Corporate Think Tank Dives into Water Policy

By Diane Farsetta, PR Watch. Posted April 30, 2009.

Robb has said that WPI is interested in issues of water "scarcity and pricing and ... how you can encourage people to conserve," "recycling and reclamation," "the interconnection between energy and water," and "the intersection increasingly of water quality and water quantity issues." How do those laudable goals square with Robb's legal work to restrict the application of the Clean Water Act, with the interests of WPI's corporate members, or with Hunton & Williams' clients?

I called Robb's office to request an interview. Her assistant quickly identified a time, several days later, when I could speak with her. Then, just before the interview was supposed to take place, the assistant called back to cancel it. I repeatedly contacted the office to reschedule. At one point, a nervous-sounding woman asked me where the interview would appear and what questions I would ask Robb. More than two weeks, several phone calls and emails later, it seems safe to conclude that Kathy Robb doesn't want to talk with me.

Life, death and water policy

Kathy Robb's silence doesn't bode well for WPI. Serious policy groups realize that, in order to have any credibility, they must either scrupulously avoid or fully disclose potential conflicts of interest. If WPI has any such policies, they're not public. WPI's website doesn't even include a list of its members.

In 2003, former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali stated, "Water will be more important than oil this century." Today, an estimated one billion people don't have access to clean drinking water. In 2025, the UN predicts that 1.8 billion people will live in areas with "absolute water scarcity." According to a June 2008 technical paper for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there is "very high confidence" that "adverse effects of climate change on freshwater systems [will] aggravate the impacts of other stresses, such as population growth, changing economic activity, land-use change and urbanisation."

These are serious, complex and urgent issues. The last thing we need is another corporate front group muddying the waters.

See more stories tagged with: water, dams, water pollution

Diane Farsetta is senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »