Good News Elections and Protecting the Human Right to Water from Market Chaos

While in the United States we are in high gear for one of the most important elections of our history and strapping in for an economic roller coaster ride, in other parts of the Americas, elections are being held and won on issues that affect the lives of each and every person - like the human right to water.

Can you imagine being able to vote on whether everyone will have water to brush their teeth, wash their clothes, cook, and clean, and be able to take a bath? Not to mention being able to use a toilet?

On Sunday, September 28, people in Ecuador went to the polls to adopt a new constitution. Winning with a clear majority of 60 percent, Ecuadorians affirmed, among other things, that each person has a right to access safe, sufficient, affordable water for daily human needs. And they affirmed that there are some services, like water, that should not be subject to chaotic market forces.

Since Sunday, privatization of water services is unconstitutional in Ecuador. Still, Ecuadorians didn't stop there. Now each Ecuadorian has a right to a safe, healthy environment. And nature has rights, too!

We all know that winning the election is the first step, making the human right to water a reality for each person is a ways off. But the door in Ecuador is open to those who have been locked out, and it is shut to those who have been on the irresponsible insider's trading track, holding all the keys for too long.

Take the Bechtel subsidiary InterAgua, the water and sanitation business in Guayaquil that shut off water to 40,000 households after raising its rates, but did not provide the services it was charging residents for.

The Ecuadorian courts caught up with InterAgua, fining the corporation $1.5 million for noncompliance with its contractual obligations. Now Bechtel has to ship its business elsewhere.

UUSC partner El Movimiento Mi Cometa / Observatorios Publicos worked hard to hold InterAgua accountable and get the human right to water in the constitution. Why? Because their families and many others were served water poisoned with disease and toxics from InterAgua's taps -- and even their poor water service was shut off when the rates were raised too high for average people to pay.

The good news is that the tide is changing, and not just in Ecuador. Other people are using the ballot box to get access to water. In Colombia, over 2 million voters recently signed a referendum petition to put a constitutional human right to water to the vote next year. Uruguay passed a similar constitution in 2004, and Bolivia is debating a new constitution right now.

Being able to turn on your tap by putting a vote in the ballot box won't just happen in the Global South. Pundits in California say that although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's bond issue for water infrastructure was pulled from the November ballot, it will likely go to a special election next March.

California's $9 billion water bond raises some of the same questions as the recent, now failed, bailout package deal and subsequent fiasco: what about poor and working people? Who is really going to benefit from these big transfers of wealth and water? Will people in the rural areas of the Central Valley, who can't drink the contaminated water they have to pay for, get access to safe, affordable water after the bond issue passes?

People in Barnstead, N.H., passed a law to stop a water bottler from taking all of their well water. And residents in Maine and California are diving into water justice politics for people and the environment by blocking water bottlers until the environmental impacts of bottling can be truly studied.

Maybe there are more lessons from the Americas on how to make sure every person has access to water: democratic tidal waves that are changing the face of our earth and the lives of all of our families.

Catch or make a water justice wave in your home town and ride - all the way to the ballot box!

To read more about UUSC's work to promote the human right to water, download UUSC's Environmental Justice Fact Sheet here.