Cholera and the Age of the Water Barons
The explosive growth of three private water utility companies in the last 10 years raises fears that mankind may be losing control of its most vital resource to a handful of monopolistic corporations. In Europe and North America
http://www.publicintegrity.org/water/

**********************

Etched deeply into the granite walls just inside the entrance of the World Bank headquarters in Washington are the words, "Our dream, a world free of poverty." Earlier this month in Bolivia, the citizens of South America's poorest country sent the bank a message once again that the poor aren't too keen on the part of that dream that involves handing their water over to foreign corporations.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050214/shultz

The impacts of World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs on countries in the Global South have been well-documented in the areas of health and education, food security and jobs. However, less is known about the impacts of the World Bank's latest obsession -- the privatization of water services. In country after country in recent years, the World Bank has been quietly imposing a for-profit system of water delivery, leaving millions of people without access to water.

The Bank is taking advantage of the "Washington Consensus" model of development now adopted by its donor countries and promoting the interests of a handful of transnational water corporations. Instead of using its massive funds to promote expertise in the public sector, thereby acknowledging that water is a human right and an essential public service, the Bank is forcing many countries to commodify their water resources and put them on sale to the highest bidder.

There are ten major corporate players now delivering fresh water services for profit. Between them, the three biggest -- Suez and Vivendi [recently renamed Veolia Environment] of France and RWE-AG of Germany -- deliver water and wastewater services to almost 300 million customers in over 100 countries, and are in a race, along with the others such as Bouygues SAUR, Thames Water (owned by RWE) and Bechtel-United Utilities, to expand to every corner of the globe. Their growth is exponential; a decade ago, they serviced around 51 million people in just 12 countries. And, although less than 10 percent of the world's water systems are currently under private control, at the rate they are expanding, the top three alone will control over 70 percent of the water systems in Europe and North America in a decade.

The revenue growth of the big three has kept apace. Vivendi earned $5 billion a decade ago in its water-related revenues; by 2002, it had increased to over $12 billion. RWE, which moved into the world market with its acquisition of Britain's Thames Water, increased its water revenue a whopping 9,786 percent in 10 years. All three are among the top 100 corporations in the world; together their annual revenues in 2001 were almost $160 billion and growing at ten percent a year -- outpacing the economies of many of the countries in which they operate. They also employ more staff than most governments: Vivendi employs 295,000 worldwide; Suez employs 173,000.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wbank/2004/01waterpriv.htm
********************
The World Bank is the greatest single source of funds for large dam construction, having provided more than US$50 billion (1992 dollars) for construction of more than 500 large dams in 92 countries.
 these large dams have had "extensive negative environmental impacts, destroying forests, wetlands, fisheries, habitat for threatened and endangered species, and increasing the spread of waterborne diseases." In addition the World Bank has "tolerated and thus contributed to gross violations of human rights by governments in the process of implementing Bank-funded large dams, including arbitrary arrests, beatings, rapes, and shootings of peaceful demonstrators."

http://www.whirledbank.org/environment/dams.html

*****************************