Meant to improve public services, water privatization promises greater economic efficiency, stabilized rates, reduced public debt, and improved budgetary management. Most of the water in the United States is privatized. Of late, European companies have aggressively expanded into the American municipal water market. In 2003, German utility conglomerate RWE purchased American Water Works, a provider serving fifteen million people in twenty-seven states and is the largest publicly traded water corporation in the United States. Strict government regulations set by organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate the private management of public utilities. For the most part, water and utility privatization does in fact work for the United States, despite what the Enron scandal has revealed.

The situation in Nicaragua, however, is drastically different. More than fifty percent of the land in Nicaragua still remains in the hands of small farmers. Privatization means that a citizen has to pay for water coming from a well on his own land. Even worse, the government is now helpless in regulating the actions of reckless wealthy individuals and international corporations operating within their borders. President Bolaños holds close ties with Nicaragua's wealthiest family, the Pellas. The Pella family is free to withdraw water for bottling and irrigation without regard to the devastation inflicted on the surrounding communities. The lack of social responsibility can been seen in sugar plantations also owned by this family. Though there are laws stipulating the distance between fields and homes, there is no enforcement. In the small town of Goyena, school children are constantly exposed to toxic chemicals from the pesticides sprayed on nearby sugarcane plantations. An astounding eighty percent of the deaths in Goyena are caused by kidney problems linked to contaminated water.

International corporations, driven by profit, are likely to neglect the environment, social equity, and public health. A small price hike could limit access to water for thousands. Cost-cutting methods could jeopardize the quality of water and subsequently the quality of life. The idea of a public good cannot be lost in a market-driven world economy. Water, as the "precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations," holds the hope of a better future for Nicaragua.

The debt that Nicaragua has to repay is costing lives. If water privatization is one of the First World's solutions to the economic problems of the developing world, then the system we run is one of slavery. In the end, the burden of our moral conscience should be greater than the debt of any one impoverished nation. Perhaps a child's lesson is still to be learned Ð life is a privilege, sharing is our responsibility.

Tina Cheung is a sophomore Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology major at Yale University. She is a marketing liaison of P.H.

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