Q&A: "The Notion that Water Is Forever Is Wrong"

SAN DIEGO, California, Sep 17 (IPS) - Venality, greed, corruption - the documentary film "Flow: For Love of Water" could just as easily be subtitled "The Evil That Men Do."

In the age-old struggle to control access to water, a lot of bad things can happen. Rival factions vie to control it, revealing that wherever water flows, so does power. The documentary explores a water crisis that cuts across continents, investigating the role privatisation plays in water use around the globe.

The film combines arresting images with staggering statistics, offering a frank and frightening look at how water is allocated. For example, westerners gladly pay over two dollars per litre for the convenience bottled water provides. Meanwhile 1.1 billion of Earth's inhabitants have no access to safe, clean drinking water.

Touring global hot spots where battles over water are waged in courtrooms and in the streets, "Flow" asks the fundamental question: should access to potable water be driven by the profit motive, as multinational corporations are claimed to profess? The activist filmmaker Irena Salina answers with an emphatic "No".

Excerpts from IPS correspondent Enrique Gili's interview with Salina follow.

IPS: So how was this issue first brought to your attention?

IS: It was a synthesis of events and circumstances. I listened to an outraged Robert F. Kennedy, the environmental lawyer, discuss how certain companies treat our rivers like garbage, and how toxins enter the food system. I was a new mother at the time and that was the trigger. It kept me listening and connecting.

IPS: Most of us are raised with the impression that the water cycle is part of an infinite loop. How has that changed?

IS: The notion that water is forever is wrong. First of all, we have paving and building. Simply put, water has no place to go. Global warming is really giving a big punch in the weather patterns. Where in places you expected the rain to come and the food to grow, the rains are delayed or simply not coming at all.

IPS: Is there really a water crisis or a case of mismanagement and waste?

IS: Humans and ecosystems have to work together. We have to start to think about the efficient use of water. That's the way to reduce the severity of the problem because they are so enormous.

Let's look at the basics, meaning the pipes that bring us water. One hundred and fifty years ago, reformers looked at the situation in terms of cholera and other diseases and said: "We can't go on like that." They found the political will and a way to change the system. We have to find a will and way too.

IPS: "Flow" is a scary movie, along the lines of "An Inconvenient Truth" and "The 11th Hour" [both documentaries about climate change]. Are you worried this movie will have a numbing instead of a mobilising effect?

IS: I have been touring with the film across the United States, screening at film festivals and with regular folks, not just some New York intellectuals. It's created dialogue; often in front of my eyes I was no longer the topic of conversation. To me as a filmmaker I didn't expect so much.

IPS: So why has privatisation become such a dirty word in the anti-globalisation movement?

IS: It's not just the anti-globalists. Privatisation has left its signature in developing countries. We are now living in a world where one in 87 children die of waterborne diseases, more than AIDS. I'm not an economist, but I do know that I am not alone in the view the system is not working. Things are getting worse. But you can't just blame privatisation - there's a whole slew of contributing factors ranging from pollution to lack of access and drought.

IPS: So what's the advantage to providing water in a sustainable manner to the poor?

IS: Imagine you have a country where 60 percent of [the people are] rural and poor. Wouldn't it make more sense to revive traditional water harvesting techniques and farming practices that were at one time the heartbeat of a country? Or would you rather invest in multi-million-dollar water reclamation projects that people can't afford. People need to be part of the process, not excluded from it.

More and more rural people are leaving rural areas for the city and that's not good. You don't want people so desperate they leave rural areas to scratch out a living in the city, adding to more pollution and stress. You want to strive for balance.

IPS: In the film, privatisation ends with mixed results, after meeting with resistance in developing countries. Are water activists achieving their goals?

IS: You don't have to go that far. After 150 years in the hands of private ownership, the city government will soon administer the Paris water supply.

IPS: What's the likelihood of that plan of action taking root in the developing world? "Flow" suggests the U.N. Charter should be amended to include access to water as a basic human right.

IS: Dream on! It's in preliminary discussions. There's a long way to go before that happens.

(END/2008)

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