Water Privatization
With two-thirds of the world‚ population expected to run short of fresh drinking water by 2025, water is being referred to as “the oil of the 21st century.”
Get the Facts
- Around the world, multinational corporations are seizing control of public water resources and prioritizing profits for their stockholders and executives over the needs of the communities they serve.
- These private water companies try to persuade cash-strapped cities and towns to relinquish control over their valuable public water and sewer systems.
- Many communities that experimented with privatization have found that it often results in worse service at a higher cost.
- After taking over a municipal water system, water companies aggressively hike water rates by an average of about 10 percent a year, adding hundreds of dollars onto the typical annual household bill.
How Food & Water Watch Is Helping
Food & Water Watch serves as a clearinghouse for information and an ally in organizing to ensure that water — a public resource — stays in public hands.
We provide support for the residents, elected officials, water utility staff and community leaders who are fighting to protect their water from corporate control.
In addition to serving as a clearinghouse for communities facing privatization, we alert public officials and concerned citizens about the risks of privatization and the economic, social and environmental benefits of public, locally accountable water operation.
PROGRESS
People have won real victories in protecting their water resources — from the small coastal town of Montara, California, to the highlands of Cochabamba, Bolivia, to the great city of New Orleans. Over the last three years, public resistance stopped at least 17 possible sales and concessions of public water systems to private companies. Food & Water Watch worked with local coalitions in several of these communities, including Trenton, Milwaukee, Akron and Marion, Ind.