There is water for everyone, but not all
Gino Since
How many kilometers of aqueduct or sewer would be built with tens of millions of euro were spent in Istanbul to organize the 5th World Water Forum, to bring in the beautiful Turkish city thousands of ministers, officials, journalists, industrial managers, racks, and environmentalists also attracted by the great event, and to listen to, yet time, the same things for decades, wherever you read? Namely, that there are billions of people around the world, women, men, children, old people, who lack clean water, sanitation, toilets and sewers, while, as usual, a few billion people waste water and thousands of miles of aqueducts lose precious water? The accounts have been made many times: the water in the world has abundant solar energy, always the same, which keeps everything in motion on Earth. The water that "serve" for humans, Housing, to irrigate the fields, factories, must have a low salt content, the water 'sweet' of rain and snow that falls and flows on land , is approximately 40 trillion cubic meters while the water required by human activities amounted to billions of cubic meters per year, the rest flows through the valleys and rivers back to mare.Non may not be public - would then have water for everyone if the distribution of rainfall was not very different in different continents and had not even subject to change during the year. In many areas of the different continents - Africa Central, South-East Asia, South America - there are huge resources of fresh water in rivers and lakes and low population, however, that usually does not have water supply or sanitation to benefit from this wealth. There are many areas of the various continents - generally those countries 'industrial' - where the population is concentrated in large cities increasingly numerous and large, where the intense agricultural and industrial activities, the higher the demand for fresh water and the availability of water in rivers and lakes is limited. The solution of the water crisis must be sought in a distributive justice and here we are confronted with the first serious obstacle, that of "ownership" of water in the center of all debates in two ways. Who owns the water of a river as the Po, or the Danube, or the Amazon, or even a more modest as the river Ofanto or Fortore, which flows between different regions and countries? The title of the conference in Istanbul was just, "Roll out the bridges" between the banks and people that look out on the same river. No coincidence that Turkey, hosting the Global Forum, it conflicts with Syria and Iraq for the "property" of the waters of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin, the "great river" that extends into the biblical three neighboring countries. Who fetches water from a river for their legitimate needs of the water without those living downstream. Who pollutants discharged into a river makes the water unusable for the people of the same river valley. The solution lies in recognizing that the real political-economic unit in which they should regulate the distribution and use of water is the water catchment area, that area consists of all the valley with the main rivers and their tributaries, where water flows of rain and snow down to the sea. The distribution and use of water should be planned, decided and done by people who live in each area. Unfortunately for historical reasons also, each river basin is divided between various countries and administrative regions, each of which shall be considered "master" of his piece of the water catchment area. The State or the region upstream of a river basin has no duty to warn those who are in the valley will build a dam, which will pick up lots of water, which will fetch much waste in the basin. Often countries that share the same catchment area are in conflict. The "people Ofanto" - The solution could be sought in education to consider water as a common good of the people inhabiting the same basin. There should not the people of Basilicata and Puglia, but the "people Ofanto," or else the "people of the Danube" or "the people of Jordan" and so on. In principle it should be the State which undertakes the task of ensuring water for all by charging a fair price and the same. The 'water of the state "as a public service due to the public. In fact, states with a can (or can no longer) to perform this essential function and duty, and trust companies whose aim is not to satisfy the civil and human rights, but to earn, with the rates to cover costs addressed and boost profits. And where there is no "market" for there is not even earn an interest in the water to the people from whom one can not derive any profit. In recent weeks, the magazines and the media have shown children with heavy carts full of bottles of water or women with containers of water on the head by a wandering river to the houses or cabins. Who ever you want to invest that money to alleviate the fatigue of these people when this does not ensure profits? Even when the water "for all" is granted by the state or regional bodies a few euro cents per cubic meter to individuals that bottle and sell it to tens of euro per cubic meter?
"La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno" - 03/25/2009
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