Marti Oakley (c)copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved

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Eventually, as water pirates gain more ground, it will happen to you; you will be denied the right to water.  Have you considered what you would do if your right to water was suddenly taken away?  What if the cost of water was so prohibitive you couldn’t afford it?  What would you do then?  How will you feel when water exists near you but you can’t have it because it was sold to someone or someplace else willing to pay more for it? 

Water is a basic human need.  Without it, not one of us could survive so I suppose it should come as no surprise that around the world and right here at home, a monumental effort is afoot to seize the rights to water, by private investors and mega corporations.  Behind the scenes and out of sight of the public eye, corporations are buying up the rights to aquifers, ground water and even surface waters and they are doing so by contracting with your state agencies and departments (all duly chartered and for-profit corporations) who are more than willing to sell off your natural right to water, for a price of course.

Concealing their identity by continuing to present themselves as “public service” agencies, state corporations or (your state) department of whatever, (little mini-governments) are actively engaging in business plans that will see your natural right to water sold off to the highest bidder.  It’s a win/win for the state corporation and the private contracting corporation.  The cost of privatizing and the infrastructure required to set up, maintain and operate the system is borne by the taxpaying public.  All the profits from the newly created system are collected by the investor.  But as long as water comes out of your tap, who cares? Right?

Here is where you should care.  Once the water supply is privatized and now officially owned by the private investor, there are no caps on how much that water coming out of your tap is going to cost you, nor will there be any enforceable regulations regarding water quality or quantity.  Should you object to either quality, quantity, price (or all of them) and try to assert your right to water at a reasonable price, and, even assuming for one moment that the courts would allow you standing to express those objections, the corporations raking in the profits will simply file under NAFTA/CAFTA “barrier to trade’ protections and take their profit that way.

Chapter 7 of NAFTA and Chapter 11 of CAFTA both make it abundantly clear that the rights of the investor are to be held above the rights of the individual or nation/state at all times.  Any attempts to create environmental protection laws or any other laws or regulations in any other area of endeavor that would exclude the activities of any corporation that has declared they intend to set up business in your community for any reason and for profit can and are deemed unlawful or illegal and can and will be struck down.  They can and do sue the federal and state governments (other corporations) for profit projections they claim would have been realized if you had not prevented them from raping and pillaging your community or state.  You, however, have no protections whatsoever. 

The attempts to seize control and ownership of the water supply here in the US, is taking place right now.  While we are diverted with mindless and mind numbing if not torturous and unreadable legislation, our state agencies (those mini corporate governments) are busy selling the rights to aquifers, ground water and in some instances, even entertaining the thought of selling surface water rights. 

In Texas, http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/bulksales/texas/

“T. Boone Pickens his partners currently own water rights for 150 acres and are seeking rights for 50 more. This could translate into pumping as much as 65 billion gallons of water a year. The conservation district attempted to reduce the planned extraction amount by half but was not able to because Pickens’ pumping level was equal to that of the Canadian River Authority, a public water supplier that has already been granted an approval to pump.”

In Nevada, Debbie Coffey found that:

“Vidler purchased Fish Springs Ranch in 2000. In 2005, the Washoe County Commission voted to give Vidler a Special-Use Permit for a 28 mile pipeline to import 8,000 acre feet of water annually from the Honey Lake Basin to areas north of Reno.

In May, 2006, the BLM granted Fish Springs Ranch a right-of-way grant (N-76800) for the pipline on private and public land.”

Vidler’s website states that Fish Springs Ranch “possesses significant, high-quality, sustainable groundwater resources” and that its goal is to “convert and deliver these agricultural water rights into municipal uses in the growing Truckee Meadows.” So, they’re “converting” (taking away) agricultural water rights. Are the “sustainable groundwater resources” they’re drilling into taking away any water from any aquifers?

Vidler explained its new public-private partnership: “In 2007, the $80 million infrastructure was dedicated by Vidler to Washoe County for it’s ownership, operation and maintenance. The water delivered through the pipeline is ‘banked’ by Washoe County Water Resources pending the eventual sale by Vidler to a third party.”

In California, Dan Bacher reports on the creation of the Delta Watermaster:

“Carolee Krieger, executive director of the California Water Impact Network, disagreed, saying that the legislation creating the Watermaster position was developed under pressure of west side San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests to “harass” Delta farmers.

“The Delta Watermaster is tasked with essentially harassing longstanding senior water right holders in the Delta whose rights go back in many cases 130 years,” said Krieger. “Corporate agribusiness interests with junior water rights are driving the recent Delta water legislation and the Water Master’s agenda with complaints that the Water Master must investigate.” (emphasis mine)

Although these are only a few instances of water theft for corporate profit, they should be seen for what they represent; the converting of water and the rights to it from one of human necessity for survival to one of corporate commodity for profit.  It is happening in virtually every state with the complicity of state agencies and the blessings of state and federal governments. 

I cannot personally imagine what kind of person it would take to engage in an enterprise that is known from the onset, will cause human grief and misery.  History is strewn with such people and they walk among us now; usually with Inc. behind their names.  “Corporation” is the façade that the truly greedy and psychopathic individuals hide behind, each of them believing they are somehow not personally responsible for what the corporation does when in fact, they are the corporation. 

Got water?   

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NAFTA’s Investor “Rights”  

NAFTA’S THREAT TO  SOVEREIGNTY AND DEMOCRACY:

The Record of NAFTA Chapter 11

Investor-State Cases (pdf)

1994-2005

Pony up! Cattlemen by Debbie Coffey

T. Boone Pickens: Water pirate

California creates Delta Watermaster by Dan Bacher