Who Owns the Water?

We all know the terms, 'globalization' and 'privatization' since they have been bantered about for the last 20 to 30 years. Both terms have policy implications for governments around the world and for all of the people around the world. The principles of globalization and privatization are embraced by both major political parties, and there is no debate. These principles constitute an religious outlook that is above challenge and which are jealously guarded by the 'high-priests' of this new pagan religion, that is also entwined with 'environmentalism'. Thus we have a new trinity of faith that guides action producing a new ethics. But from a practical point of view what these terms mean in reality is corporate ownership and control of all of the resources of the world environment. This includes food, air and water, the key elements upon which human life depends.

A traditional folksong went:

"If heaven was a place that money could buy,

The rich would live and the poor would die."

Drugs in our drinking water
17 January 2010

Acharya S
No, not just fluoride, which is bad enough - much of our drinking water, in the U.S., Canada and U.K. at least, is contaminated with Prozac and a "vast array" of other drugs.
And you wonder why everyone around is sleepwalking and/or sick?
Study Finds Traces of Drugs in Drinking Water in 24 Major U.S. Regions
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health....
Prozac in Tap Water
Nine different drugs were found in water samples near 20 different water treatment plants across Ontario, Canada. The drugs were "acidic pharmaceuticals", which include ibuprofin and neproxin (painkillers), gemfibrozil (cholesterol-lowering medicine), and prozac (anti-depressant). The area with the highest levels of contamination were from locations near sewage treatment plants, suggesting that the chemicals are getting into our water supply from our own bodily wastes! Areas that tested the lowest were plants whose sourcing water was from groundwater or lakes...
Prozac 'found in drinking water'
Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation's drinking water, it has been revealed.An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater.A report in Sunday's Observer says the government's environment watchdog has discussed the impact for human health.A spokesman for the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) said the Prozac found was most likely highly diluted....
The following film is not about drugs but about water, per se. A very frightening situation!

America's Dangerous Water - Not Fit to Drink

The mark of a civilized society is its ability to keep its waste (sewage) separate from its drinking water and food supply. Any nation or city that can not do that is putting the health of its citizen at risk and is ultimately putting its own continued existence at risk as well. If the citizens are sickened and weakened by pollution and contamination in the food and water supply then they will not be able to maintain the society. The corrupt economic policies under bankruptcy since the days of the The New Deal has led to nearly complete collapse of public safety infra-structure such as sewage treatment, water treatment and public health. As these converge with increasing environmental pollution and a degraded food chain, then disaster is on the horizon. The following article from the Los Angeles Times reveals the shocking truth about America's water supply and its impact on the health of Americans who drink it. Keep in mind, this is related to the 'privatization' of water as a commodity. Shouldn't clean pure water be a human right? In some instances, bottled water is more expensive than gasoline! Suppose you can't pay? Somebody is getting rich on our natural need for water! Is air next? What would the selling price for air be?

It is mentioned in the lessons, isn't it?

Enjoy. Learn. Think. Share.

That Tap Water Is Legal but May Be Unhealthy

By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: December 16, 2009
The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal.
Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.
But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.
Other recent studies have found that even some chemicals regulated by that law pose risks at much smaller concentrations than previously known. However, many of the act’s standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some remain essentially unchanged since the law was passed in 1974.
All told, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed since 2004 to drinking water that did not meet at least one commonly used government health guideline intended to help protect people from cancer or serious disease, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 19 million drinking-water test results from the District of Columbia and the 45 states that made data available.
In some cases, people have been exposed for years to water that did not meet those guidelines.
But because such guidelines were never incorporated into the Safe Drinking Water Act, the vast majority of that water never violated the law.
Some officials overseeing local water systems have tried to go above and beyond what is legally required. But they have encountered resistance, sometimes from the very residents they are trying to protect, who say that if their water is legal it must be safe.
Dr. Pankaj Parekh, director of the water quality division for the City of Los Angeles, has faced such criticism. The water in some city reservoirs has contained contaminants that become likely cancer-causing compounds when exposed to sunlight.
To stop the carcinogens from forming, the city covered the surface of reservoirs, including one in the upscale neighborhood of Silver Lake, with a blanket of black plastic balls that blocked the sun.
Then complaints started from owners of expensive houses around the reservoir. “They supposedly discovered these chemicals, and then they ruined the reservoir by putting black pimples all over it,” said Laurie Pepper, whose home overlooks the manmade lake. “If the water is so dangerous, why can’t they tell us what laws it’s violated?”
Dr. Parekh has struggled to make his case. “People don’t understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks,” he said. “And so we encounter opposition that can become very personal.”
Some federal regulators have tried to help officials like Dr. Parekh by pushing to tighten drinking water standards for chemicals like industrial solvents, as well as a rocket fuel additive that has polluted drinking water sources in Southern California and elsewhere. But those efforts have often been blocked by industry lobbying.
Drinking water that does not meet a federal health guideline will not necessarily make someone ill. Many contaminants are hazardous only if consumed for years. And some researchers argue that even toxic chemicals, when consumed at extremely low doses over long periods, pose few risks. Others argue that the cost of removing minute concentrations of chemicals from drinking water does not equal the benefits.
Moreover, many of the thousands of chemicals that have not been analyzed may be harmless. And researchers caution that such science is complicated, often based on extrapolations from animal studies, and sometimes hard to apply nationwide, particularly given that more than 57,400 water systems in this country each deliver, essentially, a different glass of water every day.
Government scientists now generally agree, however, that many chemicals commonly found in drinking water pose serious risks at low concentrations.
And independent studies in such journals as Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; Environmental Health Perspectives; American Journal of Public Health; and Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health, as well as reports published by the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that millions of Americans become sick each year from drinking contaminated water, with maladies from upset stomachs to cancer and birth defects.