Water is the hot commodity of the 21st century. Filling a void left by the failure of governments to meet the most basic human water requirements, private multinational corporations are jockeying to provide our water — for a price. They're taking over public systems or physically moving water over large distances from water-rich to water-scarce regions.

Corporations such as Vivendi and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux (now Ondeo) in France, Thames Water in England, RWE in Germany, and Bechtel and Azurix in the United States are stepping up their offers to purchase water rights or water systems from local governments and take over the management and provision of water. Other corporations are offering to buy up bulk quantities of water from water-rich nations like Canada or Norway and ship it in tankers or huge floating bags to water-scarce regions.

And why not? Some governments have been miserable failures as water providers. Most of us already pay for water, as we should. Paying for water permits the continued operation and maintenance of our critical water systems, promotes efficient use, and ensures that future needs can be met.

Yet in too many developing countries the poorest often pay far more for water than the wealthiest. They buy it at great cost from private vendors or tanker trucks that bring water into the slums and densely populated areas of rapidly growing cities.

This is true in Haiti, Indonesia, and Peru, where some of the world's poorest people are buying water of dubious quality from private vendors for as much as 50 or even 100 times what wealthier residents connected to municipal systems pay.

If corporations can build the new systems necessary to satisfy unmet needs or can operate existing systems more efficiently than wasteful or corrupt governments, the argument goes, they should be permitted, even encouraged, to do so.

Indeed, private companies have successfully run water systems in France for many decades.

The problem is that proper design and management of a water system involves more than just building pipes and billing for water. It also involves monitoring and enforcing water quality standards, protecting the natural environment, and ensuring that these services reach all people, not just the wealthy.

As individuals we tend to believe that water should be a public responsibility, not a private asset. We want a say in how decisions are made about our water supplies and how prices are set rather than leaving such decisions to the World Trade Organization or globalization treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement.

There are also growing concerns that private companies will take their profits from water sales and reinvest them outside of our local communities.

Vivendi, for example, is a multinational corporation that also runs Universal Studios and Music Group and Houghton Mifflin and recently announced plans to acquire USA Networks.

Because of these concerns, proposals to privatize water systems or let bulk water enter international trade are running into increasing opposition.

The government of Argentina recently terminated a contract granted in the city of Tucuman in 1995 after water rates doubled and water quality dropped. Proposals to sell large quantities of Canadian water to Asia and the United States have prompted the Canadian government to propose laws prohibiting the bulk export of its water.

A contract with a multinational consortium to run the water system in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city, led to violent protests, the death of several people, martial law, and ultimately cancellation of the contract.

Even Margaret Thatcher's privatization of the British water system in the 1980s was eventually modified to reintroduce stronger government oversight and regulation.

We cannot expect inefficient or corrupt governments to be effective watchdogs over huge international companies. Weak governments cannot provide the safeguards necessary to oversee private water provision. Experience shows that well-run public water systems can reduce or even eliminate the pressures and incentives for privatization.

Indeed, the threat of privatization makes public water agencies improve operations, cut inefficiencies, and strengthen performance.

As pressures to privatize water grow, so do the risks that control over one of our most precious resources will be turned over to corporations without financial interest in protecting the long-term interests of our local communities or natural ecosystems.

While private companies can provide improved and expanded water services in places that desperately need them, we must proceed very carefully.

Ultimately, we must understand how to make governments meet their public responsibilities more efficiently and how to design responsible public-private partnerships.

Now is the time to develop and implement strict international standards that define codes of conduct for water companies, prevent corruption, require public comment and independent review of contracts, and guarantee other basic protections.

Unless we do so, control over our water resources will be lost, and a basic human right will become a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.

---

Peter H. Gleick is director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, Calif., and co-author of the forthcoming Institute report "The New Economy of Water," which addresses water privatization and globalization.

RESOURCES
www.worldwater.org
The World's Water, a global clearinghouse for information on freshwater problems and solutions. Provides up-to-date water information, data, and Web connections for those interested in worldwide water issues.

www.pacinst.org
Web site for the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, which studies climate change and international water policy.

www.gci.ch
Green Cross International, an organization founded by Mikhael Gorbachev, which helps avert conflicts over the world's water resources.

---

BOOK GROUP
"Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water"
By Philip Ball
A fascinating look at the chemistry and physics of water. Ball explains the science, even as he warns about the dire problems we face if we don't start handling this most taken-for-granted resource with more wisdom.

"Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource"
By Marq De Villiers
A leading Canadian journalist says water is undervalued, even as it becomes more precious.

"Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity"
By Sandra Postel and Linda Starke
Part of the Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series, the authors examine the limits of water - ecological, economic, and political - and discuss methods of making it go further.