Welcome to H20 Weekly

Welcome to H2O Weekly

Issue # 005

H2O Weekly is an on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities about the world’s water on a weekly basis. A full article is followed by other brief headings are followed by links that will take you to the complete article you are interested in.

Created & Published by Lorne Haveruk C.I.D., C.I.C., C.L.I.A

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Weekly Water Events

1. Water conservation will soon be tied to world peace.

2. World Water Forum Not the Place to Solve Global Water Crisis.
3. Canada Conflict -- Water Shortage versus Land Owners versus Petroleum Profits?
4. Monopoly Privatization versus Human Freedom
5. Himalayan Water Problem

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1. Water conservation will soon be tied to world peace

During the observance of World Water Day two weeks ago, the United Nations issued its second World Water Development Report.

It warns that 17 percent of the planet's population (1.1 billion people) lack access to safe drinking water, and 40 percent (2.6 billion) lack basic sanitation. The report estimates that these problems account for the loss of 1.6 million lives each year.

Essential to life itself, water is also a key resource of the agricultural and manufacturing industries. Serious conflicts over shared water supplies have already arisen between the U.S. and Mexico, between Israel, Jordan and Palestine, and between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It won't be long before water replaces oil as a root cause of international conflict and terrorism. Between 70 percent and 80 percent …

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060407/OPINION10/604070328/1111/OPINION

2. World Water Forum Not the Place to Solve Global Water Crisis

Laura Carlsen - 4/2/2006 Water flooded Mexico City the week of March 16-22, causing major traffic jams, provoking street confrontations, and filling the pages of local and international newspapers. Yet nothing got wet. Test

The long-awaited Fourth World Water Forum brought over 10,000 participants and hundreds of journalists to town to discuss what organizers hoped would be the mostly technical issues of a shared human concern. The event is organized every three years by the World Water Council, which groups 300 organizations including industry representatives, government ministries, international institutions, and …

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1691&cid=10&sid=48

3. Canada Conflict -- Water Shortage versus Land Owners versus Petroleum Profits?

by "Margo McDiarmid"

Water is one of Canada's greatest resources and in recent years, one of its greatest concerns. In Alberta, the oil industry has an insatiable thirst for water. But the water reserves are drying up and ranchers are saying enough is enough.

Alberta is finally emerging from a long dry winter. But there's not much of a welcome in a land gasping for water. Three years of record dry are taking their toll in in the province. Towns are already rationing water. Reservoirs normally full of water are running dry.

This reservoir near Lethbridge usually has spring run off from the Rocky Mountains. This year, you can walk right across without getting …

How should natural resources be allocated -- by corporate monopoly, by government bureaucracy, or by a better system? What would that better system look like? Tell The Progress Report:

http://www.progress.org/water16.htm

4. Monopoly Privatization versus Human Freedom

Commodifying Rain?

Turbulence in the "global water market"! Water is essential to human life, and is limited in supply. Sounds like an important economic topic, but to some it just sounds like a good way to gain power over others.

Should natural resources be turned into a private monopoly? Here are some excerpts from an article that recently appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique.

by Franck Poupeau

Increasing criticism of market globalisation has not prevented multinationals from controlling such essentials as water, where there are vast potential profits. The market is dominated by two big French multinationals, Vivendi-Generale des eaux and Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux. They now control nearly 40% of the world market, each serving, and billing, more than 110m people, Vivendi in 100 countries, Lyonnaise in 130.

They owe their profits to the deregulation of trade and the complicity of international institutions and national governments. The market is all the more lucrative because the water services in nearly 85% …

http://www.progress.org/water15.htm

5. Himalayan Water Problem

by Mahesh Uniyal

FARAKKA, India - A mere trickle when it arises in a far away Himalayan glacier, the river Ganges is a vast sea of churning water as it cascades through the giant sluice gates which regulate its flow past this small eastern Indian town.

For nearly a quarter century, the sluices of the barrage at Farakka, close to the India-Bangladesh border, have been one of South Asia's trickiest diplomatic disputes.

The river divides into two main streams at Farakka, one flowing southwards to the eastern Indian port of Calcutta and the other eastward to Bangladesh. The barrage aims to ensure enough water in the south flowing tributary to keep one of India's main foreign trade ports navigable during the dry pre-monsoon months.

Despite a landmark deal three years ago on sharing the dry season flows at Farakka, India and Bangladesh continue to squabble over what many consider to be the region's richest natural resource.

The surrounding countryside is covered with lush green paddy farms and water bodies teeming with fish. The Ganges and its Himalayan tributaries have blessed the plains of north India and Bangladesh with farm abundance, giving huge profits to landlords, agribusiness corporations and major food exporters.

This is why years of diplomatic negotiations and various accords on sharing the river water have failed to fully satisfy Bangladesh where the Farakka barrage fires political passions.

The dispute centres on …

http://www.progress.org/water13.htm

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Thanks for reading!

Lorne Haveruk, CID, CIC, CLIA, WCP
Editors, H20 News
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