Protecting Against Privatization

A Growing Threat to an Essential Resource

Water, like air, is so essential to life that throughout history most societies have treated it as a common, shared resource.

In the United States, most people receive water from a public utility. Public water systems have been one of the great equalizers in societies around the world. But the landscape is rapidly changing.

The United Nations estimates that if current trends continue, by 2025 more than two-thirds of the world's people won't have access to enough water. Corporations are racing to turn our water--something essential for all life on this planet--into a privately held commodity, like oil. It is happening through corporate control of municipal water systems and through water bottling.

Just a handful of corporate giants are driving this global water grab, and their reach is growing. Supplying water is already a $465 billion a year business. Large scale corporate take-over of water resources is happening right now as corporations, with the help of the World Bank and other international financial institutions, are forcing cash strapped-governments to privatize their water, leaving many without basic access. If the private water industry has its way, by 2015 three times as many people around the world will rely on for-profit corporations for water services as in 1999.

In the United States today, 85 percent of people get their water from publicly owned and operated systems. However, the private water industry is expanding, often in the guise of Public-Private Partnerships. Private sector involvement in water services delivery has failed to solve most of the problems of access to water. It has also created new problems such as rate hikes, frequent contract renegotiations, and broken promises to extend or improve water services.