Water Privatization

Water privatization is when private corporation obtains the right to buy or operate a town’s public water services. Local governments often give up their water rights to these companies for the pay out or because their water systems are old and need replacing but the current funds are not there. From reading many articles over the years this often leads to higher rates for the citizens that live there and worse service than they had previously. By signing over the property of the city’s water you are losing all control you had previously. The companies that purchase the towns water often do not care about the service they receive because they only care about the stockholder’s opinion. Since the company does not care about the citizen’s opinions the public has lost any input in the new system. When a corporation owns a town’s water supply the public does not get to elect an official like they do in the public system. This destroys the open communication that exists in a public system, where anyone can go to the official’s office and talk to them about the issue. Corporations do not have the same objectives as that of public systems or the needs of the public. An example of this is where the corporation decides to choose to expand their services. They will not expand to areas of low income where they will encounter low bills and issues with collecting the money, whereas a public system would try to expand to every area. This brings up the issue of water as a human right, because corporations will not want to supply water to everyone especially those that do not pay their bills. Humans can live weeks without food but only days without water which leaves public health in jeopardy. The world is facing a water crisis, do want our fate in the hands of some company or do we want to be able to have control of our own services? The World Bank Group sees water privatization as the solution to this water crisis. Many international advocacy and civil society groups are pushing the World Bank to end their support of water privatization. These groups believe that the World Bank is using its position to get water companies rich instead of supporting affordable and clean public water services. Corporations want to make a profit so they will typically hike up the rates, “investor owned utilities typically charge 33% more for water and 63% more for sewer service than local government utilities.” The rates only continue to increase year after year that the company is in control. When a company purchases the water service they often let go one out of three existing workers in the water industry.

A different option to privatization is to construct public-public partnerships. These connections can improve public services and reduce costs while leaving the communities to retain control of their municipalities.

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/water-privatization-facts-and-figures

This website is a very good source for various issues we are facing in the United States and around the world, including water privatization.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/4/water-managementprivatizationworldbankgroupifc.html

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/30/water-privatisation-worldwide-failure-lagos-world-bank

Dead Zones in Oceans

A dead zone is an area that has a concentration of oxygen in the water that is so low that animals cannot live there because they suffocate when they stick around too long.

One of the largest dead zones is on the Gulf of Mexico. This dead zone fluctuates every spring because that is when runoff from farmers crops and fertilizers wash away into the Gulf. In 2014 the dead zone on the Gulf of Mexico reached the size of Connecticut. This is not only detrimental to the animals that live in that ecosystem, but it costs the United States $82 million dollars every year due to reduced tourism and fishing yield. No one wants to visit a place that smells like rotting fish. This is similar to what happened at Salton Sea. The Gulf of Mexico is an example of a time where human interference was the cause of this dead zone, but there are places where they occur naturally. There are over 200 dead zones in the United States. Because of our human pollution we are creating more dead zones faster than nature can fix them. Worldwide there are over 400 known dead zones, this means that in the United States we have half of all the dead zones in the world. This should be a sign of how badly we need to change in the United States. Sewage, not fertilizer, is a main issue in South America and Africa. This is better because we know how to create a proper sewage and wastewater treatment plan in a city so this problem can be fixed once the proper funds are moved towards fixing it. Another contributor to dead zones is airborne nitrogen pollution. The main sources of nitrogen pollution come from vehicles and power plants.

Climate change has aided to the creation of many dead zones across the globe. If the water continues to increase, it will only create more dead zones because the higher the temperature of the water the less dissolved oxygen it can hold. Scientists have found that by the end of the century areas with severe oxygen deficiency will see a 2-degree Celsius increase which will only worsen existing problems and potentially increase the perimeter of these dead zones. Many hypoxic zones are created or enhanced by humans. Another way that humans can create dead zones is through wastewater that is piped into rivers which eventually hit the oceans. These excess nutrients create algae blooms which use a lot of the dissolved oxygen in the water leaving nothing for the animals that live there causing them to die. When things die in the water they decompose, which uses more dissolved oxygen in the water and their bodies provide even more nutrients on which the algae can grow. This algae blooming issue is more common to areas with still water such as lakes, so it is harder for this to occur in oceans where the water moves around. If farmers used less fertilizer then this would not create as big of a problem.

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/deadzone.html

http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/devil-deep-blue-sea

http://www.teachoceanscience.net/teaching_resources/education_modules/dead_zones/learn_about/

Aquaculture

Aquaculture is a form of farming that involves many different species of aquatic animals and plants. Some examples are shellfish, food fish, sport fish, bait fish, crustaceans, algae, fish eggs, and mollusks. Aquaculture is the most popular sources of protein worldwide and accounts for nearly 50 percent of the world’s food fish for human consumption. 85 percent of the world’s marine stocks are either fully exploited or overfished, driving accelerated growth in the farmed seafood industry. Aquaculture can be done in oceans, rivers, ponds, or indoors in big tanks, cages, or raceways. Some fish are made in aquaculture to replenish the natural population that is in the oceans already that have become very low due to overfishing. The plants that are grown in aquaculture are used for many different purposes, such as: pharmaceutical, food, and biotechnology. There are other types of aquaculture as well depending on where the species live naturally, marine or freshwater aquaculture. Marine aquaculture is in the ocean and can take place in cages, suspended in the water column, or on the bottom of the seafloor. This method produces species such as: seabass, cod, salmon, and yellowtail. Freshwater aquaculture takes place in streams, rivers, lakes and streams. This method commonly produces species such as: bass, trout, and tilapia.

Aquaculture causes a lot of pollution and it can sometimes runoff from farms and disturb the biodiversity of the ocean. This pollution comes from chemical and excess nutrients from feeding and maintaining the food being grown. It also comes from feces that all the fish produce on a daily basis, which can disturb the natural flora and fauna on the ocean floor. Some examples of chemicals used are: antibiotics, pesticides, and anti-foulants. These chemicals are commonly used for farming done on the land as well. Another form of “pollution” that comes from farms in bodies of water is in the form of disease and parasites. It is harder to control disease in the ocean than on land because it is in a fluid which makes it easier to transfer. These viruses can transfer between wild and farmed species. Another problem with aquaculture is the potential for them to escape and corrupt the wild population’s genetic diversity.  Aquaculture has to produce their own feed for the animals they raise which often includes fish or fish related ingredients which also creates a strain on overfishing.

Aquaculture in the U.S. is small compared to the other countries. The largest production of species are molluscan shellfish (67%), salmon (25%), and shrimp (10%). America is one of the largest consumers of aquaculture, importing 84 percent of our seafood. Of this 84 percent, half of this is produced by aquaculture. The top aquaculture producers in the world are: China, Japan, India, Chili, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Korea, and Philippines. There are many aquaculture organizations around the U.S, the National Shellfisheries Association, Striped Bass Growers Association, Texas Aquaculture Association, Aquaculture Certification Council, and many others. Many of these organizations are put there for environmental protection and regulations.

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/what_is_aquaculture.html

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/what_is_aquaculture.html

http://fishery.about.com/od/CommonAquacultureSpecies/a/Aquaculture-Top-10-Aquaculture-Countries.htm

Is water a human right?

Water is becoming a very controversial topic in the recent years especially as the amount we have available starts to lower over time. In 10 years Yemen is expected to have no water left in their whole country. This brings up the issue of if water should be a human right or a commodity. There are strong arguments for each side.

From looking at the World Health Organization’s website, WHO, I found a section on water sanitation and health which talks about if water should be a human right. Water being a human right means that they have access to water that is clean and in a sufficient amount to meet individual needs. It does not specify how much water you will get per person so this number could be different depending on who you ask and from what country they are from. However, in general it must meet a minimum, the quantity must suffice to meet basic human needs in terms of drinking, bathing, cleaning, cooking and sanitation.  If water is a human right it also means that water is affordable and accessible for everyone. This is no longer true when they have to walk miles to reach drinking water or that water is so expensive that they have to use money set for something else to pay for their water. Although industry and electricity are important for an adequate standard of living, these uses must not disturb the right to household water. Water that was used for industry and agriculture must not be contaminated after for drinking water.

There are many obstacles to achieving this such as: water scarcity, bad planning and management, overpricing of water, and groundwater contamination. In the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two 1966 International Covenants on, respectively, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), water is not mentioned explicitly, but it is regarded as an integral component of other recognized rights, such as the rights to life, to adequate standard of living, to health, to housing and to food. In considering state obligations human beings are responsible for themselves and their own well-being. The state must take legislative, administrative and other action progressively to achieve that every human being within its jurisdiction has access to adequate water, to the maximum of its available resources. An example of state obligation is to dig wells, cleaning up pollution, and setting up and maintaining pipelines. The state does not have to do this themselves but they have to make sure it is being done. If something is a human right it means that it is about governance and what they are required to do and what not to do to infringe or protect those rights.

The United Nations stated that water and sanitation should be a human right. With these two things taken care of poverty rates will go down significantly. The right to water is not directly mentioned in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights but it is implied. The water problem cannot be fixed by one universal policy, which is why there is not one in place. Water will face more problems in coming years due to population growth and ground water drilling.

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/humanrights/en/index1.html

http://www.unric.org/en/water/27360-making-water-a-human-right

http://www.righttowater.info/