A Global Water Network
FreeFlo is an online network designed to strengthen the global water activist community, to challenge the privatization of water, and to promote solidarity and water justice for all. Learn more...
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Water is a human right. Help add water to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Haiti: The struggle for water and the water trucks
Massive water trucks, belching black smoke and sloshing water down their sides, dominate the teeming streets of Port-au-Prince. The trucks, which can carry 3,000 gallons, are painted in bright greens, oranges and yellows with the business names displayed on the windshields in big blocky letters. Some have religious names, like Merci Jehovah and Gradier Dieu. Other truck owners like to rhyme their own name or that of a celebrity with l'eau, the French word for water: Madou Eau, Joe's Eau and Ronaldo-Eau.
The business of trucking water began in the early 1970s. And what started as an enterprising idea involving a few trucks has turned into a huge and profitable business. The trucks have become one of the main distributors of water throughout the city. They deliver to anyone with a cistern. Private homes and institutions order trucks of water to meet their daily cooking and cleaning needs. Individuals that own cisterns in poor neighborhoods buy a truck of water, then sell it to others by the bucket. And big water companies, like Sweet Water, for example, buy the trucked water, treat it, then sell it as drinking water.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/haiti/watertrucks.html
The Damned: Photo Essay-India's Water Woes
Amazing collection of photos telling the story of water, dams, and drought in India. The first photo shows a woman, accompanied by her children, trekking across a dried-out lake in search of water in the western Indian state of Gujarat. More than 75 percent of India's rural population does not have access to public water supplies, the World Bank reports. Instead, groundwater fills the needs. But when rain stops and temperatures soar, villagers -- as in this photo -- go without. Builders of the Sardar Sarovar mega-dam claim their project will eventually bring drinking water to 45 percent of Gujarat's villages. That supply of drinking water began in 2001, they claim. Dam opponents charge, however, that Sardar Sarovar's budget contains no funding for provision of drinking water to village communities.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/the-damned/photo-essay-indias...
Water Recycling: Californians Take Lead in Turning Wastewater Into Tap Water
In Orange County, Calif., a new water treatment plant sends highly-treated waste water back into the groundwater supply to serve as drinking water. In the city of San Diego, however, a similar plan has faced public opposition. Jeffrey Kaye reports on the ongoing debate over "toilet-to-tap" waste water reuse.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/science/water_recycling/
a primer on the dynamics of water privatization.
New voices are beginning to be heard in the debate over water, and new ideas — good and bad — are being considered. One of the most powerful and controversial of these new ideas is that water should be considered an "economic good" — subject to the rules and power of markets, multinational corporations, and international trading regimes.
In the last decade, this idea has been put into practice in dozens of ways, in hundreds of places, affecting millions of people. But despite the growth in private water systems, little research has been done on the benefits and pitfalls of privatization.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/thirst/special_neweconomy.html
A Problem overlooked: our failing water infrastructure
Liquid Assets is a public media and outreach initiative that seeks to inform the nation about the critical role that our water infrastructure plays in protecting public health and promoting economic prosperity.
Combining a ninety-minute documentary with a community toolkit for facilitating local involvement, Liquid Assets explores the history, engineering, and political and economic challenges of our water infrastructure, and engages communities in local discussion about public water and waste water issues.
