Water Rights, just the saying of this phrase used to bring shudders down the spines of people before the 20th century. Water was the difference between life and death in many places, including our own west. People were forced to pay dearly to be able to use water. We seemed to get a little more civilized in the 20th century and things were going along pretty smoothly, except in the most backward areas. Then something happened that started the water ball rolling again. Manufactures convinced the public that bottled water was better than the water they were drinking and we all lined up to pay as much as $3.00 U.S. per bottle, in some instances. At this price, water became more profitable than oil. You didn't even have to drill for it, you just scooped it up. In some cases, the water was being taken directly from a tap in one city and sold to people in another. Wow, talk about profit! That was only the beginning.

In Britain, government water companies are being sold to private companies who are getting ready to charge a nice price for the water being used there. It is said that if someone can not pay their bill, the intake pipe that supplies the water to their residence will be blocked off. The routine is used primarily for, as the new water boards describe, “Awkward customers, who are late, or even don’t pay their bills”.

The ‘awkward’ customers are classed as the newly unemployed, or have any form of illness which prevents proper payment of their bills through a sudden decrease in personal income. No allowances are given by these new water boards, whose obvious policy consists of – “Pay and drink. Don’t pay and enjoy the benefits of a dry life style ”. This is what their current actions state to the customer, who is now finding the new excessive water charges are eating substantially into their weekly/monthly wages. A very large water company in England raised it's prices by 15% this year. This is the same company that has been in trouble in the past. The huge profits just keep rolling in. There was a bill passed in 1999 that stopped companies from turning off water to customers in certain instances, but it seems it is being redrawn. Time will tell what is going to happen with it.

In the U.S. water rates in some areas have been steadily increasing. Flat rates in many areas have been replaced with water meters, effectively increasing the amount of money the different water districts take in.

Why are water bans still in effect in the south of England when Last May was one of the wettest in England since records began? Here we are talking about higher rates being terrible and make no bones about it, they are, but there are even worse things than that. Look how water is being handled in some places in Africa. It has become a weapon, a weapon to kill people of different tribes. Some people are being completely cut off from water. To make matters worse, huge water supplies that once existed, such as large lakes, have shrunk to almost nothing due to global warming. You don't hear much about that, but you never seem to hear much about events that effect Africa anyway. If all the fighting on that continent would only stop, maybe something could be done.

South America is also experiencing water problems. There was a public uprising in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba over increases in water prices. The World Bank had advised Bolivia to lease it's water companies to private enterprises. As soon as this was done, the company doubled some rates and tripled others. Many of the families that lived in the city were extremely poor. It was a sad scene indeed, where poor people were being gassed by troops as they protested the water rates with some claiming that they couldn't afford to even drink water anymore. Water shortages are happening all over South America and in Central America also.

Water is starting to be treated exactly as oil is. It is being invested in heavily. If water *futures start to become invested in, like oil futures, we could see the prices that people pay for water skyrocketing. Remember what happened to oil. It went from about 33 cents a gallon in the U.S. in the 1950s to $3.20 a gallon now. But that is not the entire story. Most of the huge raise was in the last few years and even though no one will admit it, the price was driven up by futures trading.

Let's hope that somehow mercy will enter into this picture or eventually, countries will be attacking each other for a water supply. It has happened in the past and there will be nothing to stop it from happing in the future. Some things just shouldn't be profit motivated and water is one of them.

* In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract, traded on a futures exchange, to buy or sell a certain underlying instrument at a certain date in the future, at a pre-set price. The future date is called the delivery date or final settlement date. The pre-set price is called the futures price. The price of the underlying asset on the delivery date is called the settlement price. The futures price, naturally, converges towards the settlement price on the delivery date. - Wikipedia