Argentine Water Exports: Blue Gold for a Few

Water more precious than gold ...literally.

Don´t just think plastic bottles filled from tropical islands or pristine glaciers, water gets exported with every bushel of grain, side of beef, barrel of oil ...and bar of gold.

Drinking Water

Water is fast becoming a globalized food commodity available for profit-taking.  Fresh drinking water is already transported by tankerships and even in 5 million gallon polyurethane bags towed by ocean barges.  Although the sight of ocean-going water-balloons is an obvious example of water exports, agriculture is a less obvious example.

Food

Agriculture effectively exports water with every food shipment from countries who have water supplies sufficient for growing food to those who do not.  Bottled water may have recently lost some of its fashionable qualities among the environmentally conscious but grain, beef, and even wine are huge one-way tickets for Argentine water.

Still not convinced: 1 inch of rain or pumped groundwater, falling on 100 acres, equals over ten million liters.  Don´t forget that it takes a lot more than 1 inch of rain to raise those food commodities ...and a lot more than 100 acres.  Argentina alone has over 325 million acres of agricultural land.

What about gold?

Hollywood has left almost everyone with the mental image of the hottest, driest work on earth: mining and drilling.  Although gold has always required huge amounts of water, drilling for oil and gas now uses hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" to obtain ever more difficult supplies of fuel.  That process involves injecting more than 20 million gallons of water and chemicals deep underground to pry out gas that's locked away in tight spaces ...per each well.

Argentina is one of the truly blessed nations when it comes to fresh water but it´s far from the top 10 ...and that fresh water is not distributed evenly over its vast area.  Making matters worse, mining and drilling in Argentina is concentrated in areas where water of any kind is in short supply.

The Associated Press reports today that to extract the shale oil and gas deposit from JUST ONE recently discovered field ...could take 144 BILLION liters of water, an amount they say is equal to the total daily amount of water supplied by all public water systems to the entire United States.

The AP report goes on to describe the world´s highest gold mine, Argentina´s Pascua Lama mine.  Under an an agreement with the provincial government, the Canadian mine operator will extract 14 BILLION gallons of water for mining purposes ...while the neighboring residents of downstream towns and villages suffer under water-use restrictions and pay 99 times more for their water than the mine.

"If Barrick Gold had to pay for this water, it wouldn't invest in the mine — it wouldn't be profitable," said local lawmaker Miguel Bonasso.

Even at all-time record prices, the "yellow metal" wouldn´t be worth mining without free water (an average paperclip would be worth $85USD if made of gold.)

Such is the value of water.  Sharing it is noble, causing suffering through converting it into a profitable and easily traded commodity robs the present and the future.