In the first decade of the 21st century, there was a move by various multi-national interests to nationalize water resources in various developing countries, and levy a tax on the water that sometimes collects on people’s roofs.
This move would have been an outrageous violation of private property rights. But it took a great deal of determined protests to fight it off. If the multi-nationals had their way there would have been water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Just imagine that. All rainwater that fell on private property would have been owned by multi-national companies. Ordinary people would have had no recourse but to pay exorbitant amounts to private entities owned by foreigners for a bare minimum supply of drinking water.
Now they say that 33 countries are water-stressed. Sri Lanka is one of them. What is a water-stressed country according to the experts? Apparently, it’s one in which there is over 40 per cent withdrawals of available water resources.
But these withdrawals can be for purposes of agriculture etc. What’s withdrawn to grow crops is also released to the waterways because most crops down literally drink the water. It’s why the ancient kings of Sri Lanka stated that not a drop of water should be allowed to flow back into the ocean without being used for a gainful purpose.
These are the monarchs who constructed all the lakes that dot this country which is bereft of natural lakes. Yes, all the country’s lakes are man-made, and most were created by the kings such as Parakramabahu who is responsible for that famous quote about the last drop of water…
FLOODS
Somebody should have tried telling these ancient monarchs that their water withdrawals — without letting so much as a drop go waste — were causing water-stress? Maybe that somebody would have been drawn and quartered.
That Sri Lanka is water-stressed may be hard for folk to believe when it has been raining — at least in certain provinces — ceaselessly for months on end. The monsoon has been insistent on pouring down copious quantities of water and causing havoc this year.
Is it possible for such a country in which there are floods to be water stressed too? As the wise men said however, where there are floods there are droughts.
Nevertheless, the statistics on water stress have to be looked at rationally and dispassionately. There have been instances in which public utility companies have been privatized, and water distribution has been handed over to hastily cobbled-together private companies with shareholders from parts of the world where there is excess money for investment.
When these privatizations occurred, certain irrigation systems that were not managed by the public utilities companies coming under municipal managements were given over to the newly cobbled together multi-national companies. The new company promptly jacked up water tariffs, claiming they had much more to manage, and then of course there was the fiasco about putting a price on the water that collected on people’s roofs.
70 per cent of the world’s water resources are used for agriculture. Furthermore, a great deal of water resources are subject to replenishment. This is factored in when calculating the water-stress index.
Of course, a country would be water-stressed if there is a drought a particular year, and there would on the contrary be no water-stress to fear if there was a deluge and it rained to the point of causing floods.
If there is water-stress in a country, the answer is to have better water management. Lakes and reservoirs should be repaired, and the question should be asked why a country which has so many artificial lakes built for irrigation is suffering from water-stress.
Of course, water disputes have caused wars too. There are transboundary water disputes that would be hard to imagine if they weren’t true, and some of them are between countries that are perceived to be friends. But why should the world have a water problem when we are in an era when desalination is possible?
Water has been desalinated and used in various parts of the world that have been subject to desertification. Desalination works, and is economically viable, especially on a large scale. Potable water distribution also costs money and electricity to supply the pumps and to channel the water from the reservoirs, and desalinating water therefore does not entail any significant additional energy costs or other distribution costs. Where it has worked, desalination plants provide literally millions of people with drinking water.
This is not to suggest that we in Sri Lanka should start desalinating soon and address our apparent water stress problems this way. But it is to say that we should look at the so called water-stress problem rationally and not emotionally.
Water rights have been jealously guarded in this country. Even the last round of fighting that ultimately resulted in the defeat of the conventional war machine of the LTTE, was precipitated, it would be remembered, due to a water dispute.
The waters flowing from the Mavil Aru anicut were cut off from farmers in Sri Lankan Government-held areas by the LTTE.
This led to frayed tempers and a major standoff over who is in charge of controlling the water flow from Mavil Aru. The rest is history.
If Prabhakaran had not underestimated the thirst for water from among the Sinhala farmers he may have, who knows, staved off that final series of battles that led to the war that finally ended at the Nandikadal.
It can be said that water-rights issues therefore are always emotionally charged. No matter whether there is water stress or no water stress, there can be water strife.
IMPERATIVES
That being the backdrop, Sri Lanka should be particularly wary about how to consider the latest statistics that suggest this country is a “water-stressed” nation. Water-stressed should not be a signboard to panic over, and hand over our water management to dubious entities. More than that, it’s essential to ensure that nobody makes unconscionable profits out of water distribution or water management.
There is no need to panic. We have already frittered away our gene pools. The thousands of varieties of rice we had during the days of the Sinhala kings is now reportedly down to a handful. Let’s not handover our water recourses to dubious bidders.
Of course in the modern day, rivers have to be dammed for generation of hydropower and other imperatives and these are problems that the Sinhala kings didn’t have.
It can be argued that water resources are not necessarily depleted when rivers are dammed. After all, the rotors are powered and the water flows by to the sea. But that doesn’t necessarily convey the whole story.
ADOPT
There are ecological consequences when rivers are dammed. But yet. It’s not something that’s avoidable in the modern world. The trick is to balance all the needs including the need for hydropower, and not panic about water-stress.
This is not to say that water consumption and possible overconsumption is not a problem. But it’s not something to go overboard with. Most of all we should not let predatory elements use new-fangled statistics that come by with names such as ‘water-stress’ to upset us or panic us into giving up or consider giving up our water resources to unscrupulous elements.
Water-stress is in and of itself not a benign term. It seems designed to cause panic. It may not be exactly like crying fire in a crowded cinema hall, but saying a country is undergoing water-stress doesn’t seem a proper way of getting that country to adopt the correct policy with regard to water resources.
If we need to avoid panicking, we need less strident warning signs also. Let’s not say this country with so many man-made lakes is water-stressed. We know how to manage our water resources, but if there is a warning with regard to that, thank you. Cool, just like the water in our many man-made lakes.
Rajpal Abeynayake
