The power fight

Water is essential for life. It is a part of the social foundation that human beings need to fulfil their human rights. Even though water covers 75% of our planet, there’s only 1% that we can drink. The definition of drinking water implementation is rather vague and doesn’t specify neither how water needs to be provisioned nor how to secure access to water. The human right to water also doesn’t say much about how to access water or how to provide it to the household, which opens the problem to unlimited interpretations.

The world has been fighting over who will take control over that 1% for decades. From geography to geography the argument evolves in various formats and power distribution setups, making water a vital commodity in the hydro-social circulation process. This means that a constant flow of money and labor is necessary to ensure that water can be accessed by the right people at the right time and can be delivered to the right place (Swyngedouw, 2013, p. 831).

The rise of private corporations, seeking to monetise water for self-profit, has triggered passionate debates around the globe, some of which claim that if water is managed by the private sector then the private sector can take full responsibility for the water supply, quality and distribution of water, which will be more effective than if the water is handled by local citizens via political representatives, because it is obvious that governments are not doing a great job distributing water supplies and ensuring water quality equally throughout neighbourhoods. There are more than a billion people worldwide who still live without decent access to fresh water, which results in severe diseases, including premature mortality (Swyngedouw, 2013, p. 826).

The private sector has funds and labor to manage and distribute water resources, but are they doing it to put an end to water shortages in deprived and poor communities or are they doing it to increase their ROI? The private sector has advantage over the public sector in providing efficient operations in the water distribution and management processes and having the ability to mobilise private finance faster than the state sector does. Yet, it’s the consumers from low-income neighbourhoods who suffer the most by paying too much for the bad quality of water and having troubles accessing supplies of fresh water. The reason is that private water companies are not interested in poor neighbourhoods, they are “cherry picking” the best opportunities to make money by concentrating on the wealthiest neighbourhoods where the infrastructure is already in place and working. Providing water to the poor is too risky and has unpredictable money return which is a turnoff for the private sector.

At the same time we see local communities who oppose market environmentalism and insist on treating water as a human right. In the film Tapped communities across the countries unite in a fight over their water supplies. In the states of Atlanta and North Carolina, U.S., local communities initiated protests and investigations against Coca-Cola. Nestle is also facing opposition from many local communities across the US acquiring lands that has water, pulling it for free and selling it to the residents of the same region in bottles without government-regulated quality controls. There’re simply no good comprehensive policies in place to deal with water supply and water quality (Tapped, 2009).

The philosophy of market environmentalism has been growing in popularity, because through pricing the environmental resources can be looked at as economic goods which means they can enter the marketplace and be better allocated among the stakeholders (Bakker, 2007, p.432). When the water is treated as an economic good, only those who have money can buy it. The right for water needs to come from the need rather than the ability to pay. Yet, now it looks like water can reach only those who can afford it, leaving poor neighbourhoods and regions behind.

Even though market environmentalism is gaining its popularity, the foundation for a proper privatisation doesn’t seem to be laid from legal perspectives. The state doesn’t have much control over water privatisation and there are no laws in place that will be able to govern water companies properly. One would also argue the ability of the state to efficiently regulate the private sector. What will the state do if private water providers go out of business? At the same time, the state is not willing to invest into water supply or expanding water pipe systems so it reaches poor communities.

Political tensions around water supply are unavoidable. However, in the UN Water Report 2012, there was no mentioning of such, but rather the report focused on the population growth, climate change and urbanisation as the main causes of water shortages. But the water problem is not about excessive demographic development, it’s about the dynamics between the power of money and the power over water ownership, which don’t go in balance, as a result making the poor of the world suffer from lack of quality water and regular water supply (Swyngedouw, 2013, p. 829).

An interesting case can be witnessed when responsibility over supply and quality of water is laid upon the poor themselves. For instance, adoption of water filtration devices has been widely spread in the South of the US. The government invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the research of HWTs that low-income communities along the US-Mexico border could use and maintain by themselves (Vandewalle and Jepson, 2015). This type of co-existence of public and private water systems and technological solutions, on the one hand, does provide flexibility and autonomy from the state influence by making water supply more convenient and accessible, as Vandewalle and Jepson note. Local communities in Ahmedabad, India, use water filters assembled by local entrepreneurs who are close to end users and try to build trust with the communities who use filters. On the other hand, when it comes to the management of the quality of water, it’s extremely risky to rely solely on the consumers whose knowledge and education vary and directly influence the ability to maintain the quality of water at a certain level on a regular basis. When we talk about co-existence, it’s not about who supplies water, but more about how the water supply is organised and how the quality of water is overseen. In theory, technology can make water more accessible in poor regions, the question is who will take over responsibility and costs over educating people, technology maintenance and water quality management, which all will include additional expenses and manpower.

As the practice shows private companies do their best to avoid poor areas, and the state, in their turn, looks for the cheapest solutions to supply poor areas with water by introducing new technologies instead of investing into building a proper water supply infrastructure, aka pipes. The most interested party in this debate seems to be the communities. They are the ones most likely to prioritise the quality of water running out of the tap over how much it costs. Alter-globalisation alternatives, such as public-public partnerships, when built on local resource management and local community norms could be the most progressive model of water resource governance that recognises the human right to water and ensures reliable water supply.

These partnerships needs to be localised and consider the specifics of the region. The way public and private sectors perceive water is frequently based on the Western worldview, however the perception can vary from geography to geography. For instance, for the Quechua people water has a spiritual connotation, hence the local communities tend to protect ‘their’ water and keep control over their resources. Local communities in the Global South can follow the decentralised models of water supply organisation which will enable them to gain more control over water thus ensuring regular water supply. Through local reforms that would reflect the peculiarities and the needs of each specific area, a more adequate solutions could be found at lower costs, thus making the ‘one fits all’ approach inapplicable. This model can only give hope that one day water will no longer be a luxury, but rather an accessible resource to all.

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