RWE: The Thirsty Giant

<www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/02.12.03/nuz-0307.html>

by Nuz
02/12/03

Some of the people in my town think I’m crazy. Well, I’m not, but I am driven,” says Felton resident Susan Kipping, who recently stood for seven days straight on Highway 9 at Empire Grade Road with a sign that warned, “Felton, Your Water Is in Great Peril.”
“Even though I have arthritis and bursitis in my arms, I’ve had no problem holding that sign above my head for nine hours,” said Kipping. “ I can’t eat or sleep anymore. I went on the Internet to find out more about RWE, and I never got off.”
What keeps Kipping up at night is the fear that RWE, the German conglomerate that recently gobbled up the company that provides water service to her town, is planning to bottle and ship Felton’s water to other placeslike Germany and France.
“I’m afraid that Felton’s water is gonna end up being sent in bottles to France, so when we go there on vacation we can visit our water,” she says.
Kipping first freaked out when she learned that RWE, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate and the 100th biggest company in the world, paid $7.6 billion to buy American Water Works, which owns Cal-Am, which provides water to Felton. (Confused yet? So are we.)
Kipping freaked because she thinks she knows why RWE would want Felton’s water. “On a rainy day, the water comes rushing through Fall Leaf Creek. I know because I’ve walked there. It’s the freshest spring,” she says.
Cal-Am reps deny any such interest.
“Somehow, a rumor got out that we have been speaking to Perrier and Arrowhead about bottling Felton’s water, but it’s never been our intent to export or sell any of it,” says Cal-Am spokesperson Kevin Tilden. “Occasionally, we bottle some to give away at Little League games.”
So, why has Cal-Am applied for a water allocation in Felton that is more than double what the townspeople currently use?
“That has to do with legal work started 20 years ago to keep water available to the community in case they ever need it,” says Tilden.
But Scott Millar, an analyst for county Supe Jeff Almquist, disputes the likelihood that Felton would ever use that much water.
“Felton is approaching build-out and is never gonna get to the point that it needs 1.75 cfs [cubic feet per second], unless it builds high rises, at which point people would turn out carrying pitchforks.”
Or posters.
This week, Kipping’s poster says, “Water is a right, not a commodity,” a point she thinks all American citizens need to get before a conglomerate snaps up their water system.
“Our effort to buy back Felton’s water supply has been made all the more complex because huge deadlines for challenging the sale were missed. Key documents were sent to the DA’s office, instead of county counsel, and ended up being tossed into the garbage.”
Kipping’s fears have been further compounded by news that RWE is trying to hike Felton’s water rates, a move that could cripple the school and fire districts, whose rates would increase by 80 percentnot to mention making efforts to buy back Felton’s water supply more expensive, since hikes would increase the system’s market value.
“I don’t want to see RWE’s trucks driving around. And I don’t want to see their lies in the newspapers,” Kipping says. “What if all municipalities get in debt from Bush’s war, and someone comes in and bails them out by buying our water back, and that someone happens to be RWE? Forget about Darth Vader. This is the Emperor, and we’re like the Ewoks hitting at it with rocks.”