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AMANPOUR: So how should the world deal with this developing crisis? Joining me now is one of the world's leading environmentalists, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who's founder and president of the Waterkeeper Alliance.
Welcome to the program.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., PRESIDENT,
http://www.waterkeeper.org/">WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE: Thanks, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: What is the real crux of this matter? We can see that it's fueling all sorts of violence, but there's also contamination, scarcity. What can be done about it?
KENNEDY: Well, generally that's a regional question. And, for example, in the eastern United States, the big issue is water equality, pollution of water, and the destruction of water. This is an issue all over the world, as well.
In the western United States, the -- the kind of conflicts that you're seeing in the Mideast are happening there, as well. It's over water quantity.
AMANPOUR: Tell me about that.
KENNEDY: Well, there -- it's not -- it's not a question so much of violence. It's a question of -- of big battles between states and lots of lawyers over diminishing quantities of water in the Western states. There's an old expression in the West that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. And the Colorado River used to supply most of the water needs of the Western states. Today, Lake Powell is about 100 feet below its historic levels, and soon it's going to be dry.
The other big source of water in the West was the Ogallala Aquifer, which is 10 million years old. It's several hundred feet below its historic levels. And communities like Scottsdale and Phoenix and -- and Las Vegas are continuing to encourage sprawl development, build golf courses in the desert, and these are huge. These are becoming greater and greater issues. The Colorado River no longer even reaches the sea. It drives up in the Sonoran Desert.
AMANPOUR: Let's look at some of the statistics. As bad as it is in the United States, we can see that something like 150 gallons -- the average American gets about 150 gallons water per day, whereas those in the developing countries can't even find 5. We can see that statistic, which is on our wall right now. What -- who's responsibility is it to provide water? Is it a basic right?
KENNEDY: Well, you talk about a right. It's part of the commons, so that historically water was -- was governed -- water is part of the commons, and so government has a -- it can't be privatized. Government has a responsibility to make sure, whether you're rich or poor, humble or noble, black or white, that you have a right to your share of that resource. Everybody has a right to use it; nobody has a right to use it in a way that will diminish or injure its use and enjoyment by others.
Today, one of the big issues that we're seeing around the world is -- that's causing a lot of conflict is the growing attempt to privatize public water supplies, to hand them over to private corporations. A few years ago, the Bechtel Corporation took over a public water supply in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and -- and hiked the rates, which caused riots in the streets. It caused the -- the collapse of the government there.
And -- and this is a bad trend, and it's a trend that I think everybody, you know, decent people who have -- who have thought through this issue want to make sure that water stays in the hands of government and -- and the people, rather than being allowed to be privatized, any more than you wouldn't want to privatize the air supply.
AMANPOUR: So -- but what about the issue, then, of contamination? For instance, I did a report some 10 years ago in Bangladesh about arsenic in the water levels and just a few weeks ago looked at the front of the New York Times here in the United States and found that some 20 percent of America, its water supply is contaminated with, among other things, arsenic and such things, 49 million people having to suffer levels of bacteria and other such things in the water here. How is that possible?
KENNEDY: Well, there's lots of threats to water quality in the United States. One of the threats that -- that is receiving increasing attention is the level of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. In New York City, where we are today, has one of the finest drinking water supplies in the world, but there are 122 sewage treatments discharging into the 2,000- square-mile reservoirs upstate in the Catskill Mountains in Westchester County.
Those sewage treatment plants, the water that comes to New York City is unfiltered water. It has to be heavily chlorinated. That creates a class of chemicals called trihalomethanes, which the city of New York doesn't even test for.
In addition to that, there's growing concern about pharmaceuticals in our water supply. About 80 percent of the estrogen in a -- when -- when a woman takes birth control pills, about 80 percent of that estrogen goes through her body and then ends up in the -- either the septic system or the sewage plant, which discharges into public drinking water.
We know that, in the Everglades, there are alligators that are hermaphroditic because of the -- because they are exposed to so much estrogen in the early parts of their lives, in the natal parts of their lives.
In the Great Lakes, there are many fish species that are now hermaphroditic, that are born with two sets of sexual organs, a male and female. We're seeing drops in the United States in the levels of the -- the age of -- in which women -- young women reach puberty. And many people believe that this is because the amount -- the huge amounts of estrogen that are now in our public water supply.
In addition to that, there's antibiotics, there's antidepressants in measurable amounts in almost every public water supply in our country.
Transcript taken from here (includes transcript of the whole show):
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1001/07/ampr.01.html
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