Privitization is both good and bad, like many things, there are both pros and con of privatization. For pros, an increase of revenue is able to be made by controlling water in certain areas, there is an increase in success, improved efficiency, and expansion of services. For the cons, the public right becomes a private good, it is difficult to reverse, tariff and taxes increase, and water starved countries have even more of a hard time accessing water.
Nestle was pumping water in Wisconsin, until a large group of protesters led the governor to force Nestle out of the state, because of the amount of protesters against the pumping of water from the spring. After leaving Wisconsin, Nestle moved to Michigan. This was a good decision, because Michigan is home to many Great Lakes. With the amount of water in the tate, Nestle can pump more water and produce a greater profit. However, after a "slap suit" against the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the company was forced to stop pumping water in Michigan. After a while, the company went to the Court of Appeals where the decision was overturned and Nestle was able to resume the pumping of water. With this privilege granted by the Court, they also had restrictions. Nestle was not allowed to import or export any water bottles or water that was pumped in Michigan. With this law, came a bit of a challenge, how would Nestle sell their products if they were not able to import ot export the water? Well, that I am not 100% sure of, but I can guess that they packaged water bottles, possibly found a loophole, and sold the water and bottles to larger companies.
While reading the article, Race To Buy Up the World's Water, I realized that the amount of water in Alaska is higher than that of many states. In Sitka, Alaska, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka's reserves go unused. Also, there are two companies that have combined forces to form a plan of siphoning the water into tanks that are normally used for oil then shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai to then be dispersed among multiple several drought plauged Middle East Cities. The two companies, TrueAlaska Bottling and S2C Global, have only the large water baron in mind. The companies are not rushing to send water to third world countrie or water lacking countries such as Nigeria and Kenya. Instead, they are rushing to send water to oil rich countries in order to recieve financial gain in return. Something which I found quite interesting in reading this article, was that industrial household chemicals are polluting what is left of the rescources. Also, I found it interesting that privately owned water utilities will charge only what the market can bear, thus spending as little as possible in order to get by on maintinance and environmental protection.
While watching the third video clip about water rights, I was able to gain more knowledge of the problems with privatization and water rights than I had before. Many things were quite interesting and stood out to me, but I think that one of the most interesting things from the video clip, was that people in Kenya are not able to get out of debt, because of the lack of money they get from their exported tea. They keep having to help out other countries; yet they are not able to recieve help from the countries they sell their export to. Because of the lack of money, meters are placed on pipes and residents have to purchase a key or a token to use the expensive water. When I heard the story about the mother who went to work and took the water token with her, leaving her two daughters in the shack they lived in. The shack caught fire and nobody wanted to pay to ue water to put the fire out. The two girls both died in the fire, because they did not have any money to pay for water and their neighbors would not pay with their own money. For me, that is hard to grasp, not being able to access water and having it be a matter of life and death. Also, it is hard for me to imagine that people would not help two kids who are in a burning shack. From a moral standpoint, that is just not acceptable for me, people could not save two kids lives, because they wanted their water for themselves. Although, the fact that people have to pay for water, the fact that people are dying because they can't access water is sad, upsetting, and immoral. I think that water should be as it was meant to be, something everyone can enjoy without having to pay for it.
