Water privatisation the problem, not the solution

by Peter Mac

Northern NSW agribusinesses recently celebrated the arrival of long-delayed 
rainwater for their vast rice and cotton floodplains. However, their 
rejoicing spelt terrible news for people further down the once mighty 
Murray-Darling river network, which has now ceased to flow.

Continued extraction by these corporations of huge amounts of water from 
the upper reaches of the Darling deprives those downstream of irrigation 
and drinking water, and will soon render Adelaide's water undrinkable.

Scientists and organisations around Australia have expressed deep concerns 
that water must be seen as a shared resource under strict, fair and 
rational government control. The Howard government is now finalising a plan 
ostensibly aimed at achieving a more rational and efficient use of our 
water resources.

The government describes the plan as a "national water rights trading 
scheme". It obviously sees the main issue relating to water as the right to 
trade it as private property.

The quantity and distribution of water aren't the only problems. The 
quality of our drinking water, and its safe disposal, are now jeopardised 
by the privatisation of Australia's water services.

For example, in 1995 the South Australian Government signed a contract with 
an essentially French and British conglomerate, United Water International 
Consortium.

The contract, for the management and operation of Adelaide's entire water 
supply and disposal system, commenced in 1996. Water rates immediately 
rose, the first 136 kilolitres costing an extra 59 percent.

A third of the water treatment workforce was retrenched. The company's 
chairman later stated bluntly: "We're not here because we love the state 
and we've got bleeding hearts, for Christ's sake. We're here to make 
money."

In the contract's second year, Adelaide endured a widespread and unbearable 
stench. Queensland University investigators traced this to raw sewage 
accidentally released into open treatment ponds at Adelaide's Bolivar water 
treatment plant.

United Water's monitoring was subsequently found to have been inadequate. 
The University team's head investigator concluded: "It was dollars driving 
everything. The big emphasis was on minimising costs. The Bolivar incident 
is an illustration of what can happen when things like monitoring and 
maintenance are cut to the bone."

Such comments didn't, however, deter the State Government from upgrading 
the plant. This cost SA taxpayers $27 million, but will considerably reduce 
United Water's maintenance bill over the life of the plant.

Shortly afterwards, Sydney residents got a taste of "third world" 
conditions with the unwelcome arrival of the parasites Cryptosporidium and 
Giardia in their drinking water.

Sydney's newly opened Prospect water treatment plant, which supplies nearly 
85 percent of the city's water supply needs, had been built and was 
operated by Australian Water Services, a French/American consortium.

During a subsequent inquiry, the NSW Government and the company bickered 
about their respective responsibilities, but both tried to prevent the 
airing of "commercial-in-confidence" documents relating to the plant.

With remarkable understatement, inquiry commissioner Peter McClellan 
concluded that: "Public need will generally require the provision of the 
highest reasonable quality of service. This may be inconsistent with the 
profit motive and other commercial considerations. . The inevitable 
question is whether some essential government services should remain within 
the ownership and control of government, with direct ministerial 
responsibility."

By 2001, some 25 percent of Australia's drinking water was supplied by 
private firms, mostly foreign-owned.

The situation is not, of course, unique to Australia. Water supply and 
services are now looming as a huge international problem.

Proposed new dams in Turkey would drastically cut water flows to Iraq. A 
pan-American association of scientists recently found that in 2000, 15 
percent of Latin American and Caribbean people had no drinking water supply 
and 21 percent had no sanitation system.

Privatisation of Bolivian water supplies brought about a series of "water 
wars". The Nicaraguan government supports privatisation of the state-owned 
Aqueducts and Drainage Company, despite the threat that privatisation poses 
to preventive health care of millions. Privatised water services in 
Argentina are now only supplied to those who can afford them.

And within 15 years the three largest water resource corporations (Suez, 
Vivendi, and Thames Water) will probably control between 65 and 75 percent 
of the world's waterworks.

Privatisation of water supply and services is clearly not the solution to 
water problems. Indeed, it is actually at the root cause of most of the 
problems along with the environmentally destructive practices that come 
with the profit-driven, private sector.