A Toronto Star editorial recently called a frightening irony to our attention. On the same day a UN report warned that over a billion people world wide face growing shortages of water, American scientists announced they found evidence of water on Enceladus, a far-off moon of Saturn. Some have argued that global warming may already be inducing long term changes in weather patterns resulting in many regional droughts. Regardless of the truth of this contention, there are more immediate and obvious challenges to the amount and integrity of our water supply. If we do not address these concerns, we might consider booking reservations on the next shuttle to Saturn.
Since 9/11, the media have been full of speculation regarding oil shortages and wars over oil. On a daily basis, however, far more people are dying from shortages of drinkable water, and tensions over access to water are intensifying even in the so called developed world. Struggles over water have long been keys to the history of the Southwestern United States.
Maine, Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and the Great Lake States all appear to be well endowed with clean fresh water, yet appearances can be deceiving. Here in Maine, mercury pollution makes some of our fresh water fish dangerous to eat. Long battles have been waged against corporations that would treat our rivers as free sinks for industrial discharges.
The Midwest, home to the world’s most expansive source of fresh water, demonstrates a prototypically American pattern of water use and a “what me worry” mentality. Five years ago, the New York Times reported a story that has become all too typical. “In the Chicago area, hydrologists say land that would normally soak in water and replenish aquifers has been paved over, effectively blocking water needed to refill the underground basins. In past shortages, people tapped into Lake Michigan. When Chicago was coming of age, it reversed the flow of the Chicago River, draining water out of Lake Michigan instead of into it. Now, the so-called collar counties around Chicago, which are expected to add 1.3 million people over the next 18 years, find that the lake is off limits and supplies below ground are not being adequately replenished.”
The crisis of adequate and healthful water supplies has led to one familiar response—turn water into another commodity the sources of which are privately owned and which is bought and sold for a profit. The biologist Garret Hardin’s famous argument regarding the tragedy of the commons is often cited to suggest that aquifers and other water sources will be protected and used wisely and efficiently only when they are owned by and individuals or corporation for which they can be a source of profit.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0401-28.htm
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