ECUADOR:
Pressure to Make Water a Public Good
Kintto Lucas

QUITO,  (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.