Water, Water everywhere ...

 Illustration by Andrea Ucini

Water, water everywhere, Nor any water to drink - Samuel Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Sounds like Nestle and the push to privatize water where one has to pay exorbitant fees in order to stay alive. Something that's somewhat amiss don't you think?

It was 2015, and the city of Missoula, Montana, was fighting to take control of its water supply. Missoula’s privately owned waterworks had recently been sold to Mountain Water, a company owned by the private equity behemoth Carlyle Group. The mayor, John Engen, approved the sale after being wined and dined in Washington and led to believe that Missoula’s water was but a drop in Carlyle’s bucket, and the firm would voluntarily sell the system to the city. But after Missoula made its bid for the waterworks for about $50 million, and the company came back asking for $120 million, talks stalled.

But there is hope ...

As Cohen and Mikaelian note in The Privatization of Everything, citizens have successfully challenged and defeated privatization plans everywhere. “Between 2003 and 2019,” they note, “seventy-one U.S. communities took back their water, following a global trend that saw 2,400 cities in fifty-eight countries bringing water and other essential services under public control.” On a practical level, people can fight to share resources and succeed.

In Missoula, the judge presiding over the town’s water system didn’t see Laffer’s wisdom and ruled against the private owners. Missoula regained control of its water. In an interview after the case was resolved, Mayor Engen reflected, “We still had folks saying—you know—what kind of socialists are you?” To most people, the system appeared to be working fine. “But as the case wore on,” he said, “and evidence was presented in court and other arenas, it became more clear to folks that they were, in effect, getting robbed by the private investors and that trend wasn’t going to change without public ownership.” “Water is essential to life,” he said. “And a city that does not control its destiny through water is likely to suffer in the long term.”

The Water Thief looms.