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ECUADOR: Pressure to Make Water a Public Good
By Kintto Lucas
QUITO, Mar 21 (IPS) - World Water Day will be marked Thursday in Ecuador
by protests against the privatisation of water, the construction of dams,
and the mining industry, and by demands for the new constitution to
recognise access to water as a basic human right.
Activists see the cancellation of the privatisation of water in Quito,
announced last week by Mayor Paco Moncayo, as a victory.
The process of privatising the administration of the city's water
supplies, which began in 2004, was reported and criticised by the
Quito-based magazine Tintají, which along with various urban and
indigenous social organisations created the Coalition to fight the move.
After several protest demonstrations were held, the city government
temporarily suspended the public tender, and last week finally decided to
cancel it.
"The arguments put forward by the Coalition in Defence of Water were
solid. After several meetings, evaluations were carried out which showed
that the concession was unnecessary," said Moncayo.
But according to Coalition activist Rosa Rodríguez, only one battle has
been won.
"We have information about a plan to put water services out to tender in a
rural area of Quito and in other parts of the country," she told IPS.
"That's why the constituent assembly that will be installed within a few
months should draft a constitution that declares water a fundamental human
right and prohibits its privatisation."
On Apr. 15, Ecuadorians will elect the members of a constituent assembly,
which will rewrite the constitution. A similar process is underway in
Bolivia, which is also governed by a left-leaning administration.
"We have to uproot the view held by neo-liberal governments that saw water
as just another kind of merchandise. Water is the source of life, and the
state can and should guarantee sustainable management of this public
good," Rodríguez argued.
In late 2004, Uruguay became the first country in the world to introduce a
constitutional amendment declaring water resources a public good and
prohibiting the privatisation of water and sewage services.
At the same time that authorities in the public water company, Empresa
Municipal de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado (EMAAP-Q), were organising the
push for privatisation, they covered up studies that found high levels of
arsenic in the drinking water in several outlying Quito neighbourhoods,
which are home to around 60,000 people.
Two EMAAP-Q employees who carried out the studies in early 2006 demanded
that the company take corrective measures. When the employees insisted,
they were laid off.
It was not until six months later, when news of the incident reached the
public, that the EMAAP-Q directors urged people in those areas not to
drink the water.
Although the authorities have promised to find a solution to the problem,
nothing has been done yet.
Over the past year, the movement in defence of the public administration
of water has grown in areas where hydroelectric dams are under
construction or in the planning stage.
In the west-central province of Los Ríos, the construction of the Baba
hydropower dam, which will divert water to other agricultural areas, has
triggered a conflict with local farmers opposed to the project.
The Water, Land and Life organisation, which represents small farmers who
will be affected by the dam, protests that the aim is to divert the waters
from the province of Los Ríos to an area in the neighbouring province of
Guayas where the land is owned by large agribusiness interests from the
city of Guayaquil.
The "hidden purpose" of the project "is the privatisation of water, and we
will not permit that: water belongs to everyone," the organisation said in
a communiqué.
For over a year, small farmers in the area have been holding protests,
some of which were cracked down on harshly by police.
But the movement has enjoyed a measure of success: the Environment
Ministry has not yet issued an environmental permit for the project.
In the northern province of Carchi, the U.S.-owned Current Energy company
was granted a 50-year water concession on the Apaqui River to build a
hydroelectric station.
Local farmers complain that they will no longer have access to the river
water for irrigation, nor will people living in the area be able to take
their drinking water from it. The farmers said hydroelectric projects
should respect biodiversity, and should "contribute benefits to the
communities that lend their water for energy production."
The Apaqui project is the first of 19 hydroelectric stations planned on
several rivers in Carchi province.
"Energy has become a highly profitable business for private transnational
corporations that take over river basins in Third World countries,
privatising the water. In our country this has already given rise to
serious social problems, conflicts and ecological damage," Ricardo Buitrón
of the environmental group Acción Ecológica (Ecological Action) told IPS.
Scarcity of water, poor administration of supplies, and sanitation
problems in many countries remain serious hurdles standing in the way of
reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the
international community in 2000, which include halving the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
In the Amazonian province of Morona Santiago, in southeastern Ecuador, a
similar conflict has been smouldering since August 2006, when social and
community organisations held a province-wide strike lasting five days, to
protest the second phase of the Hidroabanico hydroelectric dam and huge
mining projects in the area.
The campaign against the Hidroabanico dam is led by the Provincial
Assembly for the Defence of Life, Nature and National Sovereignty.
Hidroabanico is related to the Canadian mining company Corriente Resources
and its Ecuacorriente subsidiary, with which it signed a letter of intent
for the sale of energy in March 2006.
The activities of Hidroabanico - whose first phase is already producing
electricity - and Ecuacorriente are affecting the water sources of nearby
indigenous Shuar communities.
According to Buitrón, the 1998 constitution paved the way for growing
private control over water resources by establishing that water use
belonged to the state or "to those who acquired the rights to it."
Article 249 states that water for drinking or irrigation and other
services related to its use are the responsibility of the state, which may
directly or by delegation transfer them to mixed or private companies, by
concession, partnership, capitalisation, transfer of stock or any other
contractual means.
Social, environmental, indigenous and small farmers' organisations that
have been mobilising in defence of water in this country are lobbying for
the new constitution to establish that water is essential for life, and
that access to drinking water and sanitation are fundamental human rights.
They also want surface and underground water, except rainwater, to be
state-owned, and water for drinking and irrigation to be public services
provided directly and exclusively by the state.
On Thursday Mar. 22, the organisations will be holding a march in Quito to
mark the end of the different activities carried out throughout this week
in celebration of World Water Day.
(END/2007)
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