Think About It

Hi All!

In this week's "Think About It" clip on page 108, the authors ask us to ponder the notion of privatized clean water utilities.

"Evidence shows that businesses may often be better suited (in terms of experience, efficiencies, and captial) to develop and operate water utilities than governments are, and yet the very notion of letting a firm make a profit from public resource strikes many people as wrong. Critics of privatized water systems stress that clean water is a human right, and not a commodity to be bought and sold. What do you think? Should companies like Suez and Nestle be allowed to profit form local water supplies? How might better marketing practices avert the kinds of situations that might lead to backlash against businesses?"

These questions are very hard! As the book addresses there are two very valid sides to this argument. On one hand we have privatization that is benefitting society by delivering cleaner water to cities, and that same water to areas that had no prior access to water. Many governments neglect their water facilities, or just don't have the money to make necessary upgrades. "For authorization to make a profit from their services, private companies invest in water treatment and distribution facilities. In the case of Buenos Aires, Suez was able to deliver more and cleaner water throughout the city, including to its poorest areas, at lower prices than the government had" (108). This is a clear example of how private companies taking neglected water facilities from the government to enhance quality, can contribute to society in wonderful ways.

On the other hand, we have situations where privatized water plants do injustice to the surrounding communities. "In the developing world, water-for-profit models have made clean water inaccessible for many poor populations"(108). In few words, that simply wont work.

But what do I really think? If I had an all-knowing answer I would tell you. But I don't. None of us do. If privatization of water utilities is what it takes to control the mass amounts of water that we the human race consumes, or to provide clean water to third world countries, or to reduce the impact that waste water has on the ecosystem, than I think we should do it. I also believe that we are too much in a crisis to be fighting over someone making a profit or not, what it comes down to is that we are responsible for polluting the Earth's water supply, and now we are responsible for fixing it.
Maybe a solution would be to tax or fine any building, residential or commercial, that omits waste water. In turn, the money collected could go to Non-profit companies that own water utilities and make necessary updates to treatment facilities. This way, the non-for-profits would get funded with the money provided by the people responsible for the dilemma in the first place.

Tell me, what do you think?