Privatising Water & Illegal Rainwater Harvesting

Today, I've added food for thought to all you water fed poler's out there who are rainwater harvesting or are planning to.

Rain water harvesting in certain states of the US has become illegal. In Colorado, Rain Barrels are illegal. Yup. Please, slowly step away from the rain drops...

Rain drops there, you see, are outlawed. Colorado state law mandates that any water falling from the air is not yours. In fact, according to their site, its already been “legally allocated” — so, you don’t actually have any rights when it comes to using precipitation that falls on your property.

Here’s the exact wording: Colorado Water Law requires that precipitation fall to the ground, run off and into the river of the watershed where it fell. Because rights to water are legally allocated in this state, an individual may not capture and use water to which he/she does not have a right.

Last summer, The Colorado Springs Gazette said the following: “The rain barrel is the bong of the Colorado garden. It’s legal to sell one. It’s legal to own one. It’s just not legal to use it for its intended purpose. Meanwhile, when rain does fall, the torrential flood caused by water running off a few thousand acres of roofs, roads and parking lots erodes downstream ranches, undercuts city sewer pipes and really makes Pueblo mad. It’s gotten so bad that the city is taxing us all, to pay for $295 million in stormwater projects. So wouldn’t it make sense to save a little rain when it falls, keep it from barreling down Fountain Creek, and use it when needed? Of course it would.” And Colorado water law makes it clear, no matter how illogical, that the rain that falls on your roof doesn't belong to you. In fact, you can't even borrow it. It has to go downstream to the person who owns the water rights, who could live in Fountain or as far away as Kansas.

In Bolivia, a Bechtel subsidiary made it illegal to collect rainwater on one's own property without a permit. More and more people are learning, through experience or through burgeoning campaigns, about the inhumanity of water privatization campaigns in the Global South. The story, re-enacted across the world, never loses its sting: the IMF and World Bank pressure governments to sell off publicly-run water systems; for-profit corporations from the North step in; within weeks, water bills skyrocket to unaffordable levels. A new phenomenon has started pushing across the horizon, bringing hope to those who feared that water commodification had become the bleak, inevitable future of the developing world. Civic demonstrations in countries like Bolivia, Argentina, South Africa and Ecuador have succeeded in chasing corporations away from public water. But these protests have come at significant costs. In Bolivia, the government responded to protests against an agreement which went so far as to privatize rainwater in the province of Cochabamba with brute force and a martial lockdown. In the ensuing bedlam, a 17-year-old boy was killed when police catapulted a tear gas canister into his head. Bechtel, the company which had secured the contract for the privatization, finally chose to withdraw in the face of such strong opposition. To add insult to injury, Bechtel, which had hiked water rates an average of 50% virtually overnight, sued the Bolivian government for $25 million -- a figure far greater than what they invested.

Since privatisation took over most of the utilities in the UK, it has become very apparent that the water companies are in it for the profit rather than service the users. A new film called "H20 up for sale" is to be released, one part telling of the plight of users from Thames Water in London. With all the supposed droughts occuring in the UK & WFP usuage & window cleaners livehood threatened by the opposing water restrictions, isn't it time that this farce is stopped in its tracks? WATER IS THE NEW OIL.