Water is a human right. The United Nations General Assembly passed this historic resolution more than 10 years ago, recognizing and affirming that access to water and sanitation are basic human rights.
Food & Water Watch works every day to make sure water is treated as a right and not a luxury. Right now, too many people in our country struggle to access safe, affordable public drinking water.
The federal disinvestment in our water systems has led to skyrocketing water bills and cruel collection mechanisms like water shutoffs and tax sale foreclosure and opened the door for private companies to profiteer. And, pollutants like lead and PFAS are plaguing many water systems.
This isn’t how it should be. This isn’t the water system people need and deserve. That’s why we oppose the commodification and privatization of water in all forms. We support managing water supplies as a public trust, improving our public water systems, and making water service safe and affordable for all.
And we are fortunate to have a leader in the campaign to ensure everyone has the right to water, Maude Barlow, as our board chair. Through her decades of activism and research, Maude has developed a critical strategy for realizing the human right to water — starting at the local level to build a global family of Blue Communities.
Water is intrinsic to life itself. We need water to drink, cook, bathe, clean, wash our hands and flush our toilets. In the midst of a global pandemic, this basic essential need for water has never been clearer.
Water privatization — turning local water services over to a for-profit company — abdicates a basic government responsibility to protect and promote the human right to water. Your local water service loses control over this essential service and it leads to higher rates and worse service for the consumer.
Bottled water takes local water supply, puts in plastic bottles and ships it around the world to generate corporate profit. Bottled water costs thousands of times more than local tap water and it generates billions of pounds of plastic — it’s a lose-lose for people and the environment.
We must manage our water as a common resource, not a profit center — and we must provide tap water as public service, not a business. That’s why we need to take action to protect the human right to water. Will you join us?Sign up to volunteer and turn your community into a Blue Community.
Onward together,
Mary Grant
Public Water For All Campaign Director
Food & Water Watch
Food & Water Watch and its affiliated organization, Food & Water Action, are advocacy groups with a common mission to protect our food, water and climate. This email was sent to [email protected] - and we're glad you got it, because it's one of the most important ways you can reclaim political power, hold elected officials accountable and resist corporate control.
