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The colossal cost of fixing crumbling water infrastructure in the developed world has opened the door to government privatization.

Water delivery systems in the industrial world are in “dire need” of repair, says a report released Monday by CIBC World Markets Inc. At least one-fifth of America's municipal wastewater treatment facilities do not comply with federal regulations and in some U.S. cities, more than half of the water headed to consumers is lost along the way.

CIBC economist Benjamin Tal, author of the “Tapping into Water” report, estimates it will take “hundreds of billions of dollars” to fix dated water infrastructure in North America and Europe.

Federal governments are not rushing to fix the infrastructure and municipalities lack the means to do so. “As a result, governments are now much more open to the notion of privatizing their water infrastructure which, in turn, is providing a substantial boost to the private water industry,” Mr. Tal said.

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Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank: With the Reagan-Thatcher kind of ideology, it became all focused on - let the markets take care of it, let trade take care of it, liberalize, privatize, get inflation down, minimize the role of the government and lo and behold, growth will occur and poverty will be reduced.

MAUDE BARLOW, The National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians:
I think it’s very important for people in the north to understand that people in the south are not the problem in terms of water. We’re the water guzzlers, we in Canada, we in the United States, we in Europe... it’s our lifestyle, it’s corporate farming, it’s industry, it’s the fact that you can’t go home tonight and count the outlets you have in your house for water.

Jeffrey Sachs, Economist: Where did this urge for privatization come from? Party ideology. And it’s partly powerful corporate interests, no doubt. A lot of very powerful companies got into the game. They thought they were going to get involved. They find their ways into the votes of the IMF and the World Bank. There’s no doubt about it. (Read the interview with Jeffrey Sachs online)

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"It was devastating. The cost has been tremendous… This has been a real disaster zone." "We're looking at about just below 300 people dying from cholera, about 350,000 people were affected," says Hemson. "There were emergency hospitals set up, tents were set up for re-hydration purposes. It was devastating. The cost has been tremendous – and just imagine if all that money had been spent on providing services in the first place. This has been a real disaster zone."

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Water Wars
Writer (2005)

Who owns the rain? This 7-minute segment explains corporate and government efforts to privatize water and the suffering and violence that results for citizens of India, Bolivia, and Detroit, Michigan. Segment features interviews with Vandana Shiva, Maude Barlow and Winona Hauter discussing greed vs. need and the giveaway of the commons. View 7 min QuickTime clip

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Pipe Dreams - failure of the private sector to invest in water (pdf)

The report examines the empirical evidence on the numbers of new connections to water supply resulting from investment by private sector water companies in developing countries

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How public funding - not privatization - is the answer for U.S. water systems

[ 28 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

The ideology goes like this:

The Three D's

1. Defund it,
2. Defame it
3. Deregulate and privatize it

[ 28 November 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

However, could you please fix your link to edit out sidescroll issues?