The Corporate Takeover Of Water In Ecuador

[RestoreGore]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/67451/

One in six people in the world lack access to clean and affordable water and thousands of children die of water-borne diseases every day. Corporations like Bechtel seek to profit from providing water, often elevating the narrow interests of their companies and its shareholders above social and environmental goals.

Around the world, privatization has led to large rate hikes and poor service, while failing to solve the problem of lack of access, leaving the poorest communities with no water services at all. This is now the situation in Guayaquil, where there are hundreds of documented complaints due to the appalling service of Bechtel's subsidiary, Interagua. The citizens of Guayaquil are demanding accountability from the company. The Ecuadorian regulatory agency ECAPAG recently fined Interagua $1.5 million for contractual violations. Some of the problems that face the residents of Guayaquil include:


Repeated residential water cut-offs for up to 12, 24, 36, or more hours at a time;
Residential water cut-offs of senior citizens and other low-income residents due to inability to pay;
Failure to extend services to specific neighborhoods, especially low-income residents;
Failure to meet contractual obligations for rehabilitation and expansion of services;
Public health problems such as respiratory problems, skin rashes, asthma, and diarrhea due to lack of wastewater treatment;
Environmental contamination due to lack of wastewater treatment;
Hepatitis A outbreak in June 2005, investigated by local authorities (Commission for Civic Control and the Public Defender's office) who concluded that the water was "not apt for human consumption."

The Failure

In 2006, Bechtel's total revenue amounted to $20.5 billion and Interagua's operations in Guayaquil earned $300 million in revenue. Despite these profits, Interagua did not initiate the rehabilitation programs it had promised. Concerns and complaints mounted over broken pipelines, floods due to malfunctioning sewage systems, exorbitant water rates, poor water quality, and environmental damage due to the lack of wastewater treatment during this first five-year period.

END OF EXCERPT.

And of course we see the World Bank involved in this. How soon before Atlanta's water is the same? ENRON was already in Texas years ago before their "fall." Just how much will rich bastards like the Bushes and others control before the boom is lowered regarding our water resources because people are more interested in their distractions than heeding the warnings and the clear signs and do all they can to conserve this resource and hold corporations accountable for sucking this Earth dry?

This isn't going to go away if we just sit and do nothing. Do you even know who really owns your water? I have to give credit to the people of South America. At least they fight for what they consider to be important, unlike here where it appears the majority don't care as long as it comes out of the tap, and even if it didn't, would rather spend 5.00 for a crappy bottle of reprocessed tap water than admit they have to do something about it.

Perhaps should the same scenario happen here over a great swath of this country and we are all paying Coca Cola through the nose for our water, people on the whole will understand what we are allowing to take place elsewhere in this world. I have said it before and I will say it again, the World Bank needs to be investigated for the "loans" they give to these poor countries based on the stipulations attached to them that keep them in debt and do nothing to give them opportunity or true control of their resources. Water is a human right, and it is time to stand up for it all over this world before the haves own it all and we are paying through the nose for even one drop...and we all know where that will lead.

[RestoreGore]

1. Bechtel: Profiting from Destruction

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6975

[alarimer]

2. T. Boone Pickens new venture

Is all about water. He is buying up groundwater (where the rule in Texas is he who has the biggest straw wins) to sell to municipalities like Dallas and El Paso. The Ogalalla (not sure how to spell that) aquifer does not replenish very quickly, if at all. It is already depleted.

But it's an old story, pitting rural areas and agriculture against cities which insist on having green lawns and golf courses even in the desert.

[RestoreGore]

4. He was recently in China too

http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/2007/07/19/pickens-goes-to-china/

I think this is also one reason why the rich bastards in Congress won't move on really clamping down on legislation. They want it to get worse to take adbantage of it for their own profit.

[riverdeep]

3. The IMF and the World Bank are vehicles for corporations to extract resources.

Or in this case, to charge for them. Basically, a complex financial scheme that declares economic warfare on a developing nation, while ostensibly remaining under the cloak of charity or humanitarianism. Not a surprise that Wolfowitz was considered for the job.

[flashl]

5. Water based economies

Water - Liquid Gold

Corporate Players

[RestoreGore]

6. Yes, this is definitely part of the plan

And it's happening right under our noses.