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Water: For sale!

© Bob Ewing

As I sit typing this, I am watching the rain glide across the Harbour. It will hit here in about 10 seconds. Ah, there it is. We needed rain, last weekend a weeks long heat wave ended but little rain fell. The water table was low and the city was on a water alert, it still is. You can only water on alternate days, a wise precaution. Water is a precious resource that we have allowed to be made a commodity. This commodity status means that water can be bought and sold and thereby, controlled.

Water is essential to the food production system, as I have explored in previous articles. So when we allow this resouce to become a commodity we enable some entity to control the supply as they, if they possess sufficent resources, can buy, water and sell it to whom they choose at a price they set. Recently, here in Northwestern Ontario, the provincial government granted a private company a liscense to export water from Lake Superior. Public pressure created a situation were the transaction was reversed. This may only be a temporary respite.

How much clean and safe water exists? The supply is not unlimited and while in some areas there may appear to be a surplus because so much is used for recreatinal activities such as water parks. While in other areas there is a serious shortage. This shortage or drought has a direct impact on the cost of the food you will be buying.

The supply is not unlimited and the struggle for control has begun. How long will it be before there is a coin meter on every faucet in your house? No coin, no water. We take water for garnted, it falls freely from the sky or flows from our taps, at least in North America. How much time have you spent thinking about the global water cycle?

We need to educate ourselves about what is happening to the water on our planet, within our country and in our community. We, also, need to look at how we use water each day. We cannot afford to accept water as a commodity but need to insist that, it remain a natural resource, that belongs to us all, with no one able to control its distrubtion. This requires an alert public, one that pays attention to changes that are taking place, even as you read this.