Water! Most Precious of All Things Throughout history, wars have been fought over the right to claim water rights. Like the finances of a nation, the ability of governments to control the availability of water is the other source to determine the fate of populations. Transparency and effective governance of water is the prerequisite for all human and animal development. It also ensures environmental stability. Yet here in the United States, especially here, we take readily available water supplies for granted. We waste it, we squander it, we hoard it, we pollute it, and generally abuse the supply we have.

Wherever there is power to control, corruption of those in control is rampant in governments around the world. These facts will emphasize the scope of the monumental disaster we have had in this moment. More than 1 billion people live without safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation. Dirty water and poor sanitation have claimed more lives over the last century than any other cause. Corruption is a major obstacle to solving this human development crisis. A study of 21 water utilities in Africa revealed that nearly two-thirds of their operating costs were due to corruption. Water is essential for all food production. Irrigated agriculture produces 40% of the world’s food on only 17% of agricultural land. An increase in world food production will come through irrigation. Going from rainfed agriculture to human-controlled irrigation requires an impeccable governance system, with maximum transparency and accountability to all agents.

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Hydropower is a vital source of energy, but as with all large infrastructure projects, significant corruption can occur from the policy and planning stage, through construction to actual electricity production. Corruption invariably reduces the benefits of a project and at the same time increases the human, economic and ecological damage. Widespread overuse of water, often compounded by corruption, is endangering the balance of ecosystems around the world, intensifying local water scarcity and increasing the risks of poverty and conflict that come with it. The risks of corruption found in the water sector are as imminent as they are diverse. They range from small bribes on water supply to procurement-related looting, from covering up industrial pollution to manipulating and distorting fundamental water management and allocation policies. This makes curing corruption in water governance a priority for policymakers and practitioners around the world.

Removing the assumption that adequate amounts of safe water is a basic necessity and establishing the legal premise that adequate amounts of safe water are a legal right of all human beings would be an important way to mitigate the effect of an impending global catastrophe. In this way, a legal right to adequate amounts of safe drinking water for citizens would have an important tool that they can use against their own governments.

Some 30 countries have a constitutional or legal provision that guarantees people’s access to water.

The United States still does not guarantee that Americans have a constitutional right to clean drinking water. Now is the time to establish this right under the constitution because more of our own citizens now face the inability to pay for safe water. If water were guaranteed by the constitution, all Americans would have access to safe amounts of water. In South Africa, for example, the 1996 constitution guarantees sufficient clean and safe water as a basic right. This allows South Africans to take legal action when their water has been cut off. In 2006, a court ruling determined that inability to pay is not a sufficient reason to shut off someone’s water supply. The United States must provide in our constitution, like South Africa, the legal right to safe, fresh water.

The delivery of freshwater systems and investments in water are essential for the safety, sanitation, food supply and health of all. They are not only essential, but also profitable, with worldwide revenues exceeding 500 billion annually. Now, the delivery of freshwater systems reaching those regions of the world where it is needed is expanding but to have a real impact local governments have to resolve that water is a basic right for satiety, security and health. of each country and in doing so will create employment opportunities and ensure the continued economic stability of all.