Water, Water Everywhere (hopefully)

(with thanks to Lil Milagro Martinez-Cornejo for the article from which this is excerpted)

Studies by Japanese scientist Masaro Emoto have proven what many of our traditional knowledges knew all along, that water is life, it is a sacred element that must be respected . . . And it is that sacredness, that right to enjoy clean water that is increasingly coming under attack from privatization and human induced global warming and drought.

The average United States citizen uses roughly 60 gallons of water a day at a typical residence, significantly more than is necessary to sustain life. Those in what we consider to be ‘developing’ countries are struggling to find five gallons a day and are often times surviving on 3 gallons per day. (Sterling and Vintinner, 2008).

The United States is also leading the world in drinking bottled water. “Three out of four Americans drink bottled water, and one out of five Americans drink only bottled
water” (Louaillier, 2008). Drinking bottled water sends the message to corporations that not only is it okay to privatize water but that we will often pay 100 times more for bottled water than for tap water, even though in a recent CBS News poll 2/3rds of participants in a blind taste test either preferred tap to the battled water brand names
or couldn’t tell the difference. And the real irony: Up to 40% of bottled water, including Aquafina and Dasani, come from the same source of tap water.

Privatization of our waters doesn’t necessarily mean that the water is any cleaner, any freer of natural containments. The only difference is that tap water falls under national governmental standards designed to protect public health.

In the drive to privatize and commodify all natural ‘resources’, we have forgotten that water is a common right for all, not just those who can afford to pay.