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"Flow: For Love of Water" is a beautifully filmed documentary
about the corporate takeover of the world's water supply. Gorgeous
scenes of naturally flowing water are interspersed throughout by
cinematographer Pablo de Selva and director Irena Salina—a dramatic contrast
to water-deprived areas.
The international cast of scientists, ecology activists, and writers
interviewed for the film believe fights over water rights will trump
the current oil wars. Advocates for water rights for Third World
countries, where two million children die of water-born diseases
annually, speak on what must be done to ensure clean, fresh water not
only for those populations but for everyone.
Scientist and internationally known water expert Dr. Peter Gleick
explains the water cycle we all learned in grammar school. With a nod
to Al Gore's film, "Inconvenient Truth," environmental
scientists believe that global warming has caused erratic changes to
this cycle, resulting in water scarcity, droughts, floods, and crop
failure—and leading to famine and starvation. These changes can cause
lakes and rivers to dry up in certain areas, reducing the amount of
water evaporation, and bringing on unpredictable rainfall
seasons. Instead, there are devastating deluges, causing floods
and washing away precious topsoil.
In "Flow," Dr. Gleick and UC Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes
state that it is a fallacy to believe that the water supply in the U.S.
is safe to drink or bathe in. Our water contains pesticides that leach
through our pores each time we shower. A recent discovery is that tap
water in the developed world also contains pharmaceuticals from pills
(or residue from urine) flushed down toilets or dumped into landfills.
As yet, there is no way to filter out these drugs.
Hayes went on to say that the pesticide atrazine, manufactured by
Syngenta, in Sweden, was banned outright by the EU, yet Syngenta sells
it to the U.S. According to Hayes, U.S. big agro uses it on two-thirds
of all the corn, sorgum, and soy-bean fields; 90 percent of sugarcane
fields; and municipalities spray it on lawns, golf courses, and
Christmas tree farms. Vandana Shiva, a physicist and ecologist from
India, talks about the plight of babies born with birth defects because
their mothers had drunk ground water ruined by pesticides.
In one startling scene, the camera focuses on a sluggish, blood-red
stream near a small village in Africa. Maude Barlow, chairperson of the
Council of Canadians, who was involved with the 2003 documentary,
"Corporation," approaches the stream with villagers who tell
her that blood from a nearby slaughterhouse is channeled into the
river. Downstream, people drink the water, bathe, and wash clothes in
it because they don't have access to clean water, and many sicken and
die.
In her interview for "Flow" and in her book, "Blue
Gold," Barlow says that the buying and selling of water will
become as controversial as the oil business today. She equates the
current fresh water supply with that of oil reserves.
In Africa, women and children stand in long lines, waiting to fill
containers from a spigot in the ground, controlled by France’s Suez
Corporation. Sometimes "they" allow water to flow twice a
day, sometimes once. Sometimes people wait all day for water.
Other Suez-controlled sources require the insertion of a coin and
people have to decide whether to buy food or water.
"Flow" includes clips from a documentary film about the
victory in Cochabamba, Bolivia, over water privatization, led by
activist and protest leader Oscar Olivera. Activist/author Jim Schultz,
founder of the Democracy Center based in Cochabamba, provided a
voiceover. Interviewed, Schultz reveals that in 1997 the World Bank
forced Cochabamba's water privatization by Aguas del Tunari, a private
company owned by London-based International Water Ltd. The people in
Cochabamba couldn't afford to buy the privatized water; the costs had
risen beyond their means. Several people demonstrating against the
privatization were killed by Bolivian police and the military. Still,
they prevailed and won.
"Flow" makes clear that the
"water business" is not just a Third World problem. The
Nestlés Corporation built a water bottling plant in Michigan to bottle
water pumped by the hundreds of gallons a day from nearby rivers and
aquifers. It’s a ridiculous situation, says Sweetwater Alliance member,
Michigan resident, and author, Holly Wren Spaulding. Nestlés bottles
this water, ships it all over the U.S., imports it, and sells it back
to Michigan residents.
The townspeople, led by attorney Jim Olson, brought a suit against
Nestlés to shut it down. They succeeded to a degree. Nestlés agreed to
reduce the number of thousands of gallons it pumps per day. But the
people are still working with Olson to shut it down, permanently.
As Shri Rajendra Singh, a cheerful Indian activist, tells it in
"Flow," a Suez Corp. official told him that water from
streams and rivers around his village was not his. Rain was not his.
Singh could only laugh.
In 1985, Singh and an NGO official, Tarun Bharat Sangh, traveled to
Alwar, a poor province in India. Water was scarce, cattle were dying on
parched land declared by the Indian government as a hopeless Black
Zone. "Flow" documents Singh's work with villagers. With a
local elder's advice, Singh organized them and restored old "johads"
(water harvesting structures), a simple, yet labor-intensive,
years-long project.
Today, two decades later, there are 8600 "johads" in over a
thousand villages spread over 6500 square km. A beautiful shot by de
Selva and Salina shows a paradisiacal scene of a pond, trees, birds,
and enough running water to grow food. The people Singh had trained
have gone to other villages to create more watersheds.
Vandana Shiva strongly urges people to speak out and march, as they did
in Bolivia and are still doing in Michigan, or to protest silently. It
worked in Kerala, India.
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