EDITOR:
On February 4th, the living water smart Government team left a post on our website. I responded. Both of these are below.

In addition, activist Nelle Maxey also got the same message from the "team" and she wrote them back as well. I am posting her message below the website one.
On Feb. 4th, you left the following note on our website;

BC Ministry of Environment
The concerns raised in your blog post may leave readers thinking that government is planning to privatize B.C.’s water. This is not true. For what we mean by water markets and water rights trading, please see this post on the Living Water Smart Blog (http://blog.gov.bc.ca/livingwatersmart/).

Protecting stream health and aquatic environments is an underlying principle of the proposed Water Sustainability Act. Instream flows would be legally protected as an environmental value. For more information, have a look at page 8 of the Policy Proposal (http://www.livingwatersmart.ca/water-act/).

We welcome your comments and questions.

Living Water Smart Team
BC Ministry of Environment
http://blog.gov.bc.ca/livingwatersmart/


email livingwatersmartgov.bc.ca


We comment back to you as follows.

We never indicated that the government was intending on privatizing our water. What we have said and will continue to say, is that water markets and water rights trading does nothing but leave our water to the highest bidder! We have read what you have said on on the blog site and you are playing with words!!!
Remove your thoughts from our Act . No where, in any discussions,did anyone raise that they wanted water markets or water trading.
Thou protesteth too loudly sirs!

In addition, where in the Act have you defined the word sustainable? Why are you changing the name of the Act without definition?

Sincerely,
June Ross
Sec. VIWWC
Editor- www.vancouverislandwaterwatchcoalition.ca

Nelle Maxey Comment on privatization of our water
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:56 am

This government post is a well-structured end run around the real issue of commodification of our water.

As I pointed out in my last post, the government is not “privatizing” water since they don’t want to lose control, and furthermore they can’t. They do not own it. Water is a COMMONS protected by the Crown to be managed in the public interest by the government (of the day).

What the policy framework IS doing however is COMMODIFYING water. And Commodification paves the way to privatization of public infrastructure among other negative outcomes.

The COMMONS or COMMODITY debate is on going in many jurisdictions around the world. When a manager of water places an economic value on water with a framework for license trading and water markets (no matter how limited), this opens the door to commodification, as a number of those posting comments here have stated.

Commodification is not in the public interest as it is socially unjust placing water use in the hands of those who can afford to pay, as others have also pointed out.

There are many other approaches in the policy framework aside from water markets that also express the government’s move toward the commodification of our water.

The book Eau Canada says this about the Commons view on water:
"The real “water crisis” arises from socially produced scarcity, in which short-term logic of economic growth twinned with the rise of corporate power…has “converted abundance into scarcity. Accordingly private companies should be excluded from water management, which should be organized as a “water democracy [with]…Decentralized, community based, democratic management… Water conservation is politically, socio-economically and culturally inspired rather than economically motivated (through “incentives”)."
–Eau Canada, page197

There is also a wonderfully useful chart in Eau Canada that breaks down the two sides of the Commons or Commodity debate. In a nutshell it says that if water is considered a COMMONS the following approaches are taken:
- Water is defined as a human right
- Pricing for public use remains low and terms of water use licenses are issued in perpetuity
- The goals of water management are social equity and livelihoods
- Manager (governance) is decentralized and democratic
- Management process is conservation
- Access is a human right
- Problem solving is by the soft path [more about this below]

Contrast this to the COMMODITY approach in the chart:
- Water is defined as an economic good
- Pricing is full-cost and license terms are limited
- Goal is for an investment market
- Manager is the “market”
- Management process is supply and demand
- Access is human need
- Problem solving is by the hard path.

So what are the HARD PATH solutions supported by the COMMODITY side of the debate?
- Large-scale technology— dams and diversions
- Privatization of public distribution systems,
- Complicated/expensive technologies,
- Water trading, water markets, waste water credit market [like carbon trading markets!]
- Conservation “incentives” and metering

Contrast this to the SOFT PATH solutions from the COMMONS side:
- Conservation as a social responsibility
-Rainwater, grey water and storm water harvesting,
- Water recycling
- Municipal [and Regional District] infrastructure investment
- Local, sustainable food production
I would add to this list
- The protection and restoration of our watersheds.

As Maude Barlow stated in her address to the United Nations in 2009, “…watersheds must be protected from plunder and we must revitalize wounded water systems with widespread watershed restoration programs. Simply put, we must leave enough water in aquifers, rivers and lakes for their ecological health. This must be the priority: the precautionary principle of ecosystem protection must take precedence over commercial demands on these waters.”

In terms of water conservation through proper watershed protection and restoration, clear cuts in forests, road building and resource extraction activities, and any other economic development in watersheds that expose bare soil destroy the water holding capacity of the soils and the stability of soil resulting in landslides, flooding and siltation of our water supplies. As Thompson King explains in Water: Miracle of Nature, the absorption ability of soils depends on their cover:
• Bare Soil—5,500 gallons/acre/hour of rainfall
• Bush & Grass—25,000 gal/ac/hr
• Forest—100,000 gal/ac/hr
He goes on to explain, “If rainfall does not exceed 0.4 inches per hour, good forest land will continue to absorb and store up to 17 inches of rain, more than 400,00 gallons per hour. “ Talk about conservation of our water supplies, not to mention landslides and flooding problems!

Reading the WSA policy framework, it is quite easy to see that the government has adopted a COMMODIFICATION approach to our water. It is equally apparent that the public has a COMMONS approach to our water. Note that many of the soft path solutions are contained in public comments on this blog.

Now it is the job of the public to demand that the government enshrine in the new WSA legislation the values and solutions that are in the public interest, that is, when water is treated as a commons, not a commodity.