FRESH-WATER CRISES have become regular headline news—think of the water shutoffs in Detroit, the systemic contamination combined with structural racism in Flint, the ongoing angst over algal blooms in Lake Erie, and drought in many parts of the country.
When President Trump extolled the importance of investing in infrastructure, water scholars such as myself wondered: What might this mean for the water supply, treatment plants, and distribution systems that strive to keep our country quenched and flushed?
Trump’s proposed budget begins to answer this question. An example can be found in his proposal to sell off the Washington Aqueduct, which provides potable water to Washington, D.C., and two counties in Virginia.
Trump’s privatization proposal is vague, but it tilts toward private enterprise in the ownership and management of our nation’s water infrastructure. The “aqueduct divestiture” proposal supposedly is intended to trim the assets and liabilities of the federal government. It reflects of one of Trump’s key principles for addressing the costs of infrastructure maintenance (for highways, bridges, and aviation): “Leverage the private sector” to “provide valuable benefits for the delivery of infrastructure, through better procurement methods, market discipline, and a long-term focus on maintaining assets.”
Local control and the participation of affected communities are key components for providing equitable and just water service. Privatization does not ensure local control because the entities with the knowledge and resources to bid on major infrastructure projects are most likely to be multinational corporations for which managing a water system is fundamentally linked to return on investment. Profit often outweighs local participation; fees and rates for residents usually increase when systems are privatized.
The potential of selling to a foreign company the water infrastructure that supplies D.C. raises critical political and ethical questions: When it comes to water infrastructure, what does “best” mean—most efficient, most equitable, most just? What constitute “appropriate market and regulatory incentives”? And what constraints are necessary to protect the most vulnerable populations?
Here, Christian theologies provide wisdom and ethical insights. Groups such as the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Ecumenical Water Network, and the Catholic Church are increasingly unified in the belief that water is a gift from God, a source of life, and a baseline for the realization of all human rights. Therefore, water is not a “thing” to be remanded to the distributive whims of market-based practices.
Justice should guide the governance and protection of water resources. Thus, for example, Pope Francis concludes that the control of water should never be directed to the benefit of the few (for example, the profits of shareholders in a multinational corporation) at the expense of the many (as tends to occur when people living under structural conditions of racism or poverty are unable to pay high water bills due to rate increases).
Christian advocates—from the pope to the United Church of Christ—have argued persuasively that local communities must be centrally consulted in any projects affecting their land or resources—a maxim that would serve well in places such as Detroit and Flint, Mich., and Standing Rock, in the Dakotas.
There are real success stories where local communities have used their water-based values to resist exploitative forms of private enterprise engagement—in Atlanta, Stockton, Calif., and Vancouver, B.C., to name a few. The Blue Communities Project gives more examples of constructive, participatory approaches, including banning the sale of bottled water in public facilities or events, recognizing water as a human right, and promoting publicly financed and owned water services.
The Trump administration’s proposal to sell the Washington Aqueduct raises more questions than it resolves. Under any circumstances, the question for U.S. citizens remains: What is the relationship between figures on a balance sheet and the infrastructure that supplies the conditions of daily life?
Christiana Zenner Peppard, author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis, is an associate professor of theology, science, and ethics at Fordham University in New York City.
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