"Water" and Dams

As the group mentioned, even though access to water is considered a human right, there still appears to be debate about what “access” or “use” means. The group provided two examples of dams that limit indigenous people’s access to water, yet because they theoretically can acquire drinking water from another location, this limitation, according to dam builders, does not impede on that right. It seems like another example of how these debates always involve redefining the right in question to favor the argument promoting the resource’s extraction. Also, arguments in favor of building dams seem to have a strong utilitarian ethical dynamic, as they appeal to the end result of construction, that being energy independence, greater number of citizens on the electrical grid, all at the expense of only a few indigenous groups. Like the Water group mentioned, these dam companies often deliberately mislead the general public about the people being displaced, as some reports that the Belo Monte Dam would displace 25,000 indigenous people while the company estimate was at 2,400. They also mislead people about what enters this water stream when it is diverted for more human use, as many pollutants and waste sewage now flow directly into the river.

Much like the mountaintop removal companies redefining of “reclamation” or “restoration” to be synonymous with “pasture,” the dam companies mischaracterize the facts in the debate to cover up the social and ethnic inequities arising in these cases. I find it slightly unsettling that these arguments work so well with the general public even when the people in the exploited area revolt or protest and receive recognition for these actions. Still, forgetting about the people in the Appalachia or the people along the Yangtze or the Xingu Rivers is easy enough when the end product of their suffering is increased comfort and energy stability for the wider population; yet, so much of that cost-benefit calculation ignores the social and environmental loss, both in the river-based lifestyles of the people and the actual, dramatic changes to the river’s landscape.