WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

6.2 The Strategy of Insidious Privatisation
In Stuttgart, around 590,000 people have to be supplied with drinking
water. The overall length of the water mains network is 1,516
kilometres, which is the equivalent of the distance from Stuttgart to
Thessalonika, as the crow flies. Fifty reservoirs and numerous pumping
and filter stations are also part of the supply and distribution system,
which constantly has to be maintained and enlarged at a considerable
cost in order to guarantee the highest possible quality of water and
reliability of supply.
The right to extract water from sources and surface water resources
lies with the special-purpose associations. These are – or should we
say “still” are – regional statutory corporations subject to civil law.
Under their umbrella, towns and communities cooperate to organise
their water supplies. The two largest special-purpose associations in
Baden-Württemberg are the Landeswasserversorgung (LWV) and
the Bodenseewasserversorgung (BWV). The latter started operations
in 1958 and today supplies around four million people in 320
towns in Baden-Württemberg. The pipeline network has an overall
length of 1,700 kilometres. A Three-Country-Commission, to which
representatives from Germany, Austria and Switzerland belong,
decides how much water may be extracted from Lake Constance. The
BWV is allowed to pump up to 670,000 cubic metres of water a day, in
accordance with the negotiated subscription rights. In reality, around
350,000 cubic metres of water are removed from the lake on a daily
basis and only under exceptional circumstances, such as in the summer
of 2006, does the amount extracted ever rise to over 500,000 cubic
metres.
The LWV has been in existence for even longer. Founded in 1912,
it draws much of its water from the ground water reservoir Donauried
(the marshlands of the River Danube) and supplies around three
million people in some 250 communities in Baden-Württemberg.
Stuttgart used to have a 33∙3 per-cent interest in each of the regional
statutory corporations, these special-purpose associations which supply
the city with water. When the council sold off the entire infrastructure
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