Water in the desert. The Commission on the Environment and Economic Model of the Constitutional Convention of Chile, responsible for preparing the new Magna Carta, has approved this Thursday a rule that repeals the current Water Code, in force in its third version since 1981.
According to the newspaper La Tercera, the proposal, presented by 22 constituents of native peoples, Chile Digno and Pueblo Constituente, states that the water resource “cannot be the object of private appropriation” or any action that amounts to “a significant alteration of its hydrological cycle. Nor does it contemplate that its use puts the survival of “the ecosystems and the communities that depend on it” at risk.
“The Water Code loses all validity and legal effectiveness in everything that is applicable to the regulations that the permanent and transitory provisions of the Constitution have approved (…) it can be argued that there are no private waters in Chile,” the document states. , which must still be approved for the second time in committee, to then pass the two-thirds filter in the plenary session of the Constituent Commission and only be submitted to a referendum in the second half of 2022.
In Chile, the Water Code, modified for the last time during the Pinochet dictatorship, assigns ownership of water to those who have the right to use it, while also separating land ownership from the right to water, in a de facto privatization that leaves indefinitely the essential resource in the hands of businessmen, landowners and the exporting agribusiness, according to the speakers.
“The law itself indicates and then characterizes the private use of water, endowing it with attributes that have made it possible for a market to be created on this natural resource (…) Expire the rights to use water, which were delivered under the effective of the 1981 Water Code″, refers the document.
Water Code for mining companies
This process, which they call “restitution”, will be deployed over the course of two years, within which “the holders of water use rights that expire with the enactment of this Constitution will be liable to be compensated.”
However, those who, having exploitation rights, have used them for mining, agribusiness, forest industries, sanitation industries and “any other use on an industrial scale that involves the intensive use of water” will not be compensated.
“The State will guarantee the preservation and sustainability of the hydrographic basins for the use, enjoyment and benefit of the current and future generations of the country’s inhabitants”, rescues the approach, which seeks to return ownership of the resource to entire populations that remained without water for crops or care for their homes due to large industry.
The Chilean system that contravenes the 2010 United Nations resolution ratified by the country itself to recognize access to drinking water and sanitation as a human right, is accused of being responsible for its economic growth in the last three decades, according to critics of the new Magna Carta. Mining represents more than 60% of Chilean exports and agriculture, around 8%.
Camila Donoso, coordinator of the Rural Drinking Water Union of the Petorca basin, in Valparaíso, told other local media that the tributary of that town dried up “due to intensive use” by avocado agro-exporters that “extract it with pumps and accumulate in enormous lagoons”, a practice that leaves the small farmers, residents, schools and hospitals of their rural commune without supply.
Chile: What is the Water Code?
According to the Department of Agricultural Economics of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the Water Code, originally created in 1951 and modified for the first time in 1967, establishes that the rights to use the resource are not only private property, but can also be traded independently of the land.
The State recognizes the historical use rights and proceeds to grant new rights. These new rights can be requested by any private, without the need to justify the requested flow rate or specify the use to which the water is intended. In the event that the resources are available and there is only one applicant, the State is obliged to grant the right of use.
The holders of water use rights, both historical and new, enjoy full protection of their rights, which cannot be expropriated for reasons of non-use (thus encouraging speculation). In addition, the Code created a new category of rights, non-consumptive rights. These rights were created with hydroelectric companies in mind, and with the aim of promoting the country’s energy development.
Contrary to consumptive rights, which allow their holders to consume all the water to which they are entitled, non-consumptive rights oblige their holders to return the water in the same quantity and quality, after using it.
The data
Since the end of the dictatorship, attempts have been made to reform the Water Code on at least eight occasions. The last proposal was presented in 2011, and has spent almost 11 years in the drawers of the Chilean Parliament.
Source: Larepublica
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