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Water: The Next Gold?

August 12, 2014

By Sara Jerome
@sarmje

Will the next gold rush be a water rush?

As a Guardian financial columnist recently asked: "Making money from water? Is this what Wall Street wants next?" That notion did not sit right with this columnist.

"The idea of treating water as a pure commodity – something to bought and sold on the open market by those in quest of a profit rather than trying to deliver it to their fellow citizens as a public service – made me pause," she wrote.

She is not the only one pausing on this question. Water challenges from developing nations to Detroit have prompted a variety of ethical questions about water this summer.

Experts are discussing whether water will someday be traded on commodities markets, similar to crude oil and iron ore. Some experts see this shift coming soon.

“Water will become something that is traded, there will be a market for it and this could happen in the next decade,” said Usha Rao-Monari, chief executive officer of Global Water Development Partners, according to a Telegraph column.

But would that be a good thing?

"Markets can play an important role in providing future water security," the Telegraph column argued. "The creation of a futures market to trade water would help to create a baseline pricing mechanism against which regional water tariffs could be fairly set."

A related question is whether to see water as a human right and what that means. Here's how Peter Brabeck, chairman and former CEO of Nestle, sees the issue.

"I am the first one to say water is a human right," he said, per a separate Guardian report. But only a limited amount of water can be qualified as a "right," in his view.

"This human right is the five liters of water we need for our daily hydration and the 25 liters we need for minimum hygiene," he said. In other words, access to a larger amount of water has a cost.

Water shutoffs in Detroit have prompted many to ask: Do service shutdowns violate human rights if customers fail to pay bills? While United Nations experts have weighed in with a yes, another question looms, as well: Is Detroit targeting the right people for penalties?

A Chicago Tribune columnist argues: "Here's the thing. Many commercial entities also owe money to the [Detroit Water and Sewage Department]," he wrote.

For instance, "Joe Louis Arena, Ford Field, Palmer Park Golf Club and half of the commercial and industrial buildings in the city...owe roughly $30 million in overdue water fees," TruthOut reported. The state of Michigan owes $5 million, the Tribune column said, citing the Daily Beast.

"The big players may also owe money but they can contest it. They have clout, so they're left alone," the Tribune columnist argued.

Check out Water Online's Water Scarcity Solution Center.

Image credit: "Roasted Cripple Creek gold ore, Cripple Creek Diatreme (Early Oligocene, 32 Ma), central Colorado 2," jsj1771 © 2014, used under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/