Drought 'Oddities'

[CLG_News]

Drought 'Oddities' By Lori Price 01 Mar 2009 Suddenly, almost inexplicably and overnight - there's a newly discovered big water shortage in the US! Keep your eyes on the GOP prize. Under cover of the Bush Depression and (global warming-induced) drought, corpora-terrorist trolls may present a 'solution:' Privatize part of the US water supply. First, the inevitable state of emergency is declared...

Next, corpora-terrorists have the GOP-run media publish editorials to engender panic and hence the 'need' to build a new (privatized) water grid.

More here.

[Idealism]

1. This has happened in several poor countries in the past

Was very unpopular, and it led to rioting and in some cases brutal protester suppression.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/water/bolivia.html

Sell the rain
How the privatization of water caused riots in Cochabamba, Bolivia

In South America, private companies have taken over municipal water supplies in at least half a dozen countries, but there's one city where the takeover didn't go as planned.


http://intercontinentalcry.org/betchel-vs-bolivia-the-people-win/


http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/5/bolivian_activist_oscar_olivera_on_bechtels


Eventually, Betchel won out, and Bolivia now has their water privatized. It costs much more than before and more people than ever have no running water in the country.

[Mnemosyne]

2. Thanks! KnR n/t

[CLG_News]

3. Thank you. BTW, people wrote me to say that....

that California received tons of snow and rain, recently.

[Mnemosyne]

4. Curiouser and curiouser. n/t

[GReedDiamond]

5. I'm in the Los Angeles area...

...and, yes, there has been a fair amount of rain lately, including a really impressive/almost scary (when you are driving, at least) deluge or two.

But, it seems, there is really no way to collect such rain and put it into the water supply system.

Most of it runs off through the storm drains and ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Snow pack in the local mountains, when it melts, is collected, too, I think, so maybe there will be some benefit there.

Southern California has relied heavily for its water on the Colorado River. If I'm not mistaken that supply may have been curtailed somewhat over the last few years. Los Angeles was built in a desert, so the word "drought" is heard regularly/periodically, at least since I arrived here in 1976.

The (L.A. area) town I'm in declared a "water emergency" probably a year ago, at least. That means they could, if they wanted to, cite homeowners for things like excessive water use and leaky lawn sprinklers, and so on. Haven't heard about that happening to anybody, though.