Water — should private companies control it?
By Jeneen Interlandi, Newsweek
Sitka, Alaska, is home to one of the world’s most spectacular lakes. Nestled into a U-shaped valley of dense forests and majestic peaks, and fed by snowpack and glaciers, the reservoir, named Blue Lake for its deep blue hues, holds trillions of gallons of water so pure it requires no treatment. The city’s tiny population—fewer than 10,000 people spread across 5,000 square miles—makes this an embarrassment of riches. Every year, as countries around the world struggle to meet the water needs of their citizens, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka’s reserves go unused. That could soon change. In a few months, if all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil—and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East. The project is the brainchild of two American companies. One, 
True Alaska Bottling, has purchased the rights to transfer 3 billion gallons of water a year from Sitka’s bountiful reserves. The other, S2C Global, is building the water-processing facility in India. If the companies succeed, they will have brought what Sitka hopes will be a $90 million industry to their city, not to mention a solution to one of the world’s most pressing climate conundrums. They will also have turned life’s most essential molecule into a global commodity.
Let’s see how big an in pact on frest water distribution this is.
In perspective the Columbia river every day disgourges 100 billion gallons of fresh water into the Pacific ocean. Every day 100 billion gallons of fresh water flows over Niagara Falls.
Therefore, it seems like a good use of potable water that otherwise would go to waste.
BTW, maybe us earthlings should consider controlling our unbridled population growth, thereby lessening the worlds need for natural resources.
India’s population is projected to rise to 1.8 billion by 2050. Too bad water is not a birth control agent also.
I wish the privatization and transport of water was really about bringing water to those in need, but in fact it’s about taking control of water and selling it at grossly exaggerated prices to the poor and destitute. All the while, emptying and destroying the balance of the ecosystem that we relay on. All the better for the private companies who bought up our rights to it. The less water we have the more they can charge us for it and the agriculture we can no longer support. It’s all happening now and quickly. It’s time for us all to stand up against this. Go to Blue Gold- water wars.com and Food and Water Watch.org and get informed. This affects all of us and Big Business is again trying to rob you of your basic rights. How far will we let business go before we decide that human rights and commodities are not interchangeable? The very poor seem to be better at mobilizing and demonstrating against theses atrocities when they have little to lose. “We” seem to sit back and allow these Super Power Businesses to take it all away from us, just so long as it’s packaged nicely and we continue to make enough to pay for it when they sell it back to us. We must remember that it’s always our dollars that keep those in Power- powerful.