Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water

This excellent book makes the case for public ownership and control over our water services. In the past ten years, three giant global corporations, France's Suez and Vivendi Environnement, and Thames, have seized control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent. Vivendi increased its water revenue from $5 billion in 1990 to over $12 billion by 2002, RWE from $25 million in 1990 to $2.5 billion in 2002. These companies claim to be `passionate, caring and reliable', yet they push for higher rate increases, frequently fail to meet their commitments and abandon a waterworks if they are not making enough money. As Suez's Chief Executive Officer said, "Water is an efficient product. It is a product which normally would be free, and our job is to sell it." In France, charges for privatised water services are 13% higher than for public services. For two months in 1998, after privatisation, more than three million residents of Sydney were forced to boil their drinking water to kill parasites. Fifteen months after the city of Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, `the big pong'. New Jersey, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Manila and Jakarta have all experienced problems after privatisation. In 1996 Hamilton in Canada experienced its worst-ever sewage spill, when 48 million gallons of untreated human waste, heavy metals and chemicals flooded into Lake Ontario. Atlanta, Georgia, gave control over its water to Suez five years ago, and quality and service dropped. The city returned control to the public utility. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, after Aguas del Tunari, a Bechtel subsidiary, took control of the city's waterworks in 1999, it raised water bills 100%. The contract allowed the company to close down people's private wells unless they paid Aguas del Tunari for the water. Union leader Oscar Olivera said, "They wanted to privatise the rain." The city's people organised a referendum. Most voted to end the contract and forced Bechtel out of the country. Similarly, in 2000 the people of Grenoble succeeded in returning their water and sewage system to public control. In Iraq, the US state put Bechtel in charge of rebuilding the water and sewage systems. But, as the U.S. Agency for International Development reported, "Baghdad's three sewage treatment plants, which together comprise three-quarters of the nation's sewage treatment capacity, are inoperable, allowing the waste from 3.8 million people to flow untreated directly into the Tigris River." A UN survey in May 2004 found that 80% of families living in rural areas had no safe water. Only 64 of 249 planned water projects have been completed. In 1999, South Africa initiated five water privatisation programs, aiming to make people pay the full cost of having running water in their homes. As Nelson Mandela had said, "Privatisation is the fundamental policy of our government. Call me a Thatcherite, i

This was a great book that highlights the current threats to our global water supply. This book was particularly thorough in the analysis of the privatization of water resources. It explains the international institutions that prop up global water companies. I was very impressed with the extensive research that the authors must have put into this book - they used many examples of water issues from around the world. This book is a great introductory book for someone interested in becoming more knowledgable in water issues. It is also a great book for the general public to help them to understand more about a resource they probably take for granted. Don't buy bottled water! It is environmentally wasteful of resources and economically unjustifiable. It contributes funds to private companies and helps to support global water corporations!

A detailed analysis on one of life's staples, and the prognosis is not good. Chapters on the impact of globalization, the failure of governments, the threat of international trade and investment agreements, and a vital citizen's guide to action. "The wars of this century will be about water."

Maude Barlow's "Blue Gold" is an eye opening book that helps us to see what is happening to our water. Slowly but surely, the ownership of our world's water, including water many of us drink at home, is falling under the control of private ownership. When this occurs, it is very tempting for greedy owners to increase the price any time they wish. Since there is usually no alternative for obtaining water, we as users are forced to pay or end up being cut off. This is not joke - because it has already happened in some places, and will happen more often as we enter a future of scarce water. We are at a time in history where humankind's management of water will determine what life forms live and die on the face of our earth, including other humans. What ecosystems have water to sustain their life forms; what farms receive water to produce food for our escalating populations; what suburbs and cities receive water to continue growing while quenching the thirst of their rising populations; what manufacturers receive water to produce consumer goods - will all be determined by those who control or own the rights to water. Over the past 30 years I have read hundreds of books on water - Barlow's book is one of the best when it comes to alerting us to the dangers of monopolistic control and ownership of our earth's waters. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about their children and our human civilization. Water is one of the basic rights any human being should have reasonable access to. Without water - you cannot live. What price you are willing to pay may soon be determined by owners who live in other countries and who could care less about your so called `rights" to have water. I see "Blue Gold" as a wake up call for all of us. It is only by being informed that we will be able to protect ourselves from being victimized.

This book is a wake up call. The healthy debate about who controls human genes is now firmly in the public mind - but what about the other 70% of the body? Water has been a major factor shaping the politics in the Middle East, but it may become like that everywhere. Never-mind the energy crisis, we should be talking about the water crisis. Please read this - water is shaping up to being one of the biggest issues in our world.