Should a Multi-National Corporation Own our Water? by Nancy Gottovi

The Yadkin River is one of our state’s greatest wealth generators. For instance, a thirty-eight mile stretch of the river provides 940 million kilowatt hours of valuable hydro-electricity. Unfortunately, for the past decade, the majority of the wealth generated by the river has flowed out of our state’s economy rather than into it.

Now our state has a once in a lifetime opportunity to use this valuable natural resource to create wealth and jobs in North Carolina – by reclaiming the federal license to the river that Washington granted Alcoa five decades ago. All across the globe, private multinational corporations are working diligently to control water resources including rivers and groundwater. Alcoa, one of the largest polluters on the face of the planet, employs 30 people in the state of North Carolina. Alcoa is asking the Federal Energy Relicensing Commission to give them complete control of the Yadkin River, the second largest river basin in North Carolina – for the next 50 years. The license is worth $1.5 billion by Alcoa’s own estimate, and the company is promising 250 jobs to be created by a company that does not yet exist. That’s $6 million per job in subsidies to Alcoa unless our Governor and our elected leaders stand up for our water.

How can the Yadkin River be used to generate thousands of jobs and provide a secure source of safe water for drinking and recreation? By setting up a public power authority as other states have done with the mission to provide subsidized power for economic development and clean water for drinking and recreation.

For example, the New York Power Authority – a public benefit corporation – uses the electricity generated by New York’s rivers to create jobs by selling low cost power to companies as an incentive to bring jobs to New York. According to their 2010 Annual Report, low cost electricity provided by the NYPA has created more than 300,000 jobs throughout the state, with 2,490 jobs created or retained in 2010 alone.

Wouldn’t we be wiser to use the 940 million kilowatt hours of hydro-electricity from the Yadkin River the same way? To create local jobs rather than profits for a multi-national corporation?

An unfortunate result of globalization has been that more and more of our businesses no longer have meaningful connections to our communities, and what little wealth we have streams out of our communities to corporate headquarters and then across the globe. The average life expectancy of a company used to be 75 years. Now it is 12.5 years due to constant acquisitions, mergers and breakups. Putting our hopes on one company to provide the jobs we need for the next 50 years seems foolhardy and risky at best. To grant them a monopoly on our water is morally bankrupt.

According to the North Carolina demographer, our state expects a 55% increase in population by 2030. Among other things, these new people are going to demand the very things that make life possible: land, clean water, clean air, energy and lots of it.

The good news is that we have lots of it – natural resource wealth, that is. If we can keep it.

For many of our counties, the result of a long period of plant closings and rising unemployment has been a myopic belief that any business is good business, and that it’s okay to give away the golden goose as long as we get a few jobs and a little money in our pockets. Too many of our leaders are too willing to take the first thing that comes down the pipe without looking at the bigger picture. Such shortsighted gains often lead to long-term pains.

Now we stand at an important historic crossroad: We can provide our people with wealth generating, clean, renewable energy and use it to attract scores of new, clean industry and thousands of jobs as other states have done successfully. Or we can give away this resource to one out-of-state company for the next 50 years and trust that they will provide perhaps a few hundred jobs (though they have no requirements to do so) and sell us sufficient clean drinking water at a price.

We must avoid the exploitative patterns of the past and instead adopt a new approach that aims at building community wealth through local ownership and control of our natural resources.

Let’s start with the Yadkin River.

The Governor has gone on public record stating that it is her priority to recapture the Yadkin River for the people of North Carolina.

Let her know that you support her in this fight.