~Water~The Pristine Element

Water ~ In Essence ~

2004-07-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Water is the tie that binds every living thing on our planet, making this a vast and challenging category for exploration.

Consider the adult human body is 50 to 65 percent water; a child’s body is approximately 75 percent water.

An estimated 1.2 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Lack of clean drinking water leads to nearly 250 million cases of water-related disease each year and between 5 and 10 million deaths.

The Earth has 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers of water, only 2.5 percent of which is fresh water. Of this fresh water, only one tenth of one percent (0.01 percent) is usable in a renewable fashion.

Freshwater is essential for human survival. However, in many parts of the world, poor water quality poses a major threat to human health. An estimated 1.2 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water and must depend on water sources contaminated with bacterial and viral organisms, or industrial waste. Over the next twenty years, 76 million people could die from water related diseases – that’s more than are threatened by the global AIDS pandemic -- unless major changes are made.

The human body can live for weeks without food, but it can only survive a few days without water. The average person needs a minimum of 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of water per day to survive in a moderate climate at an average activity level. The minimum amount recommended for drinking, cooking, bathing, and sanitation totals 50 liters (13 gallons). The average person in the United States uses between 250 to 300 liters (65 to 78 gallons) per day for these tasks. The average person in the Netherlands uses 104 liters (27 gallons) per day for the same tasks. The average person in Somalia uses only 8.9 liters (2.3 gallons) per day, much less than the recommended minimum.

In the United States, water pollution is threatening the survival of fish and amphibians. In 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey tested 139 rivers and found that 80 percent showed evidence of drugs, hormones, and products such as soaps and perfumes. Here is one example of how this consumer waste can harm wildlife: A scientist at the University of Georgia has found that exposure to anti-depressants in the water can cause tadpoles (immature frogs) to grow much more slowly than normal. Frogs often lay their eggs in temporary wetlands, such as ponds that dry up in the summer. If the tadpoles that hatch from the eggs are exposed to anti-depressants, they may take a longer time to develop into frogs. If the tadpoles don’t become frogs before the wetlands evaporate, they die prematurely, before they can lay their own eggs, changing the ecosystem.

The WaterWheel {a money maker brand} is a low-cost water pump that is changing the lives of East African farmers. In the past, farmers had to rely on carrying buckets of water to irrigate their crops. The WaterWheel allows farmers to water larger pieces of land more easily. It is a portable pump that is powered entirely by foot. It can transport water from a depth of 23 feet and spray it up to 46 feet in the air. Farmers who use the MoneyMaker are able to switch from “subsistence farming” (growing just enough food to feed their families) to farming as a small business. One example is Janet Ondiak, who used to struggle to irrigate a small piece of land with buckets of water. She purchased the Water Wheel and now operates a vegetable farm business with three full-time workers. The WaterWheel, a money maker brand, was developed by a nonprofit organization called ApproTEC, who estimate that the pump has helped create 16,000 new jobs and $30 million per year in profits and wages.

In 1994, the People's Republic of China began a 15-year project to build a dam across the Yangtze River. When completed, the Three Gorges Dam will be the world's largest dam and most powerful hydroelectric power plant, towering 610 feet high and stretching 1.3 miles wide. It will also create a 400-mile reservoir that will flood 19 counties. Those who favor building the dam say that it will provide clean, renewable energy, control natural flooding, and allow big commercial ships to reach China's interior regions. However, critics warn that the project may have negative effects on the local environment and culture. When the dam opens in 2009, over a million people will have been relocated, over a thousand archeological sites will be underwater, and endangered species, such as the baiji dolphin, may be closer to extinction because of changes the dam will cause to the ecosystem.

Citations:
A World Transformed. Map. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Maps, Sept. 2002.
Gleick, P.H. "Dirty Water: Estimated Deaths from Water-Related Diseases 2000-2020." Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. 15 Aug. 2002 .
“Water-related Disease”. Home page. World Health Organization. 26 Nov. 2003 .
“Access to Safe Water”. DEPweb. The World Bank Group. 1 Dec. 2003 .
Gleick, P.H. "Basic Water Needs." Water International 21 (1996). .
Walton, Marsha. “Frogs, fish and pharmaceuticals a troubling brew”. CNN.com. 14 Nov. 2003. 14 Nov. 2003. .
Stevens, Jane Ellen. “Martin Makes a Middle Class. Stanford grad Martin Fisher has gone low-tech in search of solutions for Kenyan farmers.” San Francisco Chronicle. 8 Dec. 2002. 19 Feb. 2004 .
“Micro-irrigation Technologies.” Home page. ApproTEC. 19 Feb. 2004 .

Global Economy - China Water

2004-07-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2004
THE TIMES OF INDIA WORLD

China to raise price of water to ease shortage

PTI[ SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2004 09:34:17 AM ]

BEIJING : With many Chinese cities facing acute shortage of water, the
government will raise the price of this scarce resource in the next two
years to stop its reckless use, a senior official said here.

"Despite the severe shortage, water is too cheap to be used economically.
Only a raised price could motivate consumers to conserve," vice-director of
the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Wang Jirong said.

With water availability per capita one quarter of the world average, China
is in a group of 13 countries ranked as having the lowest water per capita
in the world.

Out of the total of 668 cities in the country, over 400 are short of water
and over 100 are facing severe water shortage.

Statistics show that industries in the country lose at least $27.8 billion
annually due to the shortage. According to Sepa, Yyinchuan, the capital city
of China 's northwest Ningxia Hui autonomous region, first adopted the new
pricing system in early 2004.

Drought-hit Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province are preparing for the
reform. "This reform will ease the current water pressure of these beleaguered
cities and provinces which are faced by both drained surface water and
declining groundwater," he said. When rivers and lakes run dry or become
polluted in most areas of China, groundwater is over-exploited to feed the
ballooning cities and industries. However, Wang believes pressure on this scare
resource can be reduced only when people pay a fair price for what they have used.

About the Publisher | For reprint rights:Times of India Syndication Service

Copyright © 2004 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.

Global Economy - China Grain Harvest

2004-07-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Eco-Economy Update 2004-5
For Immediate Release
March 10, 2004
Copyright Earth Policy Institute 2004

CHINA'S SHRINKING GRAIN HARVEST
How Its Growing Grain Imports Will Affect World Food Prices
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update36.htm

Lester R. Brown

On February 8th, the Chinese government announced an emergency
appropriation, increasing its agricultural budget by 25 percent, or
roughly $3 billion. The additional funds primarily will be used to raise
support prices for wheat and rice, the principal food staples, and to
improve irrigation infrastructure. For the State Council to approve such
an increase outside of the normal budget-making process indicates the
government's mounting concern about food security.

After a remarkable expansion of grain output from 90 million tons in 1950
to 392 million tons in 1998, China's grain harvest has fallen in four of
the last five years--dropping to 322 million tons in 2003. For
perspective, this drop of 70 million tons exceeds the entire grain harvest
of Canada.

Production of each of the three grains that dominate China's
agriculture--wheat, rice, and corn--has dropped. But the output of wheat,
grown mostly in the water-short north, has fallen the most. With wheat
stocks falling and domestic prices climbing, Chinese wheat-buying
delegations recently have visited several grain-exporting countries.
Initial purchases of some 5 million tons in Australia, Canada, and the
United States have already sent world wheat prices climbing.

The recent price rises may be only the early tremors before the quake,
however. China's harvest shortfalls of recent years have been covered by
drawing down its once massive stocks of grain. But these will soon be
depleted, forcing the government to cover the shortfall with imports.

China's wheat harvest fell short of consumption last year by 19 million
tons. When the country's wheat stocks are depleted within the next year or
so, the entire shortfall will have to be covered from imports. In some
ways, the rice deficit is even more serious. Trying to cover a rice
shortfall of 20 million tons in a world where annual rice exports total
only 26 million tons could create chaos in the world rice economy. And
with a corn shortfall of 15 million tons and stocks already largely
depleted, China may soon have to import corn as well.

The handwriting on the wall is clear. While grain production is dropping,
demand is climbing, driven up by the addition of 11 million people per
year and by fast-rising incomes. As people in China earn more, they are
moving up the food chain, eating more grain-fed livestock products such as
pork, poultry, eggs, and, to a lesser degree, beef and milk.

The fall in China's grain harvest is due largely to a shrinkage of the
grain harvested area from 90 million hectares in 1998 to 76 million
hectares in 2003. Several trends are converging to reduce the grain area,
including the loss of irrigation water, desert expansion, the conversion
of cropland to nonfarm uses, the shift to higher-value crops, and a
decline in double-cropping due to the loss of farm labor in the more
prosperous coastal provinces.

Water tables are falling throughout the northern half of China. As
aquifers are depleted and irrigation wells go dry, farmers either revert
to low-yield dryland farming or, in the more arid regions, abandon farming
altogether. In the competition for scarce water, China's cities and
industry invariably get first claim, leaving farmers with a shrinking
share of a shrinking supply. Losing irrigation water may mean either
abandoning land or less double cropping.

China's farmers are also losing land to expanding deserts, such as the
Gobi, which is consuming an additional 4,000 square miles each year. (For
desertification photographs, see
www.earth-policy.org/Updates/update36_photos.htm.) Paying farmers in the
north and west to plant their grainland to trees to halt these advancing
deserts is further reducing the grain area.

Urban expansion, industrial construction, and highway construction are all
shrinking the land available for crops. The enthusiasm for establishing
development zones for commercial and residential building or industrial
parks in the hope of attracting investment and jobs is taking big chunks
of cropland. The Ministry of Land and Resources reports that some 6,000
development zones and industrial parks cover some 3.5 million hectares.

Cars, too, are taking a toll. Every 20 cars added to China's automobile
fleet require the paving of an estimated 0.4 hectares of land (1
acre--roughly the area of a football field) for parking lots, streets, and
highways. Thus the 2 million new cars sold in 2003 meant paving over an
area equal to 100,000 football fields.

In a country where farms average 1.6 acres (0.6 hectares), many grain
farmers are shifting to higher-value fruits and vegetables to boost
income. In each of the last 11 years, the area in fruits and vegetables
has increased, expanding by an average of 1.3 million hectares a year.

In the more prosperous coastal provinces, the migration of farm labor to
cities has made it more difficult to double-crop land. For example, the
once widespread practice of planting winter wheat and summer corn depends
on quickly harvesting the wheat when it ripens in June and immediately
preparing the seedbed to plant the corn. Many villages no longer have
enough able-bodied workers to make this quick transition--and the
double-cropped area is shrinking as a result.

Reversing the fall in grain production will not be easy even with China's
newly adopted economic incentives. Each trend that is shrinking the
grainland area has a great deal of momentum. Reversing any one of them
would take an enormous effort. Reversing all of them is inconceivable. If
the new economic incentives should coincide with unusually favorable
weather this year, a modest upturn in grain production might result, but
it will likely be only temporary.

China is the first major grain-producing country where environmental and
economic trends have combined to reverse the historical growth in grain
production. This decline in the grain harvest in a country that is home to
more than one fifth of the world's people will affect all of us.

Barring an economic collapse, China soon will be forced to turn to the
world market for massive imports of 30, 40, or 50 million tons per year.
This comes at a time when world grain stocks are at their lowest level in
30 years and when U.S. farmers are losing irrigation water to aquifer
depletion and to cities. Among other things, this means that the surplus
world grain production capacity and cheap food of the last half-century
may soon be history. Higher food prices could become a permanent part of
the economic landscape. Adjusting to these higher food prices could become
a dominant preoccupation of governments in the years ahead.

When China turns to the world market, it will necessarily turn to the
United States, which controls nearly half of world grain exports. This
presents an unprecedented geopolitical situation in which 1.3 billion
Chinese consumers who have a $120-billion trade surplus with the United
States--enough to buy the entire U.S. grain harvest twice over--will
compete with Americans for U.S. food, likely driving up food prices for
the United States and the world.

Moving grain from the United States to China on the scale that is needed
will likely involve loading two or three ships every day. The long line of
grain-laden ships that may soon stretch across the Pacific will bring
these two countries closer together economically, but managing the flow of
grain to optimize the benefits for people in both countries will not be
easy. It could become one of the major U.S. foreign policy challenges of
this new century.

Additional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org or contact
jlarsen(at)earth-policy.org

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Global Economy - Plan B

2004-07-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

OUR FUTURE - JOIN THE PLAN B TEAM.

Dear Friend,

Since the publication of "Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a
Civilization in Trouble," we have made a startling discovery. Literally
hundreds of enthusiastic readers of "Plan B" have purchased additional
copies for distribution to friends, colleagues, and opinion leaders. Our
publication sales database shows that 413 individuals have purchased 5 or
more copies. Leading the Plan B Team is Ted Turner who has bought and
distributed 3,513 copies.

With such an enthusiastic reception, we designated those who bought 5 or
more copies members of our Plan B Team--individuals working together to
save our future. Like me, these readers sense that our modern civilization
is in trouble and they want to do something about it.

"Your vision of a sustainable planet is a ray of hope in a sea
of despairing news." -Fran Bodell

WHAT IS PLAN B?

In "Plan B" Lester Brown explains what actions we can take to deflate the
bubble before it breaks. It includes a massive mobilization--a worldwide
effort at wartime speed--to stabilize population, raise water
productivity, and stabilize climate. Restructuring the world economy to
achieve these goals is an enormous undertaking, but the cost of not doing
so is unacceptably high.

"The future might judge this book the most important ever
written; we strongly encourage you to get and read it."

The Michael Consulting Group
Our only hope now is rapid systemic change--change based on market signals
that tell the ecological truth. This means restructuring the tax system:
lowering income taxes and raising taxes on environmentally destructive
activities, such as carbon emissions. Unless we can get the market to tell
the truth and to send the right signals, consumers, corporate planners,
and government policymakers will continue making faulty decisions. The
eventual result of ill-informed economic decisions and the economic
distortions they create is economic decline.

Stabilizing population depends on filling the family planning gap and
bringing all the world's people into the twenty-first century, making sure
that their basic needs for food, education, and health care are met. Given
the wealth that exists in the world today, we can satisfy the basic needs
of people everywhere. Indeed, we cannot afford not to do so. This is not a
handout. It is an investment in our future.

"...a clear and remarkable summation of a new plan for society."

Gianfranco Bologna, World Wildlife Fund Italy
The challenge is not only to alleviate poverty, essential though that is,
but in doing so to build an economy that is compatible with the earth's
natural systems--an eco-economy that can sustain progress. This means
restructuring the energy economy, shifting from a carbon-based to a
hydrogen-based economy. It means doubling water productivity over the next
half-century, much as we did with land productivity over the last one.

"...the most important voice of our time." -Judy Hyde, Quaker
activist

HELP SAVE THE FUTURE: JOIN THE PLAN B TEAM

If you support the goals of "Plan B" and want to work for change, you can
do so by distributing copies to your friends, colleagues, and political
representatives both at the local level and in Washington. You may also
want to get copies to your local paper or favorite columnist. Or send one
to your local library.

For our part, we are sharply reducing the price of the book ($16) for bulk
sales. http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm

ORDER YOUR COPY NOW ... ONLY A CLICK AWAY AT
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm

OR CALL US AT (202) 496-9290.

Water Companies & Bottled Water - USA - Mount Shasta

2004-07-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

Bottlers tap Mt. Shasta for a river of wealth

Activists don't like the taste of trend
Redding Record Searchlight - 3/28/04
By Alex Breitler, staff writer

MOUNT SHASTA * The journey begins high on the flanks of Mt. Shasta, and
ends five centuries later at someone's front door * or on the grocery
store shelf.

Water seeps from the peak's glaciers, trickling through porous volcanic
rock before finally bubbling up in one of the area's many springs, where
some of it is snatched away and bottled.

Bill Ellis, manager of Mt. Shasta Spring Water, says it's worth the
wait.

"We're standing on top of an underground river," said Ellis, walking in
the snow next to his small Mount Shasta bottling plant. "That water has
not seen the light of day for over 500 years."

His company is one of three that are tapping Siskiyou County for
perhaps its greatest resource * water. A fourth is in the works, to be
built by multinational giant Nestle in McCloud.

The new market brings jobs back to a county decimated by the decline of
the timber industry. But it's also produced controversy from those leery
of a public resource being used for private gain.

Nationally, the bottled water trend has led to questions about the
environmental side effects of such operations and whether, in the end,
bottled water is really any better than the stuff that flows from the
tap.

"Our water is our gold," said Michelle Berditschevsky of the Mount
Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center. "Here it's just being basically given
away to these large corporations that will eventually sell it back to
the people.

"It seems like water and air and certain things like that ought to be
basic rights of just living on the Earth."

The one thing everyone can agree on is that the bottled water shower
has turned into a downright deluge. In 2001 Americans swallowed up more
than 5 billion gallons of packaged water, or more than 18 gallons per
person, according to the International Bottled Water Association.
Bottled water could soon become the second most-consumed commercial
beverage, behind soda.

It's all about having a choice, said Ellis. Bottled water operations
give consumers more options.

"There's a need for our product, so we supply that need," he said.
"Water in your home isn't free, either."

His company's plant was built in 1989 on the edge of a steep canyon,
which, thanks to the underground river, veritably bleeds water from its
walls.

Unmolested, that water would drain into the Sacramento River about two
miles away. But Ellis and his team have thrust a pole 200 feet deep in
the Earth, gulping down a fraction of the estimated 4,000 to 7,000
gallons a minute that rush past.

"We don't even use 1 percent of the water available to us," Ellis
said.

The diverted water is pumped into a 6,500-gallon tank and from there to
another tank where it's cleansed in a chlorine-free process called
ozonation.

Finally, a machine efficiently jets the clear water into 1,200 coolers
each hour. The jugs will be loaded on a truck and dropped on the front
porch within as little as two days.

How do they know the water springs from a glacier? Ellis cites a report
by a geologist whom the company hired to certify its labeling.

It's true that the Mt. Shasta area is unique when it comes to water,
said Jim Pedri of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control
Board.

Unlike the Sierra Nevada, where creeks carry snowmelt down into the
valley, Mt. Shasta has little surface runoff. It all goes underground.

The water bottlers say Shasta is, in effect, a 14,000-foot filter.

"It's very good quality," Pedri said.

Ellis's company isn't the only one taking advantage. Just in the past
several years, San Francisco-based Crystal Geyser built a plant in Weed,
while Dannon, owned by Coca-Cola, erected its $30 million Mount Shasta
facility.

At the time the 230-acre Dannon plant opened in 2001, it employed up to
200 people with wages ranging from $9 to $24. It's not just the folks
who man the spigots, but those driving the shipping trucks as well, said
Bill Hoy, a Siskiyou County supervisor.

"So far they've been very good," he said. "They've been very supportive
of the community."

During a recent drought, Crystal Geyser and Dannon provided 48 pallets
of bottled drinking water for those whose wells had failed.

It's no mystery why the companies have flocked here, Hoy said.

"We've got excellent water, and that's their product," he said.

But Berditschevsky feels communities should stay in control of their
water. She and other residents have argued that the Dannon plant was put
in without enough environmental review, with no checks on the amount of
water used.

While Ellis said laws in California are "really strict," another
activist, Peggy Risch, begs to differ.

She said that when she tried to find out how much water Dannon is
withdrawing, she was told it was proprietary information. Newspaper
inquires to the Dannon plant and to corporate representatives across the
country went unanswered.

"I think anywhere a water bottling plant goes in, that has to be a
concern * the quantity of water withdrawn and how sustainable that is,"
she said. "We've got water, but it is not unlimited."

She's equally worried about the countless plastic bottles that wind up
in landfills, and the copious amounts of water she alleges are used to
rinse those bottles. When the Dannon plant was first built, hundreds of
people signed a petition arguing against the proposed disposal of up to
36,000 gallons per day of bottle wash water to a leach field or pond.

"There is a lot of wasted water," said Pedri, the water quality
expert.

But officials say there's likely little depletion of the underground
water supply. Even irrigators downstream who fight for every drop say
the amount of water being bottled is probably insignificant.

The plants provide not only jobs, but property tax for the county's
coffers. The largest plants, Crystal Geyser and Dannon, together
contribute about $730,000 per year.

"It's a good stopgap until timber comes back, if and when it comes
back," said Howard Moody, the county's chief administrative officer. "In
the meantime we'll do as many of these bottling plants as we can."

Juliette Beck
California Coordinator and Senior Organizer
Water for All Campaign
Public Citizen
510-663-0888 ext. 101
www.citizen.org/california

Global Economy

2004-07-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

Eco-Economy Update 2004-7
For Immediate Release
Copyright Earth Policy Institute 2004
April 14, 2004

SAUDIS HAVE U.S. OVER A BARREL
The Shifting Terms of Trade Between Grain and Oil
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update38.htm

Lester R. Brown

In 1970, a bushel of wheat could be traded for a barrel of oil in the
world market. It now takes nine bushels of wheat to buy a barrel of oil.
The two countries most affected by the dramatically shifting terms of
trade between grain and oil are the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The United States, the world's largest importer of oil and its largest
exporter of grain, is paying for this shift in the wheat-oil exchange
rate with higher gasoline prices. The nine-fold shift is also driving the
largest U.S. trade deficit in history, which in turn is raising external
debt to a record level, weakening the U.S. economy. In contrast, Saudi
Arabia, the world's leading oil exporter and a high-ranking grain
importer, is benefiting handsomely.

During the early 1970s before the oil price hikes by OPEC, the United
States largely could pay its oil import bill with grain exports. But in
2003, grain exports covered only 11 percent of the staggering U.S. oil
import bill of $99 billion. While the exchange rate between grain and oil
was deteriorating, U.S. domestic oil output was falling and oil
consumption was rising, which means that oil imports were climbing. In
2003, oil imports accounted for 60 percent of total use.

The shift in terms of trade between the price of wheat, a surrogate for
grain prices, and that of oil, is both dramatic and ongoing. From 1950 to
1973, the prices of wheat and of oil were remarkably stable as was the
relationship between the two. At anytime during the 23-year span, a
bushel of wheat could be traded for a barrel of oil in the world market. (See
attached table, also at www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update38_data.htm
with additional data.)

The first big adjustment between oil and wheat came when OPEC tripled the
oil price at the end of 1973. During the 1974-78 period, it took roughly
three bushels of wheat to buy a barrel of oil. Then in the years after
the second OPEC oil price hike, which boosted the price of oil from $13 per
barrel in 1978 to $30 per barrel in 1979, it took seven bushels of wheat
to buy a barrel of oil.

This steep rise in the buying power of oil led to one of the most abrupt
transfers of wealth in history. The coffers of major oil exporters, such
as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran, began to overflow with dollars even as
those of many oil-importing countries were being emptied.

In response to higher prices, world oil production outside OPEC expanded,
thus loosening OPEC's grip on prices. Between 1985 and 1986 the price of
oil dropped by half. From then until 1999, it took on average five
bushels of wheat to buy a barrel of oil. During 2000-2003, it took seven bushels
of wheat to buy a barrel of oil. Now in early 2004 it takes nine bushels.

What will happen to the wheat-oil exchange rate in the years ahead, no
one knows for sure. In contrast to grain production, which can continue
indefinitely, oil production is going to peak and decline at some point,
probably within the next 5 to 15 years.

Exactly when it peaks depends on the depletion strategies adopted by the
major oil companies and oil exporting countries. If they decide to
stretch their dwindling reserves by lowering production to extend the lifetime
earning period of their oil fields, then the peak will come later. But if
they are preoccupied with boosting near-term sales, oil production may
rise more rapidly, hastening the day when output will peak and start to
fall.

Even as we anticipate the peaking of petroleum production, oil use
continues to rise, especially in countries like China and India that are
industrializing at a breakneck pace. China has already eclipsed Japan as
an oil consumer, moving into second place behind the United States.

The United States is pressing the Saudis to produce more oil, but the
answer is not for the Saudis to produce more, but for the United States
to consume less. Even though the OPEC-engineered oil price hikes have
signaled a need to use less oil, the United States has been rapidly
expanding its fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs, boosting oil use and imports.

Even as U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil is rising, so too is
political instability in the region. The growing insurgency in Iraq could
spread to other oil-exporting countries, disrupting oil supplies. If ever
there was a time to get serious about boosting auto fuel efficiency, it
is now.

There are many steps that the United States can take to reduce oil use
with existing technologies. For example, the new cars with hybrid
gas-electric engines, such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic, are
remarkably fuel-efficient. The 2004 Prius averages 55 miles per gallon
(mpg) in combined city and highway driving, double or even triple that of
other midsize cars.

If the United States were to raise the fuel efficiency of its automobile
fleet over the next 10 years to that of the Toyota Prius, U.S. gasoline
consumption could be cut in half. This would not require any reduction in
the number of cars, only the use of more efficient engines.

The gas-electric hybrid cars may represent the most sophisticated
automotive engineering on the road today. In effect, what the engineers
who designed the hybrids have done is to substitute advanced technology
for fuel.

The obvious next step is to modestly expand the electrical storage
capacity of the gas-electric hybrids so that owners can plug in their
hybrids to recharge the batteries during the nighttime hours when
electricity demand drops. Short commutes could be powered entirely by
electricity saving the gasoline for the occasional longer trips. This
would enable the United States to substitute cheap wind-generated
electricity for gasoline, further reducing gasoline use.

Shifting to more electricity in the hybrid engine fuel mix opens
profitable new investment opportunities in developing the vast U.S. wind
resources. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the United States
has enough harnessable wind power to satisfy total U.S. electricity needs
several times over. And U.S. wind-generating capacity is growing fast.
Between 1995 and 2003, it increased from 1,600 megawatts to 6,400
megawatts, quadrupling in five years.

The advances in wind turbine design that offer cheap electricity from
wind help explain why some 22 states now have commercial scale wind farms
pumping electricity into the local grid. With a renewal of the wind
production tax credit, which is designed to establish parity with the
subsidies for fossil fuels, growth could be even faster in the years
ahead, creating thousands of new jobs.

We have spilled more than enough blood and spent more than enough of our
treasure to protect access to oil supplies in the Middle East. RAND
Corporation analysts calculate that even in peacetime it costs at least
$30 billion per year to maintain the U.S. military presence needed to
assure access to the region's oil. It is time for a change.

Unless the United States assumes a leadership role, Saudi Arabia will
continue to dictate the terms of trade between oil and grain. This means
they also will dictate U.S. gasoline prices. The United States, as the
world's larges oil consumer and importer, can regain some influence on
oil pricing by sharply reducing its dependence on oil. This would also delay
the day when oil production peaks, buying the world time for a smoother
transition to the post-petroleum era. The United States has the
technologies and energy resources to lead this effort. What the world
needs today is not more oil, but more leadership.

# # #

The Wheat/Oil Exchange Rate, 1950-2004

Year Bushel of Wheat Barrel of Oil Bushels/Barrel
(U.S. Dollars) (Ratio)

1950 1.89 1.71 1

1955 1.81 2.11 1

1960 1.58 1.85 1

1965 1.62 1.79 1

1970 1.49 1.79 1
1971 1.68 2.19 1
1972 1.90 2.44 1
1973 3.81 3.27 1
1974 4.89 11.50 2
1975 4.06 11.45 3
1976 3.62 11.55 3
1977 2.81 12.51 4
1978 3.48 12.78 4
1979 4.36 29.83 7
1980 4.70 35.71 8
1981 4.76 34.04 7
1982 4.36 31.54 7
1983 4.28 29.47 7
1984 4.15 28.55 7
1985 3.70 27.37 7
1986 3.13 14.17 5
1987 3.07 18.20 6
1988 3.95 14.77 4
1989 4.61 17.91 4
1990 3.69 22.99 6
1991 3.50 19.37 6
1992 4.11 19.04 5
1993 3.82 16.79 4
1994 4.08 15.95 4
1995 4.82 17.20 4
1996 5.64 20.37 4
1997 4.35 19.27 4
1998 3.43 13.07 4
1999 3.05 17.98 6
2000 3.10 28.23 9
2001 3.45 24.33 7
2002 4.04 24.95 6
2003 3.98 28.89 7
2004* 4.20 36.00 9

Source: IMF Statistics Online database
*Author's estimates based on April wheat and oil futures prices for 2004

# # #

For more information, see Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a
Civilization in Trouble by Lester R. Brown. Available online at
www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm

Additional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org or
contact jlarsen(at)earth-policy.org
For reprint permission contact rjkauffman(at)earth-policy.org

Please feel free to send this to interested friends or colleagues or to
distribute it on your personal listserv.

Water Companies & Bottled Water - Finland

2004-07-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Finns tap arctic water supply for Arab exports
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
By Daniel Frykholm, Reuters

HELSINKI The land of a thousand lakes wants to sell you some of its water. With a seemingly
endless supply of the cleanest ground water in the world, Finland's capital Helsinki has set
up a company that bottles and sells what Finns get through the kitchen tap.

Nord Water won its first bulk order in January, to deliver 1.4 million bottles of water to
Saudi Arabia, and is now vying for an extension that could multiply its business in the parched
desert country tenfold. The company's head, Ismo Raty, returned to Finland in March from negotiations
in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh. "They were very positive. We've been trying to get a frequent supply
contract, and we are very close now. It could be something like 12 million bottles per year," Raty said.

The eight-staff firm has quite a way to go before it can claim to compete with heavyweights like Danone which sells 1.5 billion litres of top brand Evian every year, but Nord Water says it has a competitive edge in coming
from a country that topped the United Nations 2003 water quality indicator."Our quality is very high. We've tried to build an image of this arctic northern country with clean nature and clean water," Raty said. "We try to position ourselves in the premium class, but we have to be a bit cheaper to compete."

Hundreds of millions of liters of water are processed every day at the Helsinki water authority, where Nord Water has its bottling plant, after surging through a 120-kilometre (75-mile) rock tunnel from Lake Paijanne up
north. The source is one of more than 56,000 sizable lakes in the sparsely populated Nordic country, one-tenth of which is covered with water, and Helsinki Water has environmental clearance to use five times more than the
70 billion litres it produced in 2002.

Water the Next Oil?
The United Nations expects booming populations, pollution, and global warming to cut the average person's water supply by one-third in the next 20 years and says water scarcity could affect 7 billion people in 2050. The market for bottled water is also growing rapidly, not just in developing countries where it is needed because it is clean, but in the west where it is a lifestyle choice among increasingly health-conscious consumers.With this in mind, the export organization Finpro has studied if water could be Finland's next export success story, after Nokia's mobile phones and the pulp and paper from the vast forests that cover two-thirds of the country.
"There are big opportunities because there is a shortage, and also, there's the trend. Here in Finland I'd never have thought I'd be so stupid as to buy water by the bottle, but now you see it here too," said Finpro information head Eeva Artimo.

Nord Water is not the only Finnish firm trying to profit from the country's image of cleanliness and the global shortage of water. Privately owned Heinolan Viqua boasts that its Vellamo brand is "the purest natural mineral
water on Earth" and Finn Spring Oy says it lies "far from big cities as a part of the unspoiled Finnish nature."

Fierce Competition
Nord Water, whose most recent order came from Congo, is targeting markets other than Europe or North America, where brands like Evian and Nestle's Perrier reign supreme and a price war on the $9 billion U.S. bottled water
market has pitted Coca-Cola and Pepsico against each other. But even in the Arab countries, grabbing a foothold in the market may prove difficult, with fierce competition from local brands that sell less-pleasant tasting but lower-priced purified sea water. "We are facing a challenging moment. Now we are in the shops (in Saudia
Arabia) and have to succeed there," Raty said. "It's really tough to take market share.... In the Gulf area, there are 700 brands of bottled water." And Finpro has warned entrepreneurs that entering the drinks business may prove more difficult than it seems. "If you have a good water well in your backyard and look at the (high)
prices on the supermarket shelves it seems like a good idea, but it's actually quite complicated," Artimo said, pointing out the costs and difficulties of the bottling process. "Also, you need good contacts. If you're going to the Arab countries you need to know the sheikhs and the princes. And the competition is very hard."
Source: Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-04-13/s_22722.asp

Water Companies & Bottled Water

2004-07-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

H20 BUSINESS TURNS PUBLIC WATER INTO PRIVATE WINDFALL

By Mark Sommer (*)

BERKELEY, Feb (IPS) - In a seemingly unquenchable thirst for new wellsprings of profit,
multinational food and drink industry giants are rapidly draining public water supplies
worldwide into a billion-dollar bottled water industry. Advertising their beverages as the
healthful alternative to sugar-laden sodas, companies like Perrier/Nestle (with 30 percent
of the market), Danone (15 percent), Pepsi, and Coca-Cola have together created a USD 35
billion industry worldwide slated to grow 30 percent a year for the indefinite future.

It's hard to argue with the virtues of pure water. Medical experts believe we consume far
too little of it and urge that we drink up to eight glasses a day for optimal health. The issue,
say critics of the bottled water industry, is not whether to drink water but whether industry giants
are drowning in profits at public expense, placing the elixir of life out of reach of all but the affluent, leaving only the effluent for the planetary majority.

So dear has bottled water become that it now outprices oil three to one. In the US, bottled water
costs about USD 4 a gallon if purchased in liter containers, gasoline USD 1.50 a gallon, filtered water
eighteen cents, and tap water three-hundredths of a cent. At these prices, bottled water costs 13,200 times as much as tap water, a profit margin without precedent in human history.

Yet companies need only buy or lease the land on which a spring is situated and pay a nominal fee to gain limitless access to public groundwater supplies. In rural Wisconsin in the US, the state government provided
Perrier with a ''high-cap'' permit for unrestricted pumping -- up to 500 gallons a minute, 24 hours a day -- for a flat fee of USD 100. Attracted by the promise of jobs and industry, the state also offered Perrier USD
10 million in incentives and twelve years of suspended school taxes.

What enables companies to gain such favorable terms at public expense, apart from the influence their deep pockets buy, is groundwater laws dating from a time when water was abundant, population sparse, and irrigation
demands limited. Texas and five other US states still apply a frontier-era ''rule of capture'' familiarly known as ''biggest pump wins''. The law permits any landowner to pump right up to his property
line, drain his neighbor's water supply, and suffer no liability.

Upholding the law in 1999, the Texas Supreme Court cited a mystical 1908 ruling that declared water so ''secret, occult, and concealed'' that any effort to regulate it would be impossible.

Opponents of the bottled water industry cite a very different body of law of still more ancient derivation -- the public trust doctrine that assigns governments the duty to assure universal access to the essential
components of life, including air and water.

The bottled water industry is not confined to rich western nations. Residents of the water-rich US Pacific northwest quaff water shipped in from Fiji, 12,000 miles away. At the same time, from Ghana to India, Coca-Cola and other major multinationals are encountering stiffening resistance to their pumping and bottling operations from local residents who report their wells running dry, crops dying, and health flagging as the
company drains their ancestral water sources. In the state of Kerala, India, Coke encountered such fierce opposition from a desperate but determined movement of rural women that it was forced to close its Plachimada bottling plant.

Despite its high price and reputation for purity, bottled water is not generally subject to the rigorous standards required of municipal water supplies. In a four-year study of a thousand samples of US bottled water, the Natural Resources Defense Council found that ''one fourth of bottled water is simply bottled tap water, some filtered and some not.'' Moreover, the labeling and marketing is often misleading,''implying the water comes from pristine sources when it does not. For example, one brand of `spring water' whose label pictured a lake and
mountains actually came from a well in an industrial facility's parking lot near a hazardous waste dump''.

The US Food and Drug Administration exempts 60-70 percent of all bottled water sold in the United States from the agency's bottled water standards simply because it is sold within and not between states. Even when it does regulate bottled water, the standards it applies are weaker in many ways than federal rules that apply to big
city tap water, with just one inspector assigned to enforcement for the entire nation. In 1000 tests of
103 brands of bottled water, the Natural Resources Defence Council found that one-third of the samples ''contained significant contamination in at least one test.''

To cast doubt on the cost and quality of some bottled water and its impact on public water supplies is not to condemn the entire industry. As with other industries, there are those who play by the rules and those who don't. But when there are effectively no rules and no enforcement, when the profit margin puts drug dealers to shame, and an inalienable common resource is privatized at public expense, then we must reconsider the very basis of the enterprise.

Pure fresh water is growing ever more scarce as population and pollution accelerate. But the most effective response is not to sell the last liters like fine wines to the fortunate few but to upgrade public water systems worldwide -- at far lower individual and aggregate cost -- to a level of purity where no one needs to resort to
''private'' water. Then the only bottle you'll ever need will be the one you fill from the wellsprings of our commonwealth. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

---------------------------------
"Other News" is a personal initiative seeking to provide information that
should be in the media but is not, because of commercial criteria. It
welcomes contributions from everybody. Work areas include information on
global issues, north-south relations, gobernability of globalization. The
"Other News" motto is a phrase which appeared on the wall of Barcelona's old
Customs Office, at the beginning of 2003. What walls utter, media keeps
silent?. Roberto Savio

India & Rain Harvesting

2004-07-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

India: Rainwater harvesting begins to take root New Delhi, Apr 23 (IPS/Ranjit Devraj) -- After spending a lifetime building the irrigation canals that brought prosperity to the Punjab region that now straddles India and Pakistan, M L Sood believes that the future lies in rainwater harvesting rather than in big dams, irrigation canals and other grand civil engineering schemes.

"The rivers are all drying up and if we don't begin intensive water-harvesting now the subcontinent is doomed -- the days of the irrigation canals are over," the octogenarian engineer told IPS.

There are few people left alive in either India or Pakistan who can claim to have theexperience and knowledge of Sood. He graduated in 1927 from Roorkee Engineering College, which was set up by the British colonial government in 1847 and enjoys the distinction of being the oldest engineering institution in all of Asia.

Sood is happy to show visitors the dense lawns and greenery in and around the Panchshila Park neighbourhood of Delhi, saying these are the visible signs of what water harvesting can do.

"All this is the result of willpower and civic sense rather than large funding. The 3,000 odd U.S. dollars that the whole project cost was raised through the Residents Welfare Association of Panchshila Park rather than from the government or outside sources," he said in an interview.

India's national capital has been hit by severe water shortages as a result of the withholding of some water in the river Yamuna by upstream Haryana state for its own needs.

Against this backdrop, this city of 14 million people is beginning to pay heed to Sood and other experts who have been warning of the steadily depleting water in the snow-fed rivers of northern India. "This year, the Yamuna's flow has been reduced by almost 50% of normal availability and the trend is toward greater and greater shortages," said R K Garg, Haryana's chief irrigation engineer.

Water shortages have already led to hostile words between authorities in Delhi and Haryana. This is an echo of other disputes over river water in this part of the world most notably between Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan over the waters of the Indus river.

Worse, there are ever louder demands that the 1960 World Bank-mediated Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan, which apportions waters in the five tributaries of the Indus river between the two countries, be redrawn.

According to Uttam Amar Mishra, a researcher with the influential non-government organisation Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), the only way Delhi can avert a looming water disaster is by resorting to rainwater harvesting in a truly intensive way.

"At the moment, more than 50% of the rain that Delhi receives during the peak monsoon season in July and August ends up in the Yamuna and actually causes it to flood," Mishra said.

The monsoon rain during the two months accounts for 70% of India's water resources. It is not that the government is unaware of the seriousness of the situation. In 2001, prodded by NGOs, authorities issued
a public notice making it compulsory for all new housing societies, schools, hotels and industrial establishments to install 'Roof Top Water Harvesting Systems'.

Such systems involve building tanks on flat rooftops to collect water that can be directly used or allowed to seep into simple ground storage structures filled with gravel and river sand. These structures have nothing more sophisticated than a cement slab at the bottom to ensure water retention.

The notice to install the water harvesting systems said the measure is being taken since the city's water table is rapidly receding. Likewise, there is increasing salinityas a result of overextraction of water through the use of tubewells, which continued to be bored in spite of a ban on new ones since 1998.

The flouting of this ban surreptitiously forced the Delhi Jal (water) board to begin a programme of licensing existing tubewells from February this year. Levies are being charged for the operation of tubewells and unauthorised ones are being plugged.

Delhi has about 100,000 registered tubewells and about 250,000 unauthorised ones. The board's officials estimate that they could generate at least $300 million in revenues each year if they can recover the levies.

"We plan to regulate the use of groundwater and have a rational tariff structure for all users," said Tripathi, adding that a price on groundwater would deter misuse and overextraction.

Tripathi said all tubewell users would also be required to install rainwater harvesting structures that would help recharge the ground aquifers. Across India, 18 states are now experiencing rapidly depleting water tables and salinity, thanks to the indiscriminate boring of tubewells. These tubewells were once considered the only reliable source of water for agriculture and other purposes since neither the monsoon rains nor water supply through irrigation canals were dependable.

The Indian states afflicted most by the phenomenon of receding groundwater include northern Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, western Gujarat and Rajasthan and southern Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

''Rapid urbanisation and population growth have led to higher consumption of groundwater and if this is not checked, the problem can only get more acute,'' said Gauhar Mahmood, professor of civil engineering at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in the capital.

Estimates made by the Central Groundwater Board say that underground aquifers will dry up completely by 2025 in as many as 15 Indian states if water continues to recede at the present rate of 20 centimetres from the surface.

According to K C Pant, one of India's chief economic planners, one reason for rapidly depleting groundwater in India is electricity subsidies. These allow cheap pumping and readily available agricultural credit for the boring of tubewells, which many governments resort to as a populist move.

''These subsidies are politically difficult to remove. But they must go since roughly 30 percent of electricity generated in this country goes into extracting scarce groundwater,'' Pant said.

Coca Cola & Australian Water

2004-07-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9359897%255E664,00.html

Coca-Cola taps bottled water
Stephanie Downie
23apr04

WATER, water everywhere and Coca-Cola Amatil wants you to take a big drink.

Just so long as it's Coke's bottled variety you're gulping down. CCA managing director
Terry Davis yesterday said the bottled water market was still, largely, an untapped source.
"Of the two litres of fluid that we drink each day, currently CCA sell just 10 per cent of
this requirement," Mr Davis told shareholders at the company's annual meeting. CCA has two
of the top three water brands in Australia -- Mount Franklin and Pump. Last year, CCA's share
of the bottled water market in Australia more than doubled from 15 per cent to nearly 35 per cent.
"It still remains only a quarter of the main European countries and only half that of the US," he said.
However, some observers believe this says more about the quality of Australia's tap water than anything
else. Mr Davis said the company would expand its water production capacity by 50 per cent by year's end to meet, what he believes, will be a growing demand for bottled water. Mr Davis also outlined the company's
latest strategy to woo customers -- carbonated Mount Franklin water."It is unfortunate that Australians are often only offered an Italian or French mineral water at many of the better cafes and restaurants," he said.
"Why should they drink (Italian carbonated brand) San Peligrino? Our water tastes better and it hasn't been sitting on a boat for two weeks." The carbonated version of Mount Franklin is set to hit the market next month.
Mr Davis said the company was on the hunt for more water brands. "There are over 20 regional water companies in Australia -- some of those are in the home and office delivery area, the Neverfail area -- that just
don't have the critical mass to effectively compete on a national level," Mr Davis said. "Where it makes sense for us to take a regional player we will obviously take a look at that and the same applies in the juice market as well." CCA shares closed 3c lower at $6.85.

Canadians want Water recognized as human right

2004-07-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

April 29, 2004
Canadians want water recognized as a human right

According to an Ipsos-Reid poll released today, 84% of Canadians strongly agree that
Canada should adopt a comprehensive national water policy that recognizes clean drinking water
as a basic human right.

Overall, 97% of Canadians expressed their support for water to be recognized as a human right.
The Ipsos-Reid poll was conducted with 1057 Canadian adults between March 30 and April 1, 2004 and was commissioned by the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=2193.

Despite this overwhelming support, the government has consistently refused to listen to Canadians
on this issue. In 2002, the Canadian government was the only one to vote against accepting water as a human right at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Moreover, the Walkerton Inquiry found that the
right to water does not exist in Canadian legislation.

Act Now!

The Council of Canadians has launched a national campaign to ensure water is a human right and to encourage Canadians to act locally to protect our waters. We must ensure that water remains a human right that is public,
protected, and priceless.

Visit the Council of Canadians' web site for more information and to email the Prime Minister on this issue at: http://www.canadians.org {Look under Water Campaign, Click on What's New, Canadians, send an email letter to
Prime Minister Martin ..}

Water supply:the effects of short term assumptions

2004-07-11T22:34:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2004/New York TIMES

Drought Settles In, Lake Shrinks and West's Worries Grow
By KIRK JOHNSON and DEAN E. MURPHY

PAGE, Ariz. - At five years and counting, the drought that has parched
much of the West is getting much harder to shrug off as a blip.Those who
worry most about the future of the West - politicians, scientists, business leaders,
city planners and environmentalists - are increasingly realizing that a world of
eternally blue skies and meager mountain snowpacks may not be a passing
phenomenon but rather the return of a harsh climatic norm.

Continuing research into drought cycles over the last 800 years bears this out,
strongly suggesting that the relatively wet weather across much of the West
during the 20th century was a fluke. In other words, scientists who study
tree rings and ocean temperatures say, the development of the modern urbanized
West - one of the biggest growth spurts in the nation's history - may have been
based on a colossal miscalculation.

That shift is shaking many assumptions about how the West is run. Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the states that depend on the Colorado
River, are preparing for the possibility of water shortages for the first time since
the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930's to control the river's flow. The top water
official of the Bush administration, Bennett W. Raley, said recently that the federal
government might step in if the states could not decide among themselves how to cope
with dwindling supplies, a threat that riled local officials but underscored the growing
urgency.

"Before this drought,we had 20 years of a wet cycle and 20 years of the most growth ever,"
said John R. D'Antonio, the New Mexico State engineer, who is scrambling to find new water
supplies for the suburbs of Albuquerque that did not exist a generation ago.

The latest blow was paltry snowfall during March in the Rocky Mountains, pushing down
runoff projections for the Colorado River this year to 55 percent of average. Snowmelt
is the lifeblood of the river, which provides municipal water from Denver to Los Angeles
and irrigates millions of acres of farmland. The period since 1999 is now officially the
driest in the 98 years of recorded history of the Colorado River, according to the
United States Geological Survey.

"March was a huge wake-up call as to the need to move at an accelerated pace," said
Mr. Raley, assistant secretary of the interior for water and science.

Losing Water at Lake Powell

Some of the biggest water worries are focused here on Lake Powell, the vast blue diamond
of deep water that government engineers created in one of the driest and most remote
areas of the country beginning in the 1950's. From its inception, Lake Powell, the nation's
second-largest artificial lake, after Lake Mead in Nevada, was a powerful symbol across
the West. Some saw it as a statement of human will and know-how, others of arrogance.

Powell, part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, has lost nearly 60 percent
of its water and is now about the size it was during the Watergate hearings in 1973,
when it was still filling up. White cliffs 10 stories high, bleached by salts from the
lake and stranded above the water, line its side canyons. Elsewhere, retreating waters
have exposed mountains of sediment.

The tourist economy here in Page has been battered. The National Park Service, which
operates the recreation area, has spent millions of dollars in recent years just to
lay concrete for boat-launch ramps that must be extended every year, a process that
one marina operator here called "chasing water."

Daniel C. McCool, a professor of political science at the University of Utah and
director of the American West Center, says Powell is the barometer of the drought
because what has happened here is as much about politics, economics and the interlocking
system of rules and rights called the law of the river as it is about meteorology.

Part of the lake's problem, for example, dates to a miscalculation in 1922, when
hydrologists overestimated the average flow of the Colorado River and locked the
number into a multistate agreement called the Colorado River Compact. The compact,
along with a subsequent treaty with Mexico, requires Lake Powell to release 8.23
million acre-feet of water each year below the river's dam, Glen Canyon, no matter
how much comes in.

Because the river's real average flow was less than the 1922 compact envisioned,
Powell very often released more than half of the water the Colorado River delivered.
But it did not really matter because the upper basin states were not using their share.
Now, communities from Denver to Salt Lake City and Indian tribes with old water rights
in their portfolios are stepping forward to stake their claims. Lake Powell, which has
been called the aquatic piggy bank of the upper West, is overdrawn.

If water levels continue to fall, Powell will be unable to generate electricity as early
as 2007 or sooner, some hydrologists say. And it would be reduced more or less to the old
riverbed channel of the Colorado River not long after that. Even now, the lake's managers say,
it would take a decade of historically normal rainfall to refill it.

"If we're only in the middle of this drought, then Lake Powell might be very close to some
very dramatic problems," said Dr. John C. Dohrenwend, a retired geologist for the Geological
Survey who lives near the lake.

Insufficient water for the Glen Canyon Dam turbines would be only the beginning. At that point,
much of the lake bottom would be exposed, creating a vast environment for noxious weeds like
tamarisk and thistle.

The next step in the spiral would come at what is called "dead pool," where decades' worth of
agricultural chemicals at the lake bottom would begin mixing more actively with the reactivated
river. The question then, environmentalists say, is what would happen to the Grand Canyon, just
south of the dam.

An Issue That May Go to Congress

"Americans won't stand for the Grand Canyon being endangered," said John Weisheit, the conservation
director for Living Rivers, an environmental group in Moab, Utah, that advocates removing the
dam at Glen Canyon and allowing the river to return to its natural course. "In another year, they're
going to be talking more seriously about Powell in Congress."

But the fact is, no one knows: the weather could change tomorrow. Many past Western droughts have
ended suddenly, with a bang ofprecipitation.

But some dry spells persisted for generations. From about 900 to 1300, scientists say, periodic
drought in the West was the norm. Only a few times during that period, according to tree-growth
measurements, was precipitation anywhere near the relatively high levels of the 20th century.

"What is unusual is not the drought periods, but the above-average wet periods," said Dr. Robert Webb, a hydrologist with the Geological Survey who specializes in the Colorado River.

The uncertainty has local, state and federal officials along the 1,450-mile river scurrying to secure water allotments while also preparing for the worst.

Already in Las Vegas, the regional water agency is removing the equivalent of a football field of grass
every day from front lawns, playgrounds and golf courses to save on outdoor watering. Farther downriver,
Arizona officials are pumping billions of gallons of water into aquifers to save for an even less rainy day.

Electricity has become a concern.

The Western Area Power Administration, the federal agency that distributes power from hydroelectric projects
in the Rocky Mountain West, plans to reduce by about 25 percent the amount of electricity it can promise in future years.

Conserving on a Large Scale

In Los Angeles, a representative from the West's largest urban water agency, the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, is among a group of Western water officials dusting off plans to help
limit evaporation from reservoirs, which could save billions of gallons. One idea is to pour a nontoxic substance over the reservoirs to form a water-trapping barrier.

The group, which has been holding meetings, is even looking at far-off solutions like raising the
height of Hoover Dam so that more water could be collected and saved during wet times.

"We understand we have a problem and we are working on it," said the Los Angeles representative,
Dennis Underwood, a former head of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees dams and
reservoirs in the West.

There are also worries downstream from Powell at Lake Mead, which serves Nevada, Arizona and California.
It could drop low enough as early as next year to force officials to declare a drought emergency. That
would hurt the booming southern Nevada economy through significantly higher water rates and outright
bans on things like new swimming pools, said Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water
Authority.

Mr. Raley of the Interior Department said he wanted the states to consider a water bank, in which unused
water could be leased or sold across state lines. Some previous efforts to create banks, with federal
oversight, have been contentious because they were seen by smaller states as a means to funnel more of
the river to water-guzzling California.

But the notion of cutting private water deals on the Colorado is gaining broader acceptance, in large part
because of the drought. The most celebrated example was a deal last year to sell irrigation water in the
Imperial Valley of Southern California to the urban water district in San Diego.

Some advocates for agriculture fear that water-to-the-highest-bidder could ravage ranches and farms if
owners were induced to sell their irrigation rights. But private-market supporters say the truth, like it
or not, is that farmers own most of the West's water, and ultimately there will be fewer of them.

There is some concern that if the Colorado River goes into crisis, the ensuing tangle of litigation over
water rights, endangered species and border disputes could undo the system of Western water law that has
evolved over the last 100 years.

Some say that would be a good thing.

"The law of the river is hopelessly, irretrievably obsolete, designed on a hydrological fallacy,
around an agrarian West that no longer exists," Professor McCool at the University of Utah said.
"After six years of drought, somebody will have to say the emperor has no clothes."

Water officials in Arizona and Nevada say they would also like to rethink the law of the river to
put their states on a more equal footing in sharing the Colorado River. But Mr. Raley said such talk
invites disaster and chaos, especially during a drought.

"This isn't the time to plunge into chaos," he said.

Other people who live here on the fringe of Lake Powell say that the West's great reservoirs have,
in their very decline, proved their value in stretching out limited water resources and underlined
the difference between past civilizations here that anthropologists say were wiped out or displaced
by drought.

"Those people back then had nothing to catch and save their water - now we do," said Ronald W.
Thompson, district manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District in southwestern Utah.

"I'm a believer that history repeats itself - long-term drought could return," Mr. Thompson said.
"But I suspect our civilization can weather this."

Kirk Johnson reported from Page, Ariz., for this article and Dean E. Murphy from Grand Canyon National Park.

Water Companies -Siemens

2004-07-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

Information is also available at: http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/business/20040513004834.shtml and http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?mode=4&N_ID=47690 . Note that one of these stories highlights that Veolia has kept Culligan water.

In Canada, US Filter has a P3 contract with the City of Moncton, New Brunswick for their water filtration plant - you can find out more about the coalition that succeeded in preventing the company from taking over the water distribution systems in 2002 at: http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/political/louisa/louisa.htm and http://www.guyduguay.com/sos/index.html

Take care,
-Sara

Sara Ehrhardt
National Water Campaigner
Council of Canadians
502-151 Slater St, Ottawa ON, K1P 5H3
p: 613-233-2773 ext. 239
f: 613-233-6776
sara@canadians.org
http://www.canadians.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: http://www.waterindustry.org/New%20Projects/siemens-1.htm

Siemens Buys U.S. Filter from Veolia
May 12, 2004
By Georgina Prodhan
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Siemens unveiled a billion-dollar acquisition of North America's largest water company on Wednesday, its first major deal since signaling it was ready to spend some of its $15 billion in cash expanding its portfolio.

The German engineering group said it would pay Veolia Environnement $993 million for the water systems and services division of US Filter, bringing it closer to rival General Electric in the world's biggest water market. ``This acquisition is an important step in the framework of strengthening our group portfolio,'' Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) chief Joergen Ole Haslestad said in a statement. ``The growing water business will play a critical role within our industrial activities at Siemens,'' Haslestad said. ``With it, we will be able to expand our product and service offerings for our customers, in particular within the world's largest water market, the U.S.A.'' The businesses acquired by Siemens have annual sales of $1.2 billion and employ around 5,800 people. Veolia has for the past year been selling assets relating to US Filter -- a legacy from former parent Vivendi -- which cost it 2.2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in writedowns in the first half of its fiscal year.

GROWING MARKET
GE began buying water treatment companies two years ago in a bid to exploit a global trend of dwindling water supplies and greater demand. The world's water market is worth some $360 billion annually and is growing at a rate of six percent, with services and equipment accounting for around $40 billion, according to GE. ``It's really a very attractive market,'' said analyst Axel Funhoff of Bear Stearns, and Andre Jaekel of ABN Amro said the acquisition made ``a lot of sense in our view given the increasingly favorable environment.'' Jaekel said Siemens would be able to leverage its global distribution to sell the products outside the United States, but added it would probably have to restructure the business to match GE's 15-percent operating margin in water.
Siemens has consistently emphasized it would be picky about the profit margins of prospective takeover targets, as all its units have closely watched operating margin goals set by Chief Executive Heinrich von Pierer.
The head of Siemens' Medical unit told Reuters last week it had let British healthcare firm Amersham go to GE last year because the price of $10.4 billion was too high, although such big acquisitions were not ruled out.
By 5:52 a.m. EDT Siemens shares had fallen 1.2 percent to 57.45 euros, underperforming the blue-chip DAX index, which slipped 0.5 percent. Veolia was 2.5 percent higher at 22.30 euros, against a flat European utilities index.

STRATEGIC MOVE FOR VEOLIA
Veolia said in a statement the disposal was ``a major step in the strategic refocusing of Veolia Environnement's water activities in North America on long-term contracts for both municipal and industrial clients, as announced last September.'' US Filter, bought by Vivendi in a spending spree in the 1990s, has products ranging from bottled water services for homes to the design and construction of large water and waste water treatment systems. Siemens and Veolia said they expected to close the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, by the end of September. Deutsche Bank advised Veolia on the deal. Siemens declined to say who its adviser was.
Siemens said the headquarters of the new company, which would become part of its Industrial Solutions and Services group, would remain in Palm Desert, California. U.S. Filter's other main base among its 120 locations around the world is Houston, Texas. (Additional reporting by Rebecca Harrison in Paris)
© 2004 Reuters

Land Trust Alliance of BC

2004-07-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

LT The Land Trust Alliance Of British Columbia
204-338 Lower Ganges Road, Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 2V3

www.landtrustalliance.bc.ca 250-538-0112 fax 538-0172

For Immediate Release June 3rd, 2004

Bill Turner, President of The Land Conservancy of BC, was awarded May 31st Canada's Environment Award, Gold for Conservation. Bill who is also on the Council of The Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia, the provincial association for land trusts, is pleased to announce the release of an important timely report: "Safeguarding Canada's Wealth: Bringing Stewardship and Conservation into Ecological, Economic Valuation." Bill suggests "As our country prepares for a national election, the contents of this report provide a timely economic analysis and wake up call about Canada's true wealth, provided through the assets and services of our country's natural ecosystems."

Bringing ecological values into our economy is essential, as we face global warming, SARS, increased cancer rates, and the escalating loss of the natural systems that support our health and lives. This 34-page report examines dominant contemporary economic practices and the ecosystem goods, functions and services that are ignored in our economic paradigms. The argument to expand our economic valuation methods to include a more holistic view will allow us to approach and discuss the economic values or assets of natural systems and to argue for the inherent need to support activities that steward and conserve nature philosophically, economically, and financially. The report analyses current ecological valuation methods, including formulas that assert that an intact ecosystem is 100 times more valuable than one that has been altered or destroyed, making ecosystem protection an economic and sustainable necessity.

The report presents recent studies and research on the numerous conditions and trends within Canada, and particularly within British Columbia, which reveal that many of our country's and province's corporate subsidies, policies and programs ensure that environmentally destructive industries receive continued economic support. Examinations of private and public agency ratings on Canada's and BC's activities conclude that our efforts at sustainability are inadequate, despite increased public awareness of and support for environmental initiatives.

These arguments precede the section detailing the environmental crisis we are facing, followed by analyses of contemporary economic valuation methodology and the changing nature of market practices in Canada. The work of many ecological economists is reviewed, providing encouraging support for a more integrated economic system that includes ecosystem goods, services and functions for the immense life-sustaining values they provide. Bill Turner emphasized the report's findings which state that increased support to stewardship and conservation organizations is essential to safeguard Canada's true wealth and societal health, found in our natural ecosystems.

In a time of considerable public goods and services cut backs, these conditions situate stewardship and conservation organizations in a precarious financial situation, as they struggle to protect the environments integral to the health of all of our societies and economies.

This report is released in conjunction with additional research by an Ad Hoc group of non-profit environmental groups which is examining the funding problems currently facing stewardship and conservation organizations in BC. Funding for this research was provided by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, Environment Canada and Habitat Conservation Trust Fund.

The full report is at www.landtrustalliance.bc.ca/research.

For further information contact:

Sheila Harrington Bill Turner
Executive Director President
The Land Trust Alliance of BC The Land Conservancy of BC
250-538-0112 250-479-8053

Water Companies

2004-07-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Aqua International: Thirsting for Profit

One of the sleaziest venture capital firms to enter the emerging world
of "water markets" is Aqua International. The objective of Aqua
International, by its own description, is to generate long-term capital
appreciation through equity investment in private water companies or
those in the process of being privatized. The firm focuses on water in
emerging and developing markets and will target "leveraged annual
internal rates of return in the region of 25% compounded annually."
This will certainly make shareholders happy, but is likely to contribute
to growing public health crises as water becomes a privatized commodity
subject to market prices that ensure shareholders a hefty profit, but
leave billions without access. Currently, more than a billion people
lack access to clean and affordable water and 2.4 billion lack
sanitation services. More than 5 million people, mostly children, die
each year from common, preventable water-borne diseases. Last October
the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government
agency, rewarded Aqua International's entrepreneurial exploitation of
growing water scarcity by granting the venture capital firm $70 million
of U.S. taxpayer money, stating that the investments of Aqua
International could address conditions of severe water stress in Africa,
the Middle East, and South Asia. This is highly unlikely given
shareholder requirements for 25% rates of return! In addition, "risk
mitigation" investment requirements include "indexing company revenue
streams to dollar foreign exchange," which in plain English means
massive increases in water prices for consumers in the developing world.
This will undoubtably exacerbate water stress in Africa, the Middle
East and South Asia.

It is time to openly condemn profit-hungry water speculators. Water is
a natural resource that should remain in the public domain. It is not a
commodity to be auctioned off as the private property of multinational
corporations. Nor should U.S. agencies be rewarding this
entrepreneurial activity with grants of taxpayer money. One more sad
footnote to the Aqua International tragedy is that its CEO, William
Reilly, gains some of his credibility from his previous job as president
of the World Wildlife Fund from 1985-1989 and as the Administrator of
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1989-1993.

Sara Grusky
Water for All Campaign
Public Citizen
Phone: (202) 454-5133
Website: www.wateractivist.org

"Most of our populace and all of our leaders are
participating in a mass hallucinatory fantasy in
which the megatons of waste we dump in our rivers
and bays are not poisoning the water, the hydrocarbons
we pump into the air are not changing the climate,
overfishing is not depleting the oceans, fossil fuels will
never run out, wars that kill masses of civilians are an
appropriate way to keep our hands on what's left, we
are not desperately overdrawn at the environmental bank
and really, the kids are all right."
Excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver
"The Good Farmer"

**********
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For more information on the Water For All Campaign please visit http://www.citizen.org/cmep

Global - Loans for Water & Sanitation Services

2004-07-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

Right to Water -- posted by mfiil@citizen.org
============================================================
World Bank Watch monitors World Bank-proposed (pipeline) loans for water
and sanitation services. The World Bank continues to promote
privatization and cost recovery policies, as well as supports legal
structures that undermine local democracy despite evidence that such
policies reduce access, raise the price of water for the poor,
exacerbate inequities, and reduce local control. In this new issue,
World Bank Watch now also monitors the approval and dismissal of loans.

There are already many bad loans that have been forced down the throats
of the people, but the proposed loans provide the opportunity to
organize against their approval. Please spread the information to as
many people as possible; especially those who live in the countries
receiving the loans. In order to organize, World Bank Watch lists
contact details to the World Bank task managers responsible for the
proposals.

The analysis of the loans April-June 2004 has updated lending
information on the following countries: Albania, Angola, Bangladesh,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Georgia,
Ghana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya,
Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, People's
Democratic Republic of Lao, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Vietnam,
West Bank and Gaza and Zambia.

You can find the free news as HTML on:
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/new/wbwatch/articles.cfm?ID=11802
and as PDF on:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/World%20Bank%20Watch%20April-June%202004.pdf

Water Investors

2004-07-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign
**********

Public Citizen mole reports:

Water investors optimistic and, as usual, sleazy as hell, reports Water
for All gumshoe

‘Water is under-priced,’ and ‘Rates have room to rise,’ it was
announced to a room full of gleeful and eager water investors
participating in the Wall Street Conference on Investing in the Water
Industry at the Harvard Club in New York on June 8, 2004.

Indeed, optimism for the exploitation of water delivery and water
resources for private profit was at high pitch. And the enthusiasm
tempered only by the corrosive-for-profits, recalcitrant, and pestering
presence of phenomena such as “regulation,” the mention of which
provoked violent anathemas and a coronary or two from pursed-lipped
attendees. What these privateers did not know was that there was a Water
for All mole in attendance – a Public Citizen secret sleuth in the sea
of dark suits, brazenly operating in open-toed sandals. Our woman
inside, whose name is ‘water’ (henceforth referred to as Water
Woman), recorded all, from the smarmy scheming to podium pedantry to
lunch table indiscretions.

Regulation, certainly, was a hot topic. Participants seemed chagrinned
but resigned to current regulatory frameworks being extended
indefinitely. The water industry is “100 percent regulated and will be
for the foreseeable future,” David Schanzer of the investment firm
Janney Montgomery Scott said. “There is no impetus for
deregulation.” Companies do, however, claim that regulation in
certain states is inhospitable (read actually competent) to the water
business. David Smeltzer, the CFO of Aqua America, a private company
which serves over 2.5 million costumers in 13 states, said New York,
Connecticut and Kentucky are bad places to go; Aqua America, in fact, is
pulling out of Kentucky. Investors suggested that private companies that
operate across state borders could neutralize the mal-effects of
stringent regulation by taking punitive measures and shifting capital
assets away from “offending” states.

Other bad news was the worry that municipalities’ power of eminent
domain could be an immense drain on the private water industry. For
example, according to Schanzer, in Florida governments have taken over
water utilities to protect retirees from rate increases, and, as foreign
corporations invest more in the US water sector, in New Hampshire the
public has been inspired to take back control of their water to protect
it from “being controlled by foreign interests.”

For the most part though, the giddy air of get-rich opportunity
prevailed, driven by a consensus that water is under-valued and that
rates have room to go up. Peter Cook, Executive Director of the National
Association of Water Companies (NAWC, a trade association for private
utilities), said studies show people are willing to pay more. He
followed, with a wink and a nod to an understanding and appreciative
audience, “We are going to have to do a lot more explaining and
education to assure our costumers’ acceptance of the rate
increases…”

Furthermore, as US water infrastructures begin to come of age and
deteriorate and the lack of public funds becomes more evident, the
“only real solutions,” according to Cook, become privatization,
consolidation, public-private partnerships, and private activity bonds.
To the notion of a public water infrastructure trust fund, investors
excitedly repeated, as if it were a mantra, the phrase: “It has no
political legs, no political legs, no political legs…”

Other interesting tidbits included:

* Conference attendees discouraged European-style operations and
maintenance contracts and openly mocked them in private conversations
with Water Woman over lunch – unless of course the purpose is, as
described by Janney, to “make the municipality see how good an
operator you are, and ultimately sell you the asset.”
* More glee from the desalinization industry which
enthusiastically reported, “We have no unions!”
* The hotter and dryer, the better. Or, put another way, the more
water you sell, the more money you make. Or, put yet another way, (by
Artesian Resources Corp.’s Joseph Dinunzio) “In the summer people
irrigate their lawns. We like that.”

Despite all else, perhaps Peter Cook of the NAWC said it best: “There
is no way we can compete with an efficiently managed and technically
competent municipality.”

Maj Fiil-Flynn
Policy Analyst
Water for All Campaign
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Av SE
Washington DC 20003
Ph. +1.202.588.1000
Ph. (dir) +1.202.454.5178
Fax +1.202.547.7392
mfiil@citizen.org
www.wateractivist.org

**********
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To unsubscribe from Water For All, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with "Unsubscribe Waterforall" in the message.

For more information on the Water For All Campaign please visit http://www.citizen.org/cmep/