This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
(9) there's no substitute.
Corporate profiteers have other ideas and, since 1997, have met triennially at the World Water Forum (WWF) to discuss privatizing water globally in coordination with the World Water Council (WWC). It's dominated by two of the world's largest water companies, Suez and Veolia, as well as the World Bank, other financial interests, UN bodies, and powerful interest groups representing business and world nations.
WWC's agenda is profits through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) wanting to privatize global water resources, sell them to the highest bidder, promote destructive dam and water diversion projects, extort high prices, and make an element of life available only to those who can afford it.
Their scheme involves controlling city/municipal/community distribution as well as stealing public water, bottling it, selling it at exorbitant prices, and claiming it's pure when, in fact, it's no safer than tap water.
In fact, a 1990s four year National Resources Defense Council study on the bottled water industry found "major gaps in bottled water regulation and conclude(d) that bottled water is not necessarily safer than tap water." Using independent labs, it tested over 1,000 bottles of 103 brands and found:
-- one-third contained "significant contamination (i.e. levels of chemical or bacterial contaminants exceeding those allowed under a state or industry standard or guideline);" and
-- contaminants found in some but not all samples tested included excessive coliform bacteria, synthetic organic compounds (such as toluene, xylene, styrene and others), flouride, phthalate, arsenic, nitrates, and other inorganic contaminants.
It's no wonder, given the weakness of federal standards and little regulatory oversight.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
