Water and war - The neglected equation

Central Asia's Looming Water Wars

 

Tajikistan is thirsty, and this past winter has faced severe electricity shortages because its hydroelectric power plants froze. Indeed, since the Pamirs in Tajikistan see the head of so many rivers that flow into neighboring countries, Tajikistan has seen a rise in tension over water use rights and national boundaries along the Ferghana Valley.

Things moved a step forward last month: on March 26, about 150 Tajiks (both civilian and government) crossed the Tajik-Kyrgyz border and destroyed a Kyrgyz dam in the volatile Batken region that had blocked an irrigation canal for a nearby Tajik village. Though chased away by gun-wielding Kyrgyz border guards, the Tajiks claimed they were simply respecting a 1924 border, since they never ratified the 1958 one.

 

Given the other ethnic tensions simmering under the surface of Ferghana, this was fairly small potatoes, though the World Bank probably wishes its $300,000 dam hadn't been destroyed. And a full discussion of the many issues facing the sometimes-ambiguous borders in Central is beyond this post (though our friends at neweurasia.net have done so quite brilliantly, and there is a blog devoted to the subject). But the border dispute is important for another reason: it represents one of the many lengths countries—or at least the people in countries—will go to achieve resource stability.

 

The next major conflict in the Middle East - Water Wars

When President Anwar Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he said Egypt will never go to war again, except to protect its water resources. King Hussein of Jordan has said he will never go to war with Israel again except over water and the Untied Nation Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has warned bluntly that the next war in the area will be over water.

From Turkey, the southern bastion of Nato, down to Oman, looking out over the Indian Ocean, the countries of the Middle East are worrying today about how they will satisfy the needs of their burgeoning industries, or find drinking water for the extra millions born each year, not to mention agriculture, the main cause of depleting water resources in the region. 

All these nations depend on three great river systems, or vast underground aquifers, some of which are of `fossil water' that cannot be renewed. 
Take the greatest source of water in the region, the Nile. Its basin nations have one of the highest rate of population growth which are likely to double in less than thirty years, yet the amount of water the Nile brings is no more than it was when Moses was found in the bulrushes. 

The shortage:

Although all natural water resources are replenished through the natural hydrological cycle, their renewal rate ranges from days to millennia. The average renewal rate for rivers are about 18 days - that is to renew every drop taken out - while for large lakes and deep aquifer they can span thousand years. 

The world's oldest reserves such as the Nubian aquifer in North Africa were filled when water infiltrated the earth's subsurface in past geological years. When we refer to fossil water in an aquifer, it is water trapped since the ice age and there is no certainty how long it would take to replenish them, thus it safe to conclude that mining their water is only a temporary solution. 

The oil boom in the Gulf and other Middle Eastern states, desalination became an industry. In 1990 over 13 million cubic meter were produced each day world wide using 7,500 plants, yet this represents just under one thousandth of fresh water consumption per day. 


Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister

The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister.

The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said Mr Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

His department warned that two-thirds of the world's population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. The stark prediction comes after the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy that pressure on water was one of the factors that could help countries "tip into instability, state failure or conflict".

Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis

"The world water crisis is definitely very bad, particularly because it deals with mismanagement of water and how governments have failed to secure the involvement of local communities in the management of water," says Sunita Narain, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, and the 2005 winner of the prestigious annual Stockholm Water Prize. "We, as societies, have failed to use small amounts of water for bringing large productivity gains," she said. However, today the world water crisis faces yet another challenge -- one of climate change, Narain told IPS. "And it is this challenge which the world is completely failing to do anything about, and which will jeopardise the water security of large numbers of people, who already live on the margins of survival," she declared.

Responding to a question, Berntell admitted there is a "world water crisis" judging by the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation. And this, he said, "in a world which has the financial wealth and technical wherewithal to solve these twin scandals". "We must find better ways to manage water resources, in so far as water pollution is concerned, and to meet the food requirements of a human population which will expand by over 3.0 billion people in 2050." "We also must meet the water-climate challenge. Everything could become much more desperate and severe in the future if the proper steps are not taken," he added. So, it is important, Berntell argued, to make a distinction between the water resource crisis -- which is primarily caused by an overexploitation of water resources for agricultural and industrial use, as well as pollution -- and the water service and sanitation crisis.

In a statement released Wednesday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are now polluted to the brink of their collapse. "The Yangtze, China's longest river, is cancerous with pollution due to untreated agriculture and industrial waste," IUCN warned. Meanwhile, arguing that water shortages will drive future conflicts, the U.N. secretary-general says the slaughter in Darfur -- described as "genocide" by the United States -- was triggered by global climate change. "It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said. When Darfur's land was rich, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water. With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing. "For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out," he said. "Water is a classic common property resource. No one really owns the problem. Therefore, no one really owns the solution," he declared.


California Water Wars

From 1905 through 1913, Mulholland directed the building of the aqueduct. The 233 mile (375 km) Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in November 1913, required more than 2,000 workers and the digging of 164 tunnels. The project has been compared in complexity by Mulholland's granddaughter[7]to building the Panama Canal. Water from the Owens River reached a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley on November 5. At a ceremony that day, Mulholland spoke his famous words about this engineering feat: "There it is. Take it."

After the aqueduct was completed in 1913, the San Fernando investors demanded so much water from the Owens Valley that it started to transform from "The Switzerland of California" into a desert. Inflows to Owens Lake were almost completely diverted, which caused the lake to dry up by 1924. Farmers and ranchers tried to band together to sell water rights to Los Angeles as a group, but again through what historians called "underhanded moves"[8], Los Angeles managed to buy the water rights at a substantially reduced price.

So much water was taken from the valley that the farmers and ranchers rebelled. In 1924, a group of armed ranchers seized the Alabama Gates and dynamited part of the system. This armed rebellion was for naught, and by 1928, Los Angeles owned 90 percent of the water in Owens Valley. Agriculture in the valley was effectively dead.

[ ... ]

In 1970, LADWP completed a second aqueduct. In 1972, the agency began to divert more surface water and pumped groundwater at the rate of several hundred thousand acre feet a year (several cubic metres per second). Owens Valley springs and seeps dried and disappeared, and groundwater-dependent vegetation began to die.
Because LADWP had never completed an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) addressing the impacts of groundwater pumping, Inyo County sued Los Angeles under the terms of the California Environmental Quality Act. Los Angeles did not stop pumping groundwater, but submitted a short EIR in 1976 and a second one in 1979, both of which were rejected as inadequate by the courts.

In 1991, Inyo County and the City of Los Angeles signed the Inyo-Los Angeles Long Term Water Agreement, which required that groundwater pumping be managed to avoid significant impacts while providing a reliable water supply for Los Angeles, and in 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and other concerned parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding that specified terms by which the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003 as partial mitigation for damage to the Owens Valley due to groundwater pumping.

In spite of the terms of the Long Term Water Agreement, studies by the Inyo County Water Department have shown that impacts to the valley's groundwater-dependent vegetation (e.g., alkali meadows) continue. Likewise, Los Angeles did not rewater the lower Owens River by the June 2003 deadline. As of December 17, 2003, LADWP settled a lawsuit brought by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the Owens Valley Committee, and the Sierra Club. Under the terms of the settlement, deadlines for the Lower Owens River Project were revised. LADWP was to return water to the lower Owens River by 2005. This deadline was missed, but on December 6, 2006, a ceremony was held (at the same site where William Mulholland had ceremonially opened the aqueduct and closed the flow through the Owens River) to re-start the flow down the 62 mile (100 km) river. David Nahai, president of the L.A. Water and Power Board, countered Mulholland's words from 1913 and said, "There it is ... take it back."[10]

Groundwater pumping continues at a higher rate than the rate at which water recharges the aquifer, resulting in a long-term trend of desertification in the Owens Valley.


U.S. and Global Water Wars Loom

At home, especially in the Southwest, regions will need to find new sources of drinking water, the Great Lakes will shrink, fish and other species will be left high and dry, and coastal areas will on occasion be inundated because of sea-level rises and souped-up storms, U.S. scientists said.

The scientists released a 67-page chapter on North American climate effects, which is part of an international report on climate change impact.
Meanwhile, global-warming water problems will make poor, unstable parts of the world -- the Middle East, Africa and South Asia -- even more prone to wars, terrorism and the need for international intervention, a panel of retired military leaders said in a separate report.

[ ... ]

The military report's co-author, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, also pointed to sea-level rise floods as potentially destabilizing South Asia countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and "foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,'' states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based national security think tank.

Kristi Ebi, a Virginia epidemiologist on the scientific panel, said reduced water supplies globally will hinder human health. "We're seeing mass migration of people because of things like water resource constraint, and that's certainly a factor in conflict,'' she added.


Africa's potential water wars

The main conflicts in Africa during the next 25 years could be over that most precious of commodities - water, as countries fight for access to scarce resources.
Potential 'water wars' are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report.
The possible flashpoints are the Nile, Niger, Volta and Zambezi basins.

The report predicts population growth and economic development will lead to nearly one in two people in Africa living in countries facing water scarcity or what is known as 'water stress' within 25 years.

Water scarcity is defined as less than 1,000 cu.m of water available per person per year, while water stress means less than 1,500 cu.m of water is available per person per year.

The report says that by 2025, 12 more African countries will join the 13 that already suffer from water stress or water scarcity

Water Wars of the Near Future

Actually, there is a fourth strategy: Steal water from others. That's where Water Wars comes in.
In ancient Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, the ultimate source of the waters of life lie beneath that politically potent piece of real estate called Jerusalem--a metaphor for the recognition that the solution to the problems of water is ultimately political. Who owns water? Who processes it? Who controls it? Who wants to steal it? Who can?

In transnational water disputes, which is the most dangerous? When the upstream nation is more powerful than the downstream, and therefore more cavalier about taking into account downstream needs? When the downstream nation is more powerful, in which case the upstream nation risks retaliation for any careless handling of the supply? Or when both countries are water stressed and more or less equal in power? The pessimists will say all three are dangerous. Egypt, a powerful downstream riparian, has several times threatened to go to war over Nile water; only the fact that both Sudan and Ethiopia have been wracked by civil war and are too poor to develop "their" water resources has so far prevented conflict. In the Euphrates Basin, Turkey is militarily more potent than Syria, but that hasn't stopped the Syrians from threatening violence. And there are endless examples of powers that are similar in military might, but have threatened war: along the Mekong River, along the Parana, and other places. In the Senegal Valley of West Africa, water shortages contributed to recent violent skirmishes between MaurHania and Senegal, complicated by the ethnic conflict between the black Africans and the paler-skinned Moors who control MaurHania. On the other side of the country, desperate Mauritanians wrecked a Malian village after cattle herders refused to let them cross the border to water their cattle at a well.

There are those who think the possibility of water wars overblown. The Canadian security analyst Thomas Homer-Dixon, a name that pops up as a footnote in numberless academic papers, is one of the skeptics.  Homer-Dixon's research found virtually no examples of state violence associated with renewable resources like fish, forests, or water, but many associated with non-renewables like oil or iron. He pooh-poohs the alarmists, though he acknowledges that "water supplies are needed for all aspects of national activity, including the production and use of military power, and rich countries are as dependent on water as poor countries are . . .  Moreover, about 40 percent of the world's population lives in the 250 river basins shared by more than one country . . . But the story is more complicated than it first appears. Wars over river water between upstream and downstream neighbors are likely only in a narrow set of circumstances. The downstream country must be highly dependent on the water for its national well-being; the upstream country must be able to restrict the river's flow; there must be a history of antagonism between the two countries; and, most important, the downstream country must be militarily much stronger than the upstream country."
He found only one case that fit all his criteria: Egypt and the Nile.  Not everyone agrees with this analysis, thinking it overly optimistic.

Definition: "World Water War"

"This is a term devised by environmentalists for a type of conflict (most probably a form of guerrilla warfare) due to an acute shortage of water for drinking and irrigation. About 40 per cent of the world's populations are already affected to some degree, but population growth, climate change and rises in living standards will worsen the situation: the UN Environment Agency warns that almost 3 billion people will be severely short of water within 50 years. Experts point to the disaster of the Aral Sea, which has already lost three-quarters of its water through diversion for irrigation of the rivers feeding it. Possible flash points have been predicted in the Middle East, parts of Africa and in many of the world's major river basins, including the Danube. The term has been used for some years to describe disputes in the southern and south-western United States over rights to water extraction from rivers and aquifers." --Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, 1996-2006.

Water Wars

1. Rivers of the World Mismanaged
2. Sustaining Water, Easing Scarcity
3. The World's Water Woes
4. The next major conflict in the Middle East?
5. Raising the stakes - living with less
6. Water and Politics on the Nile
7. Plans For New Nile Irrigation Scheme Causes Controversy
8. Africa's potential water wars

Water Wars

In 1989 Margaret Thatcher carried out a huge water privatisation scheme for the whole of England and Wales. Suddenly a precious natural shared resource was taken from the British people, sold off and privatised. The British people now had to pay the water companies, not just to provide water, but to make a profit for their shareholders and to pay huge management salaries. Water bills doubled in less than a decade, causing hardship in many parts of the UK. There were 50,000 disconnections during this period and water quality steadily deteriorated.

By 1990 international water companies operated in 12 countries.

Between 1994 and 1998 there were 139 water-related deals. However, in most parts of the first world, governments continued to safeguard their water resources and to provide a public service for their people. This got in the way of the global water companies, who wanted to buy up these public utilities. So they began to form partnerships with international financial institutions so that they could reduce the role that traditional governments played in water provision.
The first two of these partnerships, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the World Water Council (WWC) were formed in 1996 with Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank Vice-President, in the chair of the WWC. Once these partnerships had been formed water companies could now negotiate and collaborate with multilateral banks and the United Nations.

The World Water Council held its first meeting, the World Water Forum, in Marrakesh in 1997.

In 1998 the World Water Council created the World Water Commission, which included all the major water corporations and the CEO of the World Bank/UN Global Environment Facility, Mohamed T. El-Ashry. The commission called for full deregulation of the water sector and recommended that trans-national corporations should take over the provision of water worldwide.

By the year 2000 private water corporations operated in 100 countries and 10% of the world's water was privatised. In 2000 the World Bank, the UN and some of the largest water corporations met at the second World Water Forum, in Den Haag, Netherlands. They decided to accelerate global water privatisation.

In May 2000 Fortune Magazine predicted that water would become "one of the world's biggest business opportunities".

Ever since they began to collaborate with the World Bank, trans-national water corporations have been trying to have more influence over individual countries. A series of trade agreements have all increased the power of the trans-national water companies. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and various World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements all gave trans-national water corporations access to the water of the countries that had signed these agreements. Governments all over the world signed away their right to control their country's water supplies.

The two biggest water corporations, Suez and Vivendi, now provide water for 230 million people, 7% of the world's population, mostly in Europe. In the US 85% of households still get their water from public utilities. But the water corporations are putting pressure on Congress, lobbying for laws which will protect them from lawsuits over contaminated water. This legislation will make it easier for the water corporations to take over water provision. The British parliament has already passed a law providing UK water companies with indemnity against lawsuits brought against them by the public.

Water Privatisation in the Third World

The World Bank and the IMF are now putting pressure on third world countries to sell off their water to multinational corporations in order to reduce their national debt. Together with international development organisations, they have been promoting the idea that the only way to provide water in the third world is through the private sector. Third world countries have huge national debts, which they struggle to pay, so in many cases the IMF has made further loans to these countries, on condition that they conform to structural adjustment programmes, including the privatisation of their water supplies. As in the west, water privatisation causes increased costs, which in the case of the poorest people in the world, they cannot afford to pay.

So in the poorest parts of the world, people (mainly women) are forced to walk further and further in search of water which has not been privatised, water which is often neither safe nor clean. In some cases people have to choose between buying water and buying food. In Ghana today, since water privatisation, the cost of water has doubled, so that families lucky enough to have running water must now pay a quarter of their income for it and a bucket of water can cost up to a tenth of most people's daily earnings.

Protests against Water Privatisation

In Cochabamba, Bolivia water rates increased by 35% after the water company Bechtel bought the city's water in 1999. The citizens of Cochabamba were so incensed that they marched, protested and rioted. Eventually the Bolivian government voided Bechtel's contract. There have been protests against water privatisation in Paraguay, Panama, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, India, Pakistan, Hungary and South Africa.


Water Wars: Myths and Realities (Part I)

What a difference a few years make. In the mid-1990s, Ismail Serageldin, then the World Bank's Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, declared, "If the wars of this [20th] century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water."

In contrast, in the Brundtland Commission's seminal 1987 Report, Our Common Future, water use issues on a global scale were a relatively minor concern, warranting only one paragraph out of the report's nearly 400 pages.

Bechtel And Blood For Water: War As An Excuse For Enlarging Corporate Rule

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are a water lifeline in the arid Middle East. The alluvial plain between the two rivers was the cradle of ancient civilizations including Assyria, Babylonian, and Sumer. Millions in the ancient land of Mesopotamia have been supported by its waters. Today these rivers represent a precious resource for the people of the region.

They are already in conflict over these two rivers. Turkey's massive dam building projects, especially the GAP project, have upset the riparian states of Syria and Iraq. With over half the flow of both rivers generated in Turkey, the dams put the country in a position to regulate river flow. Syria and Iraq have worried that Turkish irrigation and electricity generation needs will determine how much water flows to them, and have disputed Turkish claims to guarantee a minimum flow. UNESCO recently announced at the a body of scientific mediators would be formed to handle international water disputes such as these.
The introduction of Bechtel, a company which has a history of aggravating water conflict (see Bolivia below), into the situation is a recipe for disaster. Its contract for rebuilding Iraq includes, but is not limited to "municipal water systems and sewage systems, major irrigation structures, and the dredging, repair and upgrading of the Umm Qasr seaport." Bechtel's past record of pushing the privatization of water has destabilized local communities in other parts of the world. In the parched middle-east, with an already seething international water dispute, an attempt by a multinational water giant to grab this precious resource could spark ongoing water wars.  

Bechtel in Bolivia

The most famous tale of Bechtel's corporate greed over water is the story of Cochabamba, Bolivia. In the semi-desert region, water is scarce and precious. In 1999, the World Bank recommended privatisation of Cochabamba's municipal water supply company (SEMAPA) through a concession to International water, a subsidiary of Bechtel. On October 1999, the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law was passed, ending government subsidies and allowing privatization.

In a city where the minimum wage is less than $100 a month water bills reached $20 a month, nearly the cost of feeding a family of five for two weeks. In January 2000, a citizen's alliance called "La Coordinara" de Defense del Aqua y de la Vida (The Coalition in Defense of Water and Life) was formed and it shut down the city for 4 days through mass mobilisation. Between Jan and Feb 2000, millions of Bolivians marched to Cochabamba, had a general strike and stopped all transportation]. The government promised to reverse the price hike but never did. In February 2000, La Coordinara organised a peaceful march demanding the repeal of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Law, the annulment of ordinances allowing privatization, the termination of the water contract, and the participation of citizens in drafting a water resource law. The citizens' demands, which drove a stake at corporate interests, were violently repressed. Coordinora's fundamental critique was directed at the negation of water as a community property. Protesters used slogans like "Water is God's gift and not a merchandise" and "Water is life". 

In April, 2000 the government tried to silence the water protests through market law. Activists were arrested, protestors were killed, and media was censored. Finally on April 10, 2000, the people won. Aquas del Tunari and Bechtel left Bolivia. The government was forced to revoke its hated water privatisation legislation. The water company Servico Municipal del Aqua Potable y Alcantarillado (SEMAPO) was handed over to the workers and the people, along with the debts. In summer 2000, La Coordinadora organised public hearings to establish democratic planning and management. The people have taken on the challenge to establish a water democracy, but the water dictators are trying their best to subvert the process. Bechtel is suing Bolivians, and the Bolivian government is harassing and threatening activists of La Coordinadora.
If we go by the lessons from Bolivia, Bechtel will try and control the water resources, not just the water works of Iraq. If the international community and the Iraqis are not vigilant, Bechtel could try and own the Tigris and Euphrates, as it tried to "own" the wells of Bolivia.

Bechtel in India

In India Bechtel was involved with Enron in the infamous Dabhol power plant project. This disastrous project involved the suppression of local protests, circumventing environmental regulations, and secret deals worth billions of dollars. The parties in the state government elections even fought over this issue, with the party opposed to the deal winning the election, but then turning around and cutting a new contract for the power plant anyway.
Bechtel is now involved in water privatisation of Coimbatore/Tirrupur as part of a consortium with Mahindra and Mahindra, United International North West Water. As with other water privatisation contracts, the contract has not been made public. Business that can only be carried out behind closed doors, under secrecy, does not promote freedom. It extinguishes both freedom and democracy.

 

 

On a more positive note:

Lebanon to supply drought-hit Cyprus with free water

The drought-hit Mediterranean island of Cyprus will seek to import water from Lebanon instead of imposing consumption restrictions, the agriculture minister said on Friday.

"One key measure we are looking at is the transportation of water in tankers from a neighboring country, and our efforts are focusing on Lebanon," Michalis Polynikis told reporters after holding a crisis meeting on Friday.

He said experts are now examining the feasibility of shipping large quantities of water by tanker from Lebanon, with a final decision expected in 10 days.

Polynikis said Lebanon is willing to give Cyprus large quantities of water free of charge, so the only cost would be transportation. There is also the logistics of getting the water from the ports to a reservoir once it arrives by ship.

Crisis talks were held to find ways to survive a chronic water shortage brought on by a two-year drought and non-seasonal warm weather.