The hands on the tap

Updated September 29, 2010 12:11:46

A question:

What is supplied "the way nature intended it to be", "to keep your family hydrated"; "keeps hardworking Australians hydrated" and is "the affordable hydration solution for your workplace"?

The answer is not Neverfail Springwater, as Coca-Cola Amatil would have you believe. Neither is it Mount Franklin, Pump, Pumped, Vitamin Water, Peat Ridge Springs, Smart Water, Propel Mind, or Propel Body; not even SoBe Lifewater with (or without) Purevia, or any of the myriad, slickly marketed brands produced by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and their cohorts.

Initially marketed as convenience drinks, bottled water products are now being promoted as the solution to concerns regarding the availability and security of safe drinking water. Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are making great efforts to convince the public that they have recently developed a profound sense of corporate responsibility in that regard.

PepsiCo is a major funder of the Safe Water Network, an organisation whose priority is to "develop and implement new market-based solutions that deliver safe, affordable and sustainable drinking water solutions to the world's poor"; whilst Coca-Cola trumpets its support of healthy watersheds and sustainable community water programs.

Sadly the environment records of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo do not stand close scrutiny: both have been accused of causing serious environmental degradation overseas as a result of their thirst for cheap supplies of the vast amounts of water required by their production processes; both stand charged with serious depletion of groundwater reserves and environmental contamination, with major impacts on local communities.

There is an increasing realisation that these serious regional issues are but symptoms of a concerted and high stakes global campaign for private control of public water supplies. Questions are being raised as to whether it is in any way appropriate to treat water as a commodity.

There is also a mountain of evidence that a market-based approach to the provision of water to domestic users in a cost-effective and reliable manner, as promulgated by the Safe Water Network, has been conspicuous by its failure.

However, in many parts of the world, as a result of inept, compromised or simply lazy governance, the private sector is being allowed to assume the role of self-appointed guardian and distributor of global water supplies. The public is already paying an unacceptably high price for this service, provided by multinationals such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Veolia and Suez-Lyonnaise.

The cost may be as basic as the price of bottled water, between 240 and 10,000 times that of tap water, or the unacceptable energy required for its production: it has been estimated that next to every two litre bottle of water on the supermarket shelf there lurks a virtual doppelganger, containing the half litre of oil equivalent to the energy utilised in the manufacture and distribution of the actual product.

There are also profound and well-documented philosophical and practical reasons why the public must wrest control of water supplies from the clutches of these companies.

Even the World Bank, an institution that believes that "providing clean water and sanitation services is a real business opportunity", acknowledges that the process of privatisation can create corrupt incentives.

The corporate culpability of the previous incarnations of Veolia and Suez has been well detailed and includes bribery, extortion and social irresponsibility.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been accused of marketing product with pesticide content around 300 times greater than the maximum acceptable levels stipulated by the European Union. For many years Coca-Cola has been embroiled in legal actions surrounding its alleged connection with the murder of union officials in its bottling plants in Guatemala and Colombia.

The home page of the Safe Water Network displays an image of a woman who has just purchased water at a WaterHealth Centre in Pokuase, Ghana. Interestingly, no mention is made of the price levied or what percentage of the average local household income this purchase represented.

Communities on every continent have felt the brunt of water privatisation: typically dramatic escalation in charges, contaminated supplies and unreliable service - and the recurrent stench of corrupt corporate practice.

The United Nations estimates that two-thirds of the world's population will not have reliable supplies of potable water by 2025 if current trends are not reversed.

Australian households risk a similar fate, as a result of ill-conceived infrastructure development and consumption-based marketeering; the inevitable and inexorable escalation of delivery charges supposedly being the cost of ensuring our water security. Victorian Water Minister, Tim Holding, has stated that he expects the price of water to domestic users to double over the next few years.

The paradox is that in paying our water bills, we directly promote the share price of multinational corporations intent on tightening their grip on public water supplies.

To return to the question posed in the introduction to this article, the correct answer is of course tap-water, our water; publicly-controlled, potable water; high quality water provided direct to your tap by responsible government-owned and operated utilities at a fraction of the price of the commercial product - and independent of public-private partnerships, sweetheart deals and corrupt practices.

Electorates must inform those who aspire to represent them in parliament, that they are no longer willing to support oft-criticised and undoubtedly questionable relationships between the public and private sectors when it comes to provision of essential services. Equally, governments must resist the budgetary temptation to cede even partial control of such utilities in order to be able to offer meaningless electoral sweeteners.

In 2002, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights declared access to water a human right, stating that water is a social and cultural good. Sadly, it is a right that is increasingly ignored, as big business seeks to profit from the global water crisis.

A truly objective appraisal of the problem would surely recommend that free trade agreements, which give the likes of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo largely unfettered access to water in many parts of the world, including Australia, should be renegotiated to protect this increasingly threatened and essential natural resource.

Such an analysis would also be likely to conclude that administrations, which have entered into PPP partnerships with respect to water supply, should extract themselves from relevant contracts. In most instances this would entail significant cost; however it is a price that the general public should be prepared to pay to ensure transparent and non-exploitative management of water: its water.

Ian Douglas is an environmentalist and public water rights advocate

Topics: business-economics-and-finance, community-and-society, environment, health

First posted May 25, 2010 13:30:00