Now here is a documentary so good, that I sat up and took 4 pages of notes just so I could clearly convey the scope and impact the doc is attempting to illustrate. Water is something we pay little mind to (in a sense of our meddling in rerouting streams or building dams, or how the lack of would affect our states of humanity), but what would happen if our supply suddenly dried up (as the global warming argument purports) or become privatized to the point where indigenous people are left out of the loop. Can water really be a commodity to be owned and traded or is it a natural resource that should and always will be owned by the people.
I was surprised to find out by the doc that the United States does not keep accurate records of how many people get sick from the water supply. Due to this harrowing fact, each year about 500,000 to 7 million people get sick from the viruses, pathogens, and bacteria in the water. Most of these and other industrial toxins released into the system from corporations are not filtered out of the water supply thus leaving us exposed to chemicals that essentially change our biological makeup. In fact, our exposure to pollutants isn't necessarily exclusive to our consumption of water as a great percentage of exposure comes from the simple act of showering in the morning.
About 70% of water used in the world is by agriculture, 20% by Industry and 10% by us humans. It is due to agriculture that we find most industrial toxins in our drinking water. In fact, if you trace history back far enough, most all chemical components used in agriculture came out of the war system somehow and now reside in our drinking water. Humans aren't the only ones affected as industrial toxins have been found in seals, whales, polar bears, fish, and in the breast milk of Inuit mothers.
because most of our water supply is reserved for agriculture, we find that the most prevalent chemical found in drinking water and surface water is Atrazine, a pesticide (weed killer) manufactured by a Swiss company called Syngenta which happens to be one of the largest agrochemical businesses in the world. What's interesting about Atrazine is that it has been banned for use by the entire European union, with the United States using 80 million pounds in agricultural production. So a product we use that is key in our industries is banned in its own home country - makes sense. The problem with Atrazine is that for the 80 million pounds the United States uses each year, about half a million pounds of it comes back in our rainfall. As well, Atrazine had been found to function as an endocrine disruptor and has clinically been proven to emasculate male frogs and even change the sex of some species of fish from male to female. It is also associated with prostate cancer and breast cancer.
In the last 10 years or so, three major European water distributors have strongholded the market. These companies include, Thames Water, Vivendi, and Suez. Along with the direction of the World Bank, these institutions have egregiously taken over the water market over the entire world. In fact, in 1999 the World Bank forced privatization of the water supply in the township of Cochabamba in Bolivia that resulted in a bloody civil war. Citizens were left with no access to water and sewage systems promised by these big developers. It is estimated that billions upon billions of people have been displaced or disenfranchised over damn construction or the rerouting of rivers and streams. In parts of India and Africa, whole communities are uprooted or written out of the equation in constructing a "for profit" system of water distribution. And still, more than 30,000 people die everyday from water diseases.
As economist and scholars conclude, we are now upon one of the most frightening dilemmas of the 21st century as the supply is not only contaminated, but depleting. Water is a 400 billion dollar global industry only behind electricity and oil. In fact, water has become the world's "blue gold" and those that control it and its supply, inevitably control all of humanity. But is water to be owned and control or provided as a resource for the people?
There was an interesting case study presented in the doc where they investigated Nestle water (owner of such bottled water brands as Arrowhead and Perrier) and how they destroyed the local economy of a small town in Michigan. First of all, the bottled water industry is an even less regulated industry then the industrial water industry. If you didn't know, any bottled water brand that has a stream or pretends to come from a mountain top somewhere generally is filtered tap water. But these brands contain additional chemicals that are even that much more unregulated. Nestle basically went into an existed natural water ecosystem and started pumping and bottling the water for profit. Water that had existed and was free to the people long before they set up shop. It goes without saying that their production led to mud flats and lawsuit from locals who further investigate the fact that Nestle had received all sorts of tax breaks and were doing nothing for the local economy and agriculture. They were merely a siphon profiting off of the land and even when the rivers and streams were level to minimal levels, Nestle won court case after court case allowing them to profit and siphon off the last of the fledgling water ecosystem.
Doc like these always beg the question, what can I do as you quietly contemplate the apocalypse of the world. For California has about 20 something years before the water supply completely goes south, Arizona has 10 and are steadily building golf courses which means that they can slash that to about 5 years. The problem is real, but the core argument remains who has the right to profit from water. Clearly corporations who are solely interested in the interest of their investors cannot champion a change for equal access for humanity so basically it is up to us to lampoon against these powers that be. For one point the doc made that eerily echos the time we live in now is the fact that the level of terrorism and civil unrest skyrockets in times where people feel that there natural resources are being wrestled away from them. At this time, that resource would be oil, but water has a much more powerful affect on it all as without water, we cannot continue to live at all, without water we cannot set up agriculture and therefore industry. Water essentially is the be all and end all of humanity.....and its sadly guided by corporate interest, which are the furthest thing from the interest and will of the people and the development of future generations.
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