Water - a Fundamental Human Right, or a Commodity?

by Kate Harris, coordinator, Defending Water for Life in Maine

“We truly believe that no one owns the water. Life has no price, so water has no price.” - Virginia Museo, farmer

We are blessed with a relative abundance of water in Maine, along with a reputation for having lots of pristine wilderness. As a consequence, Maine is being targeted for ever-increasing groundwater extraction by corporate bottlers, most notably Nestlé - the largest food company and water bottler in the world.

In 1980, Perrier bought the Poland Springs Bottling Company, which was in turn bought by Nestlé in 1992. Nestlé’s website boasts that, in 2005, 82% of U.S. adults consumed bottled water, making it the fastest growing “beverage.” This despite costing on average 1,000 times more than tap water (which it often is!). Besides groundwater depletion and pollution near
many of the bottling plants, another environmentally damaging consequence is the unimaginable number of plastic bottles involved, more than 12 BILLION last year alone.

Recently, a vice president of the World Bank predicted that “the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water." Due to the long amount of time it takes to naturally replenish, most scientists consider groundwater a nonrenewable resource. Maine’s citizens must join the global debate over whether clean water is a fundamental human right or a private commodity to be managed for corporate profit.

Some propose putting a tax on water extraction providing Maine’s citizens with a revenue stream, similar to Alaska’s citizens who receive dividends from oil extraction. Would providing citizens with a financial benefit from the commodification of water lead to better conservation? It seems more likely that once it becomes a revenue source, the economic pressures to overdraw water will be very difficult to resist.

The Defending Water for Life in Maine campaign is dedicated to protecting water as a public commons and defending access to clean, affordable water for all. Please join us! To get involved and learn more, visit www.defendingwaterinmaine.org or contact the campaign coordinator, Kate Harris, (207) 338-9509, kate "at" defendingwaterinmaine.org

(Published in Sept. '06 issue of Picantico, the newsletter of PICA.)