Water in Chile: A model that must change

Transcription

1 Water in Chile: A model that must change Daniel Gómez Bustos Spring 2017 Contents 1 Water and sanitation: Global problem and human right 1 2 Water demands and supplies in Chile 3 3 Chilean water model: History and description 5 4 Remarkable social and environmental conflicts related to water 6 5 Conclusions and recomendations 9 This paper address the issue of violation of water rights in the current Chilean water Model. The general concept of water right will be outlined, within the United Nations definition and then the situation in Chile will be described, both the current water regulations and the most remarkable related problems. 1 Water and sanitation: Global problem and human right In the world, there is enough water to supply the human needs, starting from very basic needs like drinking, sanitation, cooking and hygiene to others like agriculture and industry. However, there are millions of people without access 1

2 to a clean and affordable source of water. That results in very unworthy living conditions and health problems. At any one time, half of the world s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from waterborne diseases. This problem takes place for reasons such as poverty and inequality. the governments do not take care about develop an efficient water distribution system. corruption, e.g. when the water distribution system belongs to irresponsible people that search their own gain the industry uses are much more privileged than more basic needs. rapid urbanization, pollution and climate change. this problem is even worse in countries with dry weathers. This topic has became more and more important in the last years, and in many countries is within the most relevant social demands. Because the above, the right to water and sanitation has became an human right and many national and international organizations have been created in order to address such problem. In particular, the right to water has been mentioned in some other Human Rights documents: 1979: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (art. 14 (2)). 1985: International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 161 concerning Occupational Health Services (art. 5). 1989: Convention on the Rights of the Child (arts. 24 and 27 (3)). 2006: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art. 28) And finally, it has been developed separately as Human Right in the Resolution 64/292 by the General Assembly of the United Nations (2010). It says: 2

3 Recognizes the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights; Calls upon States and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity-building and technology transfer, through international assistance and cooperation, in particular to developing countries, in order to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all; (...) 2 Water demands and supplies in Chile On average, Chile endows about m 3 of renewable freshwater resources per capita, the fifth highest value in the OECD (OECD, 2015c). Although many rivers, lakes, groundwater and glaciars provide plenty of water, they concentrate in the middle and south of the country. The water problem is bigger in the north region, since the demand of water is big because the mining and the dry weather. The demand of water is also big in the center-south region since there it is Santiago, Concepción and Valparaíso, the three largest cities, and because the agricultural and forestry activity. (Figure 1) The majority of water abstraction is used to generate electricity (89%, MISP 2015). Within the consumptive uses, the most is used for agriculture (Figure 2). Despite the production and total consumption has increased, the consumption per household has decreased (Figure 3). That is consequence of a bad and inefficient distribution system. 3 Chilean water model: History and description In 1967 within the Land Reform project, the government gave the land and water rights to the farmers and agricultural cooperatives and labor unions, expropriating thousands of rural properties. It also created the General Water Directorate (Dirección General de Aguas, DGA), public organization that 3

4 Available resources Water demand Arica, Parinacota, Tarapacá Antofagasta Atacama Coquimbo Valparaíso Santiago Metropolitan Region O Higgins Maule Bío Bío Araucanía Los Lagos, Los Ríos Aysén Magallanes, Antártica Chilena m 3 /second (logarithmic scale) Note: Regions are ranked fromnorth to south. Source: MMA (2015), Segundo Reporte del Estado del Medio Ambiente. Figure 1: Water demand exceeds supply in northern and central Chile Agriculture Industry Public water supply % Groundwater Surface water a) Abstraction for public water supply in urban areasserved by water utilities. Source: MMA (2015), Segundo Reporte del Estado del Medio Ambiente. Figure 2: Water use by main sector and source,

5 Million m Production a Losses Consumption Consumption per household (right axis) a) Abstraction for public water supply in urban areasserved by water utilities. Source: MMA (2015), Segundo Reporte del Estado del Medio Ambiente. m 3 /month Figure 3: Production, consumption and losses of public water, manages the water rights and policies. Then, after the Army Coup in 1973, the government of Pinochet gave the land and water rights to particular investors, developing a neoliberal system that lasts to this days. The dictatorship created a Water Code in 1981, that has been reformed in 2005 but it is still almost the same, developing the so-called Chilean water model. It is based on a system of tradable private water-use rights, which are separate from land titles and are allocated upon request, free cost, for life and then they can be freely traded. This system give strong private economic rights to big companies and has a low state regulation. This promoted the investments in mining, agriculture, hydroelectricity and allows the reallocation of water uses from low value to high value uses. For this reason is a very important topic for the economy, because activities that contribute much to GDP need a lot of water. The problem is that, this system does not prioritize the basic domestic uses of water. Mainly foreign companies have the water rights of Chile. The water rights are even over-allocated, i.e. some companies have the right to extract from a source more water than it can provide, not worrying if there is enough water for people s domestic uses and for the proper care of aquatic 5

6 ecosystem. Although 2005 reform has introduced a tax for non-use, this tax is low and it is common the trading of water rights only for speculation and hoarding. Furthermore, the price of drinking water is expensive because the households are paying not only the treatment and distribution of the water, but also the water itself because the Water Code allows that. This is a big mistake, because even though the trade of water rights power the market and avoid certain abuses, the water does not belong to anybody and it can not be traded as a consumption good. 4 Remarkable social and environmental conflicts related to water Pascua Lama is a gold, silver and copper mining project in the border between Chile and Argentina, in Atacama region. This was carried out by some Chilean and Argentinian companies that belong to the Canadian company Barrick Gold. This project has made serious breaches like extracting water from protected glaciars, pollution of rivers and irreversibly damaging the life of Diaguitas (indigenous people from the north of Chile). After the approval of this project in 2006, there were demonstrations throughout the country (Figure 5) The mining project La Candelaria is the largest in Atacama region, in northern Chile. It was inaugurated in This company extracts water from Copiapó river, in a larger flow than the river can recover. This put at risk the availability of water for the people. The mining project Minera Los Pelambres, in Coquimbo region (northern Chile), was denounced for tailing spillings in several rivers and damaging wetlands. Then the people and farmers have access only to this polluted water. Petorca, Cabildo and La Ligua are towns in Valparaíso region, with big water scarcity problems. Besides the dry weather of that zone, some businessmen (including people from the government) are illegally extracting water for their agricultural properties, while people must get water from water trucks and little farmers are losing their plantings because the drought. 6

7 Figure 4: Demonstration against Alto Maipo Alto Maipo is a hydroelectric project in Metropolitan region. This has been denounced because it extracts water from the sources for Santiago s drinking water, it destroys glaciers and damages archaeological sites. (Figure 4) In southern Chile, some wood pulp companies have seriously polluted rivers and the sea, damaging ecosystems and life quality of people. The two more remarkable cases are the pollution of Cruces river in Valdivia (2004, Figura 6) by CELCO and pollution of Itata river in Biobío region by Celulosa Arauco (2010). 5 Conclusions and recomendations The Chilean Water Model, even if it has developed investments and economic growing, this growing has not been equal for all the people in Chile. While some (usually not chilean) people are becoming rich and richer, poor people do not have water for their basic needs. The privatization and in some cases monopoly of services that supply basic needs is an important problem in Chile. This has been a hot topic in the last years, in topics like education and health. A good government regulation system should be developed and executed. 7

8 Figure 5: Demonstration against Pascua Lama Figure 6: Dead swan because of the pollution in Cruces river 8

9 The water companies should work with people of the regions they are distributing the water. It must exist that concern, that is about the wellness of people, and not only about business. The water can not be sold with a price for itself. extraction, treatment and distribution. Only the cost of The allocation of water rights by the government should prioritize domestic uses and care of the environment. An effective and efficient regulatory body must be developed. The current environmental impact assessment system is not good because some companies that do not comply the standards and laws are still working. The laws and Constitution must be changed, in order to avoid the water usurpation and guarantee the human right to water and sanitation, for all the chileans. References [1] OECD/ECLAC (2016), OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Chile 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris. [2] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Fact Sheet No. 35: The right to water, United Nations, Geneva. [3] General Assembly of the United Nations, Res. 64/292: The human right to water and sanitation, [4] Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, Mapa de conflictos socioambientales en Chile, Santiago de Chile,