We are four seventh graders at Windward School in Mar Vista, Los Angeles. We have been challenged to improve water quality, usage, or access in our community. Our group decided to focus on the issue of water privatization. Our objective is to make the City of Los Angeles notified on any future water privatization plans and a referendum must be sent out into Los Angeles, to vote on the plan.

We would like to prevent Los Angeles from becoming privatized in the near future. In many places, water privatization made the water unaffordable and sparse, such as in Bolivia, Italy and many parts of Africa. This causes people in those countries to not be able to afford water and they had to resort to dirty and polluted lakes and rivers. When they drank that water, they ended up with diseases such as cholera. We’re doing this because water should be a right not a commodity. United Water, (A company owned by one of the 3 largest water privatization groups in the U.S., Suez) owns water in several parts of California. Banning, Burbank, and El Segundo are all cities who have sold out there water rights to Suez. We are trying to help prevent Los Angeles from being the next name on this list of cities that have sold out to these companies.  Every signature helps us get closer to preventing these companies from making money off of our right to water.

Nextly, these companies are mainly heading for developing countries. Especially in Africa. The governments need money so these companies pitch the idea of buying out the water rights in the area. Because these developing countries are more susceptible to bribes, they say yes. A couple years later, many people die because the prices are too high for these people to afford water in the country.

Finally, The 3 major companies, Suez, Nestle, and Veolia are big factors in the problem of the privatization of water. Places and people go without water for days, weeks, and even months all because of these heartless companies. In Italy for instance, people had to create laws to get Suez out of Italy, because the prices of water were skyrocketing. Due to this skyrocketing, many people had trouble getting acsess to this water, and some people died due lack of water. If you help us and sign our petition, we can prevent what happened to Italy.

If we get the needed 41,000 signatures, you will have a right to vote on any future water privatization plan. The impact of our petition will greatly change how water privatization plans will be solved in the future in Los Angeles.

Photo Credit: http://www.occupyasheville.org/issues/water-privatization/