Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Today, I gave mini English lessons on when to use "who", and how to use possessions appropriately.

I then gave them to following reading to actively read and be ready to answer a question on tomorrow at the beginning of class.

Today, the bottled water industry, which virtually did not exist 10 years ago, is worth US$ 100 billion a year. So who should have control over safe drinking water-the industry, or government?

The Privatization of Water


The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICI)) is a group of more than 80 • journalists from about 40 countries. The group was organized about seven years ago as a project of the Center for Public Integrity. ICIJ operates under the assumption that everything today is global - and in order to get the true picture of any issue, investigative journalism must be carried out globally. In 2002, ICIJ explored the issue of water privatization. As you read its findings, consider whether the privatization of water is an opportunity or challenge of globalization-or both.

In 1990, or 12 years ago, there were private operations in the drinking water field in 12 countries. They are now in 56 countries. If you throw in wastewater services and sanitation, as well as drinking water, they’re in more than 100 countries now. That's a tremendous expansion in just 12 years. If there was a McDonald's sign over this industry, it would read "300 million served." That's the number of people who get their water from
private utilities.
The companies have been quite successful in promoting themselves as the providers of water that is cheaper and more efficient. That's how they sold themselves around the world. What this means is that, in places like Africa, Asia, Latin America, you were formerly paying your water bill to a public utility that was controlled by elected politicians. When it goes private, you're paying it to a private company. There's less transparency,
less accountability, and part of the profits each time you flush the toilet or open the tap are going off to places, most likely Britain and France
that North America is a prime
[This expansion is] also happening in North America. Actually, North America is a prime target, the crown jewel for the water industry. Right now, in Canada and the United States, only 5 per cent of the water market is private; most is public. But we have seen major contracts in places like Atlanta, Indianapolis, Puerto Rico and, here in Canada, in Moncton, Halifax, and Hamilton.
When we started this research, we had 10 [water] companies on our list and now there's six, so there's been tremendous concentration just within the year. Really there are three giants-Vivendi and Suez, both from France, and Thames, which is based in England but owned by a German conglomerate, RWE. We're talking big here. These three companies combined employ twice as many people as the entire Canadian government. Their annual sales, for example: one company in Bolivia, its annual sales are twice the size of the gross national product of the entire country.




- Excerpted from "Water for Profit," CBC News Indepth,
• February 4, 2003, http://www.cbc.ca /news/features /water/qanda .html.



In Bonnyville, you likely have easy access to clean drinking water; yet in many areas of the world, including some First Nations communities in Canada, clean drinking water is not readily available. Some First Nations communities have to boil their water before they can drink it or wash with it. In 2005, almost 1000 residents of the Kashechewan First Nation of Northern Ontario were evacuated to neighbouring towns for treatment of the health effects of using tainted water. Many of them were suffering from skin conditions such as eczema.
In discussions about the economic and social gaps among individuals, communities, or countries, the term disparity is used. Disparity implies a "more or less" comparison or a "high, medium, or low" type of ranking. Statistics are most often used to help understand disparities around the world. Statistics offer numbers based on researched facts as a basis for comparison.

The following 2002 statistics from the World Health Organization show disparity in access to clean drinking water and sewage systems around the world.

· 17% of the world's population (l.1 billion people) did not have access to safe water sources
· Nearly two-thirds of the 1.1 billion people without access to safe water lived in Asia
· In sub-Saharan Africa, 42% of the population did not have access to safe water
· More than half of the population used water piped to their homes or yards which protected their health and freed them (mostly women and girls) from the difficult task of collecting water.

You probably take water for granted. You drink it, prepare food with it, wash with it, and swim in it. But how much water do you really need? The recommended basic water requirement is 50 litres per person per day. Yet the average Canadian uses up to seven times this amount. That's 350 litres of water a day!
Compare this to someone living in Gambia in Africa. He or she has only 4.5 litres of water to use each day. What impact does a lack of fresh water have on individuals and communities in water-stressed regions of the world?
Providing fresh water promises to be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Most experts agree that a global water crisis is looming. Over the next 25 years, the number of people in the world who will face water shortages is expected to increase dramatically. Before the agricultural and industrial revolutions, fewer than one billion people competed for the available fresh water. Today, more than six billion people compete for the same amount of water. This figure will be at least eight billion-and perhaps as high as 10 billion-by the year 2050. How can governments ensure that this growing population has access to fresh water?
Fast Facts: There are six billion people in the world today. According to the United Nations, at least 1.3 billion do not have access to clean drinking water; another 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and water sanitation services.
Many people think of water as a public trust-an essential, life supporting resource for the benefit of everyone that should not be exploited for profit. That is why, in most countries of the world, water services have traditionally been provided by public utilities.
In recent years, however, a new global water industry is seeking to privatize water resources and services in many countries. Local governments often lack the money needed to upgrade aging water infrastructure. Instead, they issue long-term contracts to transnational corporations to manage water services.