Why Big Banks May Be Trying to Buy up Your Public Water System

Water is the new oil for global financial powerhouses and water is being commoditized and traded in global stock exchanges.

Today in addition to being able to buy water rights and purchase lakes on private land, an individual or a corporation can invest in water-targeted hedge funds, index funds and exchange-traded funds (EFTs), water certificates, shares of water engineering and technology companies, shares of multinational private water utilities, shares of multinational banks and investment banks that own water companies, and a host of other newfangled water investments in this U.S.$425 billion industry which is expected to become a U.S.$1 trillion industry within five years. And if one happens to be a tycoon, one can also create his or her own private water districts and water utilities.  

The recent media coverage on water has centered on individual corporations and super-investors seeking to control water by buying up water rights and water utilities. But paradoxically the hidden story is a far more complicated one. The real story of the global water sector is a convoluted one involving "interlocking globalized capital": Wall Street and global investment firms, banks, and other elite private-equity firms -- often transcending national boundaries to partner with each other, with banks and hedge funds, with technology corporations and insurance giants, with regional public-sector pension funds, and with sovereign wealth funds -- are moving rapidly into the water sector to buy up not only water rights and water-treatment technologies, but also to privatize public water utilities and infrastructure.  

"Water" and "water sector" are used broadly to refer to water rights (i.e., the right to tap groundwater, aquifers, and rivers), land with bodies of water on it or under it (i.e., lakes, ponds, and natural springs on the surface, or groundwater underneath), water-purification and treatment technologies (e.g., desalination, treatment chemicals and equipment), irrigation and well-drilling technologies, water and sanitation services and utilities, water infrastructure maintenance and construction (from pipes and distribution to all scales of treatment plants for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal uses), water engineering services (e.g., those involved in the design and construction of water-related facilities), and retail water sector (such as those involved in the production, operation, and sales of bottled water, water vending machines, bottled water subscription and delivery services, water trucks, and water tankers).  

The story is multifaceted: In the midst of a recessionary economy with a blistering financial and economic crisis, declining employment, and a shrinking tax base, many financially strapped and debt-ridden local governments are beginning to relinquish public infrastructure (including water) and municipal services (including water and sewage utilities) to privatization by Wall Street and other global investors.

At the same time, Wall Street and multinational banks are seeing water, food, energy, and public infrastructure as safe investment havens with stable returns and financially liquid assets. Simultaneously, they are waking up to the golden opportunity presented by the current reality of a thirstier, water-scarcer world caused by global climate change (and its extreme weather), rapidly depleting groundwater and aquifers, increasing water pollution, soaring water demand exerted by population increases, fast-rising agricultural and industrial uses, and crumbling water infrastructure worldwide requiring billions of dollars annually in maintenance and upgrade.  

Often, the picture painted by mainstream media and water-rights activists is too simple -- that of a single corporation (such as Coca-Cola in India or Bechtel in Bolivia) "corporatizing water;" the real story is not just of flamboyant tycoons (such as U.S.'s billionaire and former oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, or more recently, Hong Kong's real-estate billionaire Li Kai-shing, or Britain's magnate Vincent Tchenguiz) single-handedly grabbing water rights or individual corporations (e.g., Coca-Cola and Nestlé) sucking dry springs and groundwater to the detriment of poor subsistence farmers or slum-dwellers, but vastly complex global networks and partnerships of investment banks and private-equity firms linking together with other institutions (such as public-sector pension funds in Australia, Canada, and Europe; and sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia) and multinational corporations elsewhere to buy up and control water worldwide.