mecosta County, Mich., where Nestlé opened a spring water bottling plant a few years ago, locals have yet to see the promised economic rewards.

How can state control withdrawals?
When local activists took a multinational corporation to court over its Michigan water bottling operation in 2003, witnesses argued for weeks over whether the plant was harming nearby lakes and streams. The judge finally took a canoe ride to help make up his mind. The two sides ultimately struck a bargain over how much Nestle Waters North America could pump from the ground in Mecosta County for its Ice Mountain label. The Michigan Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on who has legal standing to sue in such disputes. But a state panel may help prevent at least some future court battles by devising a scientific method for answering a crucial question about large-scale water withdrawals: How much is too much?

Water war stories are 'a dime a dozen'
A very special mood is created along many of the region's shorelines during those warm nights when the water is gently lapping against the shore and a loon calls out its goodbye to the day in that endearing, haunting way that loons have. Haunting is a word often used to describe the cry of a loon but it carries even more weight now as changes happening on our planet put animal and plant species in danger, threatening all, including our beloved loons and our coveted waters. "Sooner or later, my contention is, one or more problems are going to emerge as truly severe and there will be all kinds of consequences because of it and we won't have been prepared, we won't have anticipated or done anything to prepare ourselves for it." The danger posed to the Great Lakes is shared by fresh water supplies all over the world. In fact, there are those who believe future world wars will be fought over water. Some are saying that is already happening.

Water Fight
As first conceived, the documentary The Water Front was supposed to look at the issue of privatizing municipal water systems. But it ended up being about much more than that. The subject drew the attention of Montreal filmmaker Liz Miller because, as she says, access to clean and affordable water is expected to become a major issue over the next 20 to 30 years. After considering locations in Africa, Latin America and other parts of the United States, she settled on Michigan's Highland Park as the focus of her film. The fact that people living amid the world's largest supply of fresh water were having their flow shut off intrigued her. But after she started filming more than four years ago, the narrative began to grow in scope and complexity. "I went in there thinking I was going to be telling a story about water," she says. "But then it became a bit of a spider web." It morphed into a story about a "postindustrial city in crisis," with issues of race and class and poverty weaving their way into an increasingly tangled storyline.

The Rongbuk glacier, the biggest glacier on Mount Everest's northern slopes. The photo above was taken in 1968 and the one below was taken this year (2007). Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and Greenpeace

Water sources 'threatened'
The photographs are of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, which is called the world's "third pole" because it contains the biggest fields of ice outside of the Arctic and Antarctic. Its glaciers are the source of Asia's biggest rivers - Yangtze, Yellow, Indus and Ganges. The melting of this glacier is also significant because the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last month that if current trends continue, 80 per cent of the Himalayan glaciers, the water source for a sixth of the world's population, could disappear in 30 years if the current rate of emissions is not reduced.

Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water
The Bush administration is helping multinationals buy U.S. municipal water systems, putting our most important resource in the hands of corporations with no public accountability. The road to privatization is being paved by our own government. The Bush administration is actively working to loosen the hold that cities and towns have over public water, enabling corporations to own the very thing we depend on for survival. The effects of the federal government's actions are being felt all the way down to Conference of Mayors, which has become a "feeding frenzy" for corporations looking to make sure that nothing is left in the public's hands, including clean, affordable water As an example of water privatization, in Felton, Calif., a small regional utility ran the water system until it was purchased in 2001 by California American Water, a subsidiary of American Water, which is a subsidiary of Thames Water in London, which has also become a subsidiary of German giant RWE. Residents in Felton saw their rates skyrocket. A woman who runs a facility for people in need saw her water bill increase from $250 to $1,275 a month. The list of abuses in "Thirst," which represent only a handful of communities, are plentiful: In 2006, two top managers at a Suez/United Water plant in New Jersey were indicted for covering up high radium levels in drinking water ... In Milwaukee, Suez subsidiary United Water discharged more than a million gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan because it had shut down pumps to reduce electricity bills ... In Stockton, Calif., a citizen's watchdog group reported that water leakage doubled in the first year that OMI/Thames took over system operations. In Indianapolis, customer complaints nearly tripled the first year of Veolia's contract, and inadequate maintenance resulted in hundreds of fire hydrants freezing in the winter ... Overall, it has proved to be a recipe for disaster.

You Can't Recall Tap Water
Dogfood still in the bag you can recall, bad laptop batteries you can recall, but tap water sent down the pipe you cannot. That is what happened this morning in Spencer, Massachusetts, as the local water supply was somehow inadvertently dosed with much higher than normal concentrations of Sodium Hydroxide, or Lye. It has sent some folks to the hospital and they are trying to get the lines flushed now. Authorities didn't know about it until people taking showers in the morning started to get burned.

U.S. House passes multibillion water bill
The House overwhelmingly approved a multibillion-dollar bill Thursday stocked with water projects that is opposed by the White House because of its cost. Hundreds of projects - including some for Texas - are in the bill that was approved 394-25. Supporters say the projects are sorely needed to improve access to water supplies, restore coastal shorelines, improve flood control and navigation channels and other needs. But there is disagreement over how much those will cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a cost of $13.2 billion over 15 years, taking into account $3.5 million the federal government is to receive from the city of Paris, Texas, for future water supply storage at costs at Pat Mayse Lake. But the White House set the cost at at least $15 billion. Another $1.5 billion was added to the bill as it went to the House floor. Watchdog groups put the tab even higher. The bill is considered to be pork legislation by fiscal watchdog groups who say the Army Corps of Engineers can't possibly get to all the projects. They have been pushing for better oversight over projects the corps undertakes. "This is more than $16 billion of water pork that's being added to a more than $58 billion backlog of water projects the corps already has on the books," said Steve Ellis, vice president for Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Southwest U.S. Faces Dustbowl With Warming
Changing climate will mean increasing drought in the Southwest — a region where water already is in tight supply — according to a new study. Seager is lead author of the study published online Thursday by the journal Science. Researchers studied 19 computer models of the climate, using data dating back to 1860 and projecting into the future. The same models were used in preparing the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There is a convergence of the models that is very strong and very worrisome. Water is already in short supply in the region with some places, such as Tucson, Arizona, relying primarily on supplies left over from the last ice age some 20,000 years ago.

No Longer Waiting for Rain
Some $2.5 billion in water projects are planned or under way in four states, the biggest expansion in the West’s quest for water in decades. Among them is a proposed 280-mile pipeline that would direct water to Las Vegas from northern Nevada. A proposed reservoir just north of the California-Mexico border would correct an inefficient water delivery system that allows excess water to pass to Mexico. In Yuma, Ariz., federal officials have restarted an idled desalination plant, long seen as a white elephant from a bygone era, partly in the hope of purifying salty underground water for neighboring towns. The scramble for water is driven by the realities of population growth, political pressure and the hard truth that the Colorado River, a 1,400-mile-long silver thread of snowmelt and a lifeline for more than 20 million people in seven states, is providing much less water than it had. According to long-term projections, the mountain snows that feed the Colorado River will melt faster and evaporate in greater amounts with rising global temperatures, providing stress to the waterway even without drought. This year, the spring runoff is expected to be about half its long-term average.

Worldwide, Communities Demand Access to Water
Holding scores of rallies and sit-ins around world, environmental and community groups Thursday made fresh calls for drastic actions to protect the world’s rivers and other water resources from the devastating impact of global warming, pollution, and toxic waste. From Bangladesh to Burkina Faso and Mali to Mozambique, activists reminded the world that there are still more than 1 billion people who have no access to safe drinking water and another 2 billion–one third of the world’s population–without any access to adequate sanitation. Experts say if appropriate actions are not taken on time to deal with the threat of global warming, this figure could increase to more than 3 billion in less than 20 years.

A Drop In The Bucket
Currently 1.2 billion citizens of the planet lack access to safe water for drinking, cooking and bathing. By 2025, the United Nations estimates this number could swell to more than five billion unless we change the rules by which water is distributed. The unquenched thirst of corporations for water is one of the reasons for the water crisis. Agriculture, much of it fueled by profit-driven, industrialized food systems around the world, uses about 70% of the world’s available water. Industry uses another 20%, leaving just 10% for people and their communities. As corporations have claimed a growing share of water in recent decades, the water remaining available to people has rapidly diminished. Coke, Nestlé and Starbucks are each part of the new water-industrial-complex, buying water cheaply, then bottling it and selling it as a high profit-margin consumer product. Bottled water is the fastest growing – and one of the most profitable – segments of the beverage market. Nestlé has responded to critics of its water practices with the argument that the corporation doesn’t really use that much. In reality, Nestlé is the world’s leading bottler of water, using 1.86 liters of water for each 1 liter bottle it sells. This extra .86 liters of wastage, multiplied by the 22 billion liters of water that Nestlé bottles annually, would provide enough water to meet the annual needs of more than one million desperately thirsty people around the world.

Bush Administration Marks World Water Day by Shirking Responsibility to Fund Clean and Safe Water for America
Just four years after one of the nation’s most ambitious private water contracts collapsed in Atlanta, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is hosting a conference there to promote the private sector involvement in water. The Bush administration’s focus on the private sector flies in the face of a long-standing federal commitment to partnering with states and municipalities to provide safe and affordable water for Americans. Many cities across the country are operating drinking water and sewage systems designed and built before World War I. As our nation’s pipes and treatment systems age, more and more sewage spills into our streams, rivers, lakes and ocean, creating serious public health hazards. And population growth puts even more strain on our water systems. According to EPA’s most recent assessment, 45 percent of America’s are “impaired” – unsafe for fishing, swimming, or drinking.

Dirty Water Kills 5,000 Children a Day
Nearly two million children a year die for want of clean water and proper sanitation while the world's poor often pay more for their water than people in Britain or the US, according to a major new report. The Middle East is the world's most "water-stressed" region, with Palestinians, especially in Gaza, suffering the most. Climate change is likely to hit the developing world hardest, reducing the availability of water, lowering agricultural productivity and leaving millions hungry. Changing weather patterns are already causing drought in countries such as Kenya, Mali and Zimbabwe, but wet areas are likely to become wetter still, causing devastating floods and loss of life.

The Water Barons: A Handful of Corporations Seek to Privatize the World's Water
The privatization of public water systems around the world, driven by a handful of European corporations and the World Bank, is dramatically increasing despite sometimes tragic results, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. The report, by the Center's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, shows that the world's three largest private water utility companies have since 1990 expanded into nearly every region of the world, raising concerns that a few private companies... 

Corporate Water
Threats to Our Water NAFTA, SPP, Atlantica, Super-Corridors is based on extensive research by Dr. Janet M Eaton, SCC Canadian liaison to the Water Privatization Task Force. This 55 slide presentation lays out the nature of the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP) agreed to by the US, Canada and Mexico; NAFTA Super-Corridors; and cross border regions like Atlantica; and shows how each of these threaten our water.

Water for People and Nature: The Story of Corporate Water Privatization
This power point presentation has been developed by the Sierra Club's Corporate Accountability Committee as an educational tool for interested citizens and activists wishing to learn more about water privatization issues and for use by communities mobilizing to prevent corporate privatization of their water services and resources.

K Street Lobbyists Carry Water for OPEC
Disclosure filings indicate massive spending on lobbying by oil-rich countries. As a trading bloc, The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is one of the world's most powerful. Yet political influence here in Washington, even for the oil-rich nations, does not come cheap. Since mid-2003, OPEC members will have spent at least $13.3 million in lobbying the U.S. federal government and currying favor with the American public, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of foreign agent lobbying disclosure records filed with the U.S. Department of Justic... 

The Bottled Water Lie
The corporations that sell bottled water are depleting natural resources, jacking up prices, and lying when they tell you their water is purer and tastes better than the stuff that comes out of the tap.

All Wet
A debate on water privatization. Everyone knows that water is the stuff of life. But is it best viewed as a commodity or as part of the commons? Should providing safe, affordable water be the role of governments, corporations, or partnerships between the two?

Metered to Death: How a Water Experiment Caused Riots and a Cholera Epidemic
Every morning, as the sun rises over the Indian Ocean and paints the sky a brilliant yellow, David Radebe crosses the N2 freeway into another world. Winding like a black snake through green sugar cane fields and over rolling hills, the freeway divides two very different communities along KwaZulu-Natal's spectacular Dolphin Coast. Thirty miles (50 kilometers) north of the harbor city of Durban, the turnoff to the right leads to the resort towns of Ballito Bay, Salt Rock and Tinley Manor...

Inter-American Development Bank Water and Sanitation Sector Loans Promoting Privatization
The IDB is the “world bank” for the Latin American and Caribbean region. It is the largest and oldest regional development bank in the world. For the last decade the IDB has been the largest multilateral lender of development finance for Latin America and the Caribbean – larger than the World Bank – with a cumulative lending of $128.5 billion and an annual lending capacity of $8.5 billion. In 2003, IDB lending operations totalled $6.9 billion in the region while World Bank lending operations equalled $5.8 billion. The IDB holds about $58 billion of debt in the region, giving the institution tremendous power to impose lending conditions such as privatization, trade liberalization and de-regulation. The project pipeline for 2003-2005 includes about $3.1 billion for water and sanitation. A recent review of the IDB water and sanitation portfolio from 1996-2003, undertaken by Public Citizen’s Water for All campaign, yielded the following conclusions.

Half an Olympic-size swimming pool per person
Few of us realise how much water it takes to get us through the day. On average, we drink no more than five litres. Even after washing and flushing the toilet, we usually consume no more than 150 litres. But when we add in the water needed to grow what we eat and drink, the numbers soar.

Water Peace VS Water Wars
The right to water is common to all beings and this right is a gift of creation, it is a natural right, a birth right. Common rights go hand in hand with common responsibility -- a common responsibility to conserve water, use it sustainably, and share it equitably. The culture of conservation, and the commons have supported human life and all life on earth for millennia. Maldevelopment, which increased commerce but decreased life's renewable potential and created huge social and environmental externalities has left us with polluted rivers, depleted ground water, desertified soils and thirsty people. Even the Sacred Ganges is not safe from the privatization madness. Suez the world's largest water corporation is setting up a plant in Delhi at Sonia Vihar to sell 635 million litres of Ganges water to the rich people of Delhi.

Bottled water industry is the thin edge of water privatization
The United Church of Canada is urging its three million members across the country to avoid bottled water as a way of taking a personal stand against water privatization. Thunder Bay (22 August 2006) - The United Church of Canada Delegates at the general church council in Thunder Bay passed a resolution declaring water "a sacred gift that connects all life" and proclaiming that its "value to the common good must take priority over commercial interests."

Turning on Canada's Tap?
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down with President George W. Bush in their first White house meeting July 6th, one 'unmentionable' items on their agenda may well have been the question of bulk water exports from Canada...

Taking Action for basic services in South Africa
On Wednesday (6 September), thousands of residents from Orange Farm (a township south of Johannesburg) blockaded the Golden Highway, a major arterial road in Gauteng, demanding that the Mayor of Johannesburg, Amos Masondo, avail himself to residents in order to address the lack of service delivery in the township. Over many months, residents, with the help of the Orange Farm Water Crisis Committee (OWCC), have been coming together in house meetings to share their problems around accessing basic services. While Orange Farm was declared a township in 1997, with the promise of improved access to basic services, almost ten years later there are still parts that do not have electricity or access to proper water supplies.

Water Wars of the Near Future
A good many prominent people have recently forecast, with a sort of gloomy relish, that wars will one day, probably soon, break out over water. These forecasts come not just from the environmental movement, which has long become accustomed to fits of Malthusian soothsaying, but from officials of so sober an institution as the World Bank. Ismail Serageldin, the bank's vice president for environmental affairs and chairman of the World Water Commission, stated bluntly a few years ago that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water."Everywhere you look, there are signs that the global water supply is in peril.

Stop Suez
A global campaign against the water transnational Suez has now been lauched in many countries around the world! For more information on the Suez campaign go to www.stopsuez.org . One of the first coordinated global actions was at the Suez annual meeting in Paris, France on May 13th where representatives from countries struggling against the exploitative policies of Suez gathered to protest, hold press conferences and meet with French civil society groups. Boston Common Assets, a Suez shareholder, used their proxy to present a declaration of grievances from civil society groups in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the Philippines and Uruguay at the Suez Shareholder meeting. The website is trilingual: Spanish - www.fuerasuez.org , French - www.arretonssuez.org , and English - www.stopsuez.org

Liquid Gold?
Oil used to be called liquid gold. Not more than a week after I started this series on investing in Wood, Water and Air, articles began showing up all over the place about the shortage of all three

Save America's Water
A national a website dedicated to helping people in the United States prevent damage to their communities' water supplies by multinational water bottling companies.

Satellite quartet to track Earth's most precious resource
A successful launch next month of a nearly $1 billion satellite would mark the fourth spacecraft NASA has sent into orbit recently to follow the global movement of life's most precious resource: water.

States fear being drained by bottled-water giants
There is a growing national backlash against bottled water companies, especially market giant Perrier, by communities that fear local wells, wetlands and streams will be drained dry in the quest for corporate profits.

GOP floats tough rules for Lakes
A state Senate task force proposed a sweeping plan to protect the Great Lakes by regulating ground water withdrawals, pumping more money into ending sewage overflows and putting a moratorium on oil and gas drilling, among other steps.

Spin the Bottle
Perrier didn't reckon on an angry citizenry when it looked to expand into the Midwest

Can You Drink It?
1995 Humans can go for a month without eating food, but see what happens if they are denied water for even a week. According to scientists, water is the single most important element in supporting human life.

As bottled water sales rise, so does opposition to plants
Bottled water companies are facing some opposition in communities across the nation that fear local wells, wetlands and streams are being drained dry in the pursuit of corporate profits.

Is There Enough Groundwater?
In “Groundwater 101,” you learn that when you pump groundwater from a well, the groundwater levels in and around the well decline. This “drawdown” in the water levels is the driving force that brings groundwater to the well from the surrounding ground. The size of the “drawdown cone,” which results from pumping, depends on three main factors: the nature of the geologic formation (called an “aquifer”) that provides the groundwater, the pumping rate from the well, and how long the pumping continues. Drawdown cones commonly range in depth from a few to hundreds of feet at the pumping well and extend to thousands of feet away from the pumping well.

Our Dying Planet: Oyster Bay Listed As Endangered Refuge
N.Y. -- The Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge, near Theodore Roosevelt's summer White House, is among the nation's 10 most endangered wildlife refuges, according to a new report from an environmental group. The area was on the second annual list because of environmental threats from storm water runoff and sewage discharge from motorboats, as well as inadequate septic systems. Defenders of Wildlife blamed air and water pollution, overdevelopment and government neglect for many of the problems at the refuges across the country.

Engines of Ecotourism, Understaffed Wildlife Refuges Still at Risk
National Wildlife Refuges in the continental United States contribute $1.4 billion to our national economy and create nearly 24,000 jobs, the secretary said. "They generate $151 million in tax revenue for local, state and federal government. But conservationists issued a stern warning about threats to many of the refuges. At Nevada's Moapa National Wildlife Refuge, a proposal to drill for water for Las Vegas may suck dry the refuge’s springs, which are vital for endangered species. A massive water diversion in California could completely alter the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. Oil and gas wells in the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge have killed vegetation and polluted marshland habitat, while the Bush administration and many in Congress push plans to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Annex Revisions 2005 and the Diversion of the Common Waters of the Great Lakes: Ban or Flood Gate
Imagine the eight governors of the Great Lakes Sates agreeing that the waters of the Great Lakes Basin are not a public resource or that the citizens’ right to boat, fish, and swim and enjoy these waters is no longer protected by the public trust imposed on these waters by the U.S. Supreme Court over 100 years ago. Imagine that governors were charged by federal law with the responsibility of coming up with a standard to guide them in any decision to prohibit diversions and exports out of the Basin. Imagine that the governors agree to allow diversions to counties outside of the Basin. Imagine later the county boundary is ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court under the commerce clause, so the water can be diverted even further away from the Great Lakes. Imagine the Chicago diversion has been turned into the Illinois diversion. Only a tiny sliver of Chicago and Illinois is within the Great Lakes Basin, the rest of the state drains to the Mississippi and western U.S. Imagine that the governors agree that private corporations, who pump or withdraw water, put it in small containers and truck or ship it anywhere they want, are not diverting or exporting the water. Well, guess what? Your imagination may turn into reality in the form of federal law and an international agreement with the provinces of Canada, if citizens of the Great Lakes States do not email, fax, or mail comments to the Council of Great Lakes Governors.

Bad to the Last Drop
It's summertime, and odds are that at some point during your day you'll reach for a nice cold bottle of water. But before you do, you might want to consider the results of an experiment I conducted with some friends one summer evening last year. On the table were 10 bottles of water, several rows of glasses and some paper for recording our impressions. We were to evaluate samples from each bottle for appearance, odor, flavor, mouth, feel and aftertaste - and our aim was to identify the interloper among the famous names. One of our bottles had been filled from the tap. Would we spot it?

BBC: Face the Facts
Nestle stand accused of plundering valuable water supplies in a unique Brazilian spa resort in order to supply its Pure Life brand of table water. Locals say they are suffering as the quality of the spa waters diminish, despite Nestle's reassurance that its operations would have a negligible effect. [NOTE: The same thing has happened at the Nestle Waters Michigan division by the name of Ice Mountain]

Ten Thirsty Children
The world's children feel the burden of the world's water crisis more than anyone. Each day it is estimated that 6,000 people lose their lives to diarrheal disease. Most of these people are children under the age of five.

Cholera and the Age of the Water Barons
When cholera appeared on South Africa's Dolphin Coast in August 2000, officials first assumed it was just another of the sporadic outbreaks that have long stricken the country's eastern seaboard. But as the epidemic spread, it turned out to be a chronicle of death foretold by blind ideology.

Lead Levels in Water Misrepresented Across U.S.
Cities across the country are manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk of drinking more of the contaminant than their suppliers are reporting.

Groundwater regulations guard against overuse, misuse
Water moves in a cycle, falling from the sky, percolating into soil, flowing to river or lake, transpiring through leaf and evaporating back to sky. Drawing on the reality that it is movable by its nature, as a basic legal principle water is not owned by anyone. We do have the right to use it, but the right must be exercised reasonably. It is in effect a commons to be shared. As with any common or public resource -- such as air, parkland or cultural heritage -- its shared use requires limits, the most fundamental of which is to ensure the public resource is not diminished or destroyed.

$160 billion needed to offset water wars
The annual $80 billion global investment in water infrastructure needs to double.

Water firm sued for contaminated water deaths
The lawsuit filed by the victims' families says that water is a product, not a service.

Western water interests engage in tug-of-war
Colorado River states want to protect their water source, which may be at Nevada's expense.

Great Lakes Water Management Initiative
A central and continuing issue of common concern to the Great Lakes Governors is the health and maintenance of the waters of the Great Lakes. To this end, the Council assists the Governors in coordinating activities under the Great Lakes Charter of 1985, a voluntary agreement through which the Great Lakes States and Provinces cooperatively manage the waters of the Great Lakes

Dry West Sends Out for Water
From here to El Paso, communities in the midst of huge development booms expect to spend fortunes to lay pipes from new water sources, some of them hundreds of miles away.The proposed projects also reflect a hard fact about the driest region in the USA: All the water in the West's rivers, creeks, lakes and reservoirs is taken, committed to present needs. To fill the taps of burgeoning cities and suburbs, the West is looking elsewhere - and in many cases, looking deeper.

Public Citizen: Water for All Web Site
As the world's water becomes scarcer and corporations seek to exploit this scarcity for profit, people around the world are losing ownership and control of water resources on which they depend. Water is a human right; to the extent one has the right to live, one has the right to water.

Reckless Abandon: How the Bush Administration is Exposing America's Waters to Harm
Every region of the country contains unique types of aquatic ecosystems — some so rare that they are found only in part of a single state. These wetlands, ponds, lakes, and streams support a wide variety of life, supply clean drinking water, sustain imperiled species, provide natural flood control, and perform a host of other functions important to both human and wildlife communities. These waters are varied in their names and descriptions — including arroyos, prairie potholes, intermittent and ephemeral streams, bogs, playa lakes, forested vernal pools, and desert springs — but all are an important part of our natural and cultural heritage.

Water and Sustainability
Water is one of our most precious and valuable resources. Without a gallon a day, you will perish. Plants and animals need a reliable supply, and it is critical to growing crops and etching chips. Despite its importance, over 1 billion people around the globe still lack access to clean water and thousands perish daily for lack of it.

An Idyll Interrupted
After a Hiker Noticed That a Local Creek Had Dried Up, He Suspected His Neighbor Was Operating a Commercial Spring-Water Business. And Then Things Got Ugly in Idyllwild.

Stuporfund
According to the U.S. EPA's own data, some 111 of the nation's 1,230 Superfund toxic-waste sites may pose ongoing risks to nearby residents of exposure to health-threatening chemicals, and 251 may pose ongoing risks to groundwater.

Batting Cleanup
According to a federal audit released yesterday, efforts to clean up the contaminated groundwater around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southern Washington state have basically sucked -- "largely ineffective" was the report's more delicate phrase.

The New Economy of Water
What's driving privatization? Who are the main players? What different forms of public-private partnership are possible? Tackle this complex issue in our primer on the dynamics of water privatization.

Privatization: A Fight Back Handbook
It may be possible to stop privatization through litigation. States such as Washington, Ohio and Hawaii have used pre-existing laws to mount successful legal challenges to contracting out public services. In two of these states, the supreme courts ruled that contracting out public services violated civil service regulations or relevant state constitutions.

Mother Earth Water Walk
"In about 30 years, if we humans continue with our negligence, an ounce of drinking water will cost the same as an ounce of gold." Water is essential to survival and health. Everything is related to water. This is proportionate to Mother Earth. Our food sources use water to be nutritious. The medicine wheel teachings are about balance in life.

Nestle Waters Corporation: a World View
What we have learned is that international trade agreements can be invoked once an international corporation (like Nestle) has negotiated a deal to extract water and sell it. It becomes a commodity on the international market and cannot be later protected by state or local law.

Women Challenging Water Privatization: Country Testimonies
Over many years women have disproportionately experienced the burdens of water privatization policies in the form of enormous price hikes, water cut-offs, deteriorating water quality, and health and sanitation hazards. In response, women have been central to the struggle against the sale of public water services to corporations, through lobbying local authorities and national ministries, forming local women's associations, and organizing marches, pickets, public education campaigns, and direct actions.

Billions of water bottles
Last year alone, more than 93 billion plastic water containers wound up in U.S. landfills. Laid end-to-end, that's enough bottles to:

• Reach the moon and back 38 times;
• Circle the equator 371 times;
• Stretch the length of the world's longest river, the Nile, 2,222 times;
• Line Interstate 80 from New York to San Francisco 3,196 times;

Despite the hype, bottled water is neither cleaner nor greener than tap water
Whether a consumer is shopping in a supermarket or a health food store, working out in a fitness center, eating in a restaurant or grabbing some quick refreshment on the go, he or she will likely be tempted to buy bottled water. The product comes in an ever-growing variety of sizes and shapes, including one bottle that looks like a drop of water with a golden cap. Some fine hotels now offer the services of "water sommeliers" to advise diners on which water to drink with different courses.

Appeals court says Ice Mountain plant can continue water withdrawals (for the time being)
Mecosta County Circuit Judge Lawrence C. Root ruled Nov. 25 that Ice Mountain's water use endangered streams, lakes and wetlands, and ordered the Nestle subsidiary to stop pumping by Tuesday. On Friday, Root denied Ice Mountain's request to temporarily suspend his order during the appeals process, which he said could take three to five years. The appeals court granted the stay of Root's order Tuesday with the condition that Ice Mountain's pumping output not exceed 250 gallons per minute on a monthly average basis.

Judge Orders Shutdown at Nestle Waters Operation in Michigan (USA)
November 25 – Judge Root’s ruling sets a precedent and clarifies many critical facets of Michigan water law, including important protections for the State’s lakes, streams, and wetlands, which form an essential role in Michigan’s natural resources, recreation, tourism, and economy. The ruling confined itself to the specific relationship between the pumping and diversion of water from the shallow unconfined aquifer that is part of nearby wetlands, two lakes, and the Dead Stream, a stream that Judge Root said “is not dead” but “a complex and beautiful ecosystem.”

Judge Orders Nestle Corporation to Shut Down the Pumps Feeding the Ice Mountain Water Bottling Factory
A judge on Tuesday ordered the company that produces Ice Mountain bottled water to stop drawing water from wells in a Michigan county, saying the operation has damaged the environment.

Water for All
Access to clean and affordable water is essential for life, yet the world’s largest corporations are seeking to increase their profits by commodifying and privatizing this precious resource. Public Citizen is campaigning to protect universal access to clean and affordable drinking water by keeping it in public hands.

Billions May Suffer Severe Water Shortages as Global Warming Melts Glaciers
Billions of people will face severe water shortages as glaciers around the world melt unless governments take urgent action to tackle global warming. "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.

Bottled Water Fraud
Is the bottled water that cost you $1.79 really any better than filling your cup from the tap? It may not be. During the dramatic rise in bottled water consumption in the last ten years, some bottling companies have stretched their original water sources so thin they began to use common groundwater and wells near hazardous contamination, all the while touting their bottled water as naturally pure and pristine.

Poland Spring Settles Class-Action Lawsuit
Poland Spring Water Co. agrees to settle a class-action suit alleging that its water doesn't come from a spring and isn't pure. (a division of Nestle Wates) agrees to step up quality control and pay $10 million over the next five years in discounts to consumers and contributions to charities.

Nestle is sued for false claims about bottled water
Food giant Nestle has duped Americans who buy Poland Spring bottled water into thinking it comes from a lush spring tucked deep in the woods of Maine, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday. Instead, most of the sources for Poland Spring are either surrounded by asphalt parking lots or potentially dangerous contamination, according to the lawsuit filed against a subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle SA.

Thirst for profit
For the past few years, the WTO have been trying to expand its snappily titled General Agreement on Trades in Services (or GATS), whose “privatise everything!” small print is a wet dream for corporations. The EU is using GATS to target everything from public healthcare, welfare, water, energy and transport networks in the developing world as its new golden goose. Its 109 ‘requests’ for developing countries was a strictly classified document that got leaked onto the web. But why do they want to keep it a secret? One of those requests from the EU is that 72 developing countries make commitments to pen up their water supplies to competition.

Blacks oppose water privatization, from Detroit to South Africa
Two years ago, 300 people died from the worst outbreak of cholera in modern South African history. Bowing to pressure from behemoth international corporations that want to provide water to the world for profit, time-locks had been placed on public water pumps and the citizens of Ngwelezane, a rural township, were forced to use the polluted water of a nearby lake from which they contracted the cholera. Two hundred thousand more people were impacted by the crisis. This past year in Detroit, Mich., a city that is 83 percent Black, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off water service to 40,000 households in the middle of the winter.

Evian or Naive?

Your Bottled Water May Not Be What You Think
Is the bottled water that cost you $1.79 really any better than filling your cup from the tap? It may not be. During the dramatic rise in bottled water consumption in the last ten years, some bottling companies have stretched their original water sources so thin they began to use common groundwater and wells near hazardous contamination, all the while touting their bottled water as naturally pure and pristine.

Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
This is the online version of NRDC's March 1999 petition to the FDA and attached report on the results of our four-year study of the bottled water industry, including its bacterial and chemical contamination problems. The petition and report find major gaps in bottled water regulation and conclude that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water.

Eau, Neau!
Ever wonder what's in those little bottles of water you pick up at the health club or those gallon jugs you lug home from the supermarket?

Few Fined for Polluting Water
About a quarter of the nation's largest industrial plants and water treatment facilities are in serious violation of pollution standards at any one time, yet only a fraction of them face formal enforcement actions, according to an Environmental Protection Agency internal study.

Don't pollute the enemy's water
I have a suggestion to make, a very serious suggestion, that at the next big Security Council meeting the United States put up a resolution binding all member nations to renounce from now on one weapon of war - the useful tactic of shutting off or polluting an enemy's supply of drinking water.

Alternative water future outlined
The world's water resources must become a common global good under a new international system anchored in a constitutional right to water for all, an alternative water forum resolved here at the weekend.

'Real conflicts' over world's water
Former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev has told the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto that a failure to reverse the global water crisis could lead to "real conflicts" in the future.

'Ideological battle' over world's water
Pressure groups have claimed that private companies are unlikely to provide the solutions for the millions of poor people without adequate clean water and decent sanitation.

Water shortages 'foster terrorism'
A lack of water is a key factor in encouraging terrorism, the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto has heard.

Dams stir water arguments
The debate, as ever, is centred on the seemingly polarised conflict between the needs for a clean source of energy and the massive social and environmental damage that dams can cause.

Golf 'is water hazard'
The United States is the most wasteful water user in the world, according to figures released at the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan. And a key reason behind America's placing is the country's love of golf.

"Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil."
The report documents the collapse of showcase privatizations in Buenos Aires, Manila, and Atlanta. Controversial privatizations in Bolivia, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom are also analyzed.

"Suez: A Corporate Profile" "Suez: A Corporate Profile"
An inside look at the water strategy of the global water conglome