By Andrea Germanos | Common Dreams
Water is a public good and belongs in public hands.
That's the message from a new video, The Story of Water: Who Controls the Way We Drink? which highlights how profit-driven corporate entities leave a trail of broken promises—as well as higher costs and exacerbated inequality—when they snatch up public water systems.
“It doesn't have to be this way,” says the video, which was produced by The Story of Stuff Project in partnership with Corporate Accountability.
Success stories from Philadelphia, South Bend, Indiana, and Baltimore show how municipalities can utilize different strategies to dodge privatization.
Watch the video, narrated by Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, below:
The Story of Stuff is also encouraging U.S. residents to pressure their lawmakers to back the WATER Act, which would boost public water infrastructure as well as water justice.
The progressive group calls the proposed legislation “the most comprehensive approach to improving our water systems proposed in decades.” It would, among other things, create a $35 billion a year trust fund to support clean drinking water for all.
“Drinking water—safe, clean, affordable drinking water—is a human rights issue,” said lead sponsor Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) earlier this year. “There is not a human being who can live on this Earth without water, and we are treating it as if it's a luxury.”
Corporate Accountability echoed that message on Monday.
“Access to clean water is a human right,” the group said in a tweet. “Let's keep it that way. Keep our public water systems away from private corporations!”
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