From what i've heard, basic water treatment isn't too expensive. All you need to do is filter it and boil it, or just boil it. That'l take out most of the bad stuff, if not all. And the system wouldn't be too complicated either. could even have a power plant/ water treatment facility. A coal plant (or nuclear, oil, gas, biomass, etc) boils vast amounts of water. Once it gets condensed, send it to the water supply and you have clean drinking water. Won't work for small isolated communities relying on a well...but a powerplant up hill from a population centre and near a body of water can't be too hard to find/make

If the infrastructure is already there, it definately is inexpensive. The most expensive part is probably pouring the concrete for a filtration plant. The treatment chemicals certainly don't cost much, or we wouldn't be pouring them in even larger concentration into our swimming pools.

Water Is a Human Right
How privatization gets water to the poor
Ronald Bailey

Activists around the world chant the slogan that "water is a human right." Yet more than a billion poor people in the world today lack access to safe drinking water. Twelve million of them die each year from drinking disease-contaminated water.

Among things that would most benefit the world, safe, clean drinking water is clearly a high priority, as pointed out by the Copenhagen Consensus organized by skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg in 2004.

In 2003 the U.N.'s World Water Development Report estimated an annual shortfall of $110 billion to $180 billion in investments needed to provide access to safe water to the poor in the developing world. The U.N.'s Millennium Development Project has a target of reducing by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015. The economic benefits of halving the number of people without access to safe water—in terms of disease avoided, lives lengthened, and time wasted fetching it—add up to $300 billion to $400 billion annually.

Displaying a surprising lack of imagination, the summary of the Copenhagen Consensus paper on water adopted the conventional wisdom that "water service provision has generally been seen as a government responsibility. This is largely because water is regarded as a public good and its availability as a basic human right, best administered by the public sector." Given the fact that so many of the governments in developing countries have somehow failed to recognize their citizens' supposed right to water, perhaps there is a better way to go?

In his excellent new monograph, Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis, Swedish analyst Fredrik Segerfeldt makes the case that water privatization can go a long way toward quenching the thirst of the poor. Segerfeldt points out that public water systems in developing countries generally supply politically connected wealthy and middle class people, whereas the poor are not hooked up to municipal water mains. Segerfeldt cites one study of 15 countries that found that in the poorest quarters of their populations, 80 percent of the people were not hooked up to water mains. Of course, the poor don't just die of thirst; they just pay more—generally a lot more—for their water.

"Contractors often drive tankers to poor districts, selling water by the can, in which case the very poorest of the world's inhabitants are already exposed to market forces but on very unfair terms, because water obtained like this is on average twelve times more expensive than water from regular water mains, and often still more expensive than that," notes Segerfeldt. A survey of major cities in developing countries found that the poor in Lagos, Nigeria pay four to 10 times more for their water than people who are hooked up to water mains do; in Karachi, Pakistan they pay 28 to 83 times more; in Jakarta, Indonesia, four to 60 times; and in Lima, Peru, 17 times more. Essentially, the rich get cheap tap water while the poor pay the moral equivalent of Perrier prices.

So now some countries have turned to the private sector and multinational companies for help in providing their thirsty poor citizens with water. Privatization can mean selling entire water supply and treatment systems to private owners; long-term leases of water supply systems; or contracts to manage public water systems. In practical terms, the usual arrangement is a long-term lease. So far, only 3 percent of the poor in developing countries get their water from private-sector water systems. However, these initial projects have provoked an outcry by anti-privatization activists around the world against a "global water grab" by giant corporations.

Segerfeldt shows that even imperfect privatization efforts have already successfully connected millions of poor people to relatively inexpensive water where government-funded efforts have failed. For example, before privatization in 1989, only 20 percent of urban dwellers the African nation of Guinea had access to safe drinking water; by 2001 70 percent did. The price of piped water increased from 15 cents per cubic meter to almost $1, but as Segerfeldt correctly notes, "before privatization the majority of Guineans had no access to mains water at all. They do now. And for these people, the cost of water has fallen drastically. The moral issue, then, is whether it was worth raising the price for the minority of people already connected before privatization in order to reach the 70 percent connected today." In Cartagena, Colombia privatization boosted the number of people receiving piped water by 27 percent. Even the conflicted privatization in Buenos Aires saw the number of households connected to piped water rise by 3 million and 85 percent of the new customers lived in the poor suburbs of the city. Segerfeldt cites other successful privatizations in Gabon, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Morocco.

But given the often corrupt governments with which corporations must deal, it's not surprising that privatization can be done very badly. Probably the most spectacular case of privatization gone wrong occurred in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Cochabamba is to anti-privatization activists what the Alamo is to Texans. Between 1989 and 1999, the proportion of households connected to the public water system fell from 70 percent to 60 percent. Water was only sporadically available. In the wealthier neighborhoods 99 percent of households were receiving the subsidized water, while in some poorer suburbs less than 4 percent were connected.

The activist myth is that the poor rose up when the evil multinational Bechtel raised the price of water by 43 percent to 60 percent, depending on the customer's income. While it is true that the lucky few of the poorest who were connected to municipal water supplies did see big increases in their water bills, the majority of the poor who stood to be connected for the first time would have paid much less than they were already paying to water vendors. Segerfeldt calculates that piped water prices were already so low that this would mean the poorest 5 percent of the population would be spending 5.4 percent of their incomes on water. Segerfeldt reports that the opposition to privatization was actually lead by middle class and industrial users who had been receiving subsidized water. Opponents also included local water vendors and small farmers who wrongly believed that they were forbidden to access well water.

Under pressure, Bechtel pulled out and Cochabamba's water supply system is once again being run by the old public utility. Segerfeldt claims that water is now available only four hours per day and that no new households at all have been connected to the network since 2000. Meanwhile, the poor are paying 10 times more for their water than are the rich households connected to the system. This is a victory for the poor?

Privatization is not a panacea, but Segerfeldt shows that, when properly done, it can play a huge role in bringing safe clean drinking water to the hundreds of millions of people who still lack it. In the meantime, Segerfeldt wonders, "why anti-privatization activists do not expend as much energy on accusing governments of violating the rights of 1.1 billion people who do not have access to water as they do on trying to stop its commercialization." Good question.

I'd like any reasoning at all behind your allegations, or permission to ignore them entirely... one organization is enough, for simplicity.

It's hardly an attack on you; I'm as against the organizations I assume you've made reference to as you are, but I'm not going to accept that they propagate mass suffering for their own personal gains.

Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor?

By JUAN FORERO
Published: December 15, 2005

Noah Friedman-Rudovsky for The New York Times

Many in Cochabamba cannot depend on wells and get water through deliveries made two or three times a week by freelance water dealers.

After days of protests and martial law, Bechtel - the American multinational that had increased rates when it began running the waterworks - was forced out. As its executives fled the city, protest leaders pledged to improve service and a surging leftist political movement in Latin America celebrated the ouster as a major victory, to be repeated in country after country.

Today, five years later, water is again as cheap as ever, and a group of community leaders runs the water utility, Semapa.

But half of Cochabamba's 600,000 people remain without water, and those who do have service have it only intermittently - for some, as little as two hours a day, for the fortunate, no more than 14.

"I would have to say we were not ready to build new alternatives," said Oscar Olivera, who led the movement that forced Bechtel out.

Bolivia is just days away from an election that could put one of Latin America's most strident antiglobalization leaders in the presidency. The water war experience shows that while a potent left has won many battles in Latin America in recent years, it still struggles to come up with practical, realistic solutions to resolve the deep discontent that gave the movement force in the first place.

That discontent may have found its most striking incarnation in Bolivia. Here, protests against the introduction of stronger market forces have toppled two presidents since 2003. And the discontent has given Evo Morales, a charismatic Aymara Indian and nationalistic congressman who has channeled much of the anger of his poverty-stricken country, a slight lead in the polls ahead of the Dec. 18 elections.

Frustrated that the economic restructuring prescribed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund failed to translate into sustained growth and reduced poverty, country after country in Latin America has either discarded or is questioning much of the conventional wisdom about relying more on market forces - known as the "Washington consensus" - from the privatization of utilities to the slashing of social spending to unfettered trade.

Much of the policy turn has come under pressure from the streets and the results have varied wildly.

Argentina, for instance, has bounced back from economic collapse by ignoring crucial aspects of I.M.F. orthodoxy the last four years, while accepting others. Ecuador is tottering on the brink of political tumult even as the eight-month-old government of President Alfredo Palacio tries ramping up social spending. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez is forming state companies and spending lavishly - some say recklessly - on social programs, pleasing the poor, but failing to generate much foreign investment or business not linked to the overarching oil industry.

Bolivia's back-tracking, more a product of roiling protests than government policy, began after the country became among the first in Latin America to apply market prescriptions wholeheartedly in the mid-1980's. The I.M.F. later asked for far-reaching measures in exchange for loans and other aid, and promised steady growth, up to 6 percent a year, that would cut into poverty.

Bolivia's economy, though, grew at a dismal pace. Even the fund, in a 2003 memo, noted that a fall in per capita income and employment contributed to "rising social tensions that erupted recently."

The fund and other institutions that helped guide Bolivia's economy blame grinding corruption, poor infrastructure and high pension costs. Officials at the I.M.F. also note that Bolivia, like other countries that seek help, come only when they are wracked by economic troubles that require tough choices.

"If you're spending more than you're earning, for a while that's fine," said Caroline Atkinson, deputy director of Western Hemisphere operations for the fund. "But if your borrowing gets too huge, then no one wants to fund you anymore, and you have to cut back."

But to Bolivians, the experiment was marked by failure. Privatized companies like the railroads went bust, while the energy industry is generating $100 million less in taxes and royalties than it did when it was state-run, budget officials said. "They did everything right," said Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-winning economist at Columbia University who has been critical of the I.M.F. formula. "They liberalized, they privatized and they felt the pain. Now it's 20 years later and they're saying, 'When is the gain?' "

In the end, market changes pushed by the I.M.F., the World Bank and American-educated Bolivian economists fueled anger that severely weakened governments and gave rise to Mr. Morales. Making his name leading Bolivia's powerful coca growers' federation, Mr. Morales has in the last four years used his outsider status, his "up by the bootstraps" journey from very poor origins on Bolivia's high plains and his Indian roots to rail against market changes he says favor foreigners, not Bolivians.

That is why Mr. Morales is pushing for a "nationalization" of the gas industry that, while not leading to expropriation, will increase taxes and royalties on foreign energy companies; those combined levies were raised earlier this year to 50 percent. He also wants to tighten borders to keep out cheap products and focus the government's attention on cooperatives, a loose mix of indigenous and socialist business practices.

"We will have an economy based on solidarity and reciprocity," Mr. Morales said in an interview. "We do not dismiss the presence of foreign investment, but we want it to be real, fresh investment to industrialize our hydrocarbons, all under state control."

The proposals, to be sure, are vague. Mr. Morales, who did not finish high school, is guided on economic matters by Carlos Villegas, a left-leaning economist, and by his running mate, Álvaro García, a socialist intellectual, professor of sociology and former guerrilla who articulates the party's position.

Much of the anger that has given Mr. Morales momentum began here in his home city, Cochabamba. The arrival of Bechtel quickly prompted heated protests when the water company increased rates, arguing that it needed more money to finance investment and expand service. In some cases, poor people ended up paying double their previous costs. It also became clear that Bechtel would not expand service to the impoverished south, where the company had no profits to gain from an expensive expansion.

The ouster of the company meant the return of Semapa - but this time with more community control. Semapa has expanded service in fits and starts, with those receiving piped water and sewage service increasing to 303,000 people, from 248,000. The company also managed to lower costs and, oddly for a government company, reduce the work force.

But Semapa still grapples with petty graft and inefficiencies, managers at the company said. Its most serious problem, though, is a lack of money. The company cannot secure big international loans, and it cannot raise rates, since few here could pay them.

For a wide-scale expansion that would include a new dam and aqueducts, $300 million is needed, an enormous amount for a company whose capital budget is just shy of $5 million.

"I don't think you'll find people in Cochabamba who will say they're happy with service," said Franz Taquichiri, one of the community-elected directors of Semapa and a veteran of the water war. "No one will be happy unless they get service 24 hours a day."

On a tour of Semapa's facilities, Luis Camargo, the operations manager, explained that the water filtration installation is split into an obsolete series of 80-year-old tanks and a 29-year-old section that uses gravity to move mountain water from one tank to another. It is fine for a smaller city, he said, but what is needed now is to develop high-altitude reservoirs, a hugely expensive undertaking.

"We're trying to be realistic, and we're looking for aid from Canada and other countries," explained Mr. Camargo, who has worked at Semapa 20 years.

Thousands of people have given up on ever getting Semapa's water. At Rafael Rodríguez's home and small restaurant, a spigot in the yard provides water three hours a day from a community well. He has little good to say about Bechtel, but he noted that Semapa's pipes were far from reaching the neighborhood.

"I was hoping water would get here, but it just has not happened," Mr. Rodríguez, 43, said.

Community organizations, each with an average of 200 families, pool money to drill 200 feet into dry, soft dirt, searching for water that is then delivered through small, cheap pipes to homes in the vicinity of each well.

Still, there are many people who cannot even depend on wells. Edwin Villa, 35, lives in a neighborhood that gets its water through deliveries made two or three times a week by freelance water dealers.

The deliveries are sporadic, he said, and sometimes the water contains tiny worms. His children ask for piped water, but there is not much he can tell them.

"Our hope is that someday Semapa will reach this far," he said. "It would just be magnificent."

"Access to piped drinking water in Chile rose from 27 per cent of the population in the 1970s to 99 per cent today. In Guinea, the number of urban-dwellers with access to clean water tripled from two in ten, to seven in ten by 2001."