Wall Street Thirsty For The Net Big Investment Opportunity WATER!
Some billionaires have purchased land and water rights with the potential to profit from public resources among these are most notably Bill Gates. Bill Gates owns thousands of acres of Nebraska farmland that includes access to groundwater through 191 wells, which can be used to irrigate crops and increase the value of the land or be held until the looming water crisis hits the rest of America's farmlands as it is doing in the Northwest and Idaho.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick own a majority stake in Kern Water Bank, one of California's largest underground water storage facilities, and their Wonderful Company uses at least 120 billion gallons of water annually and Oprah Winfry purchased land in Hawaii that happens to sit on the largest aquifer for the big Island Oahu!
Greenstone Management Partners... An investment firm that purchased nearly 500 acres of land with the goal of advancing water transactions that benefit the private sector.Water rights allow people to withdraw public water from a specific source, and water markets allow claim-holders to sell or lease their claims to the highest bidder. However, aquifers can be depleted by large cities and industrial farms, and it could take centuries or even millennia for them to replenish themselves, if they ever do. So someone controlling the aquifer controls the life of the community.
Starting in 2020 Billionaires around the world began quietly buying up the world's water supplies while telling the general public that things like climate change and potential for world drought were fictions from leftist propagandists. The oil rich Bush family, Hong Kong's Li Ka-shing, Philippines' Manuel V. Pangilinan many Filipino billionaires, and other elites are also buying thousands of acres of land specifically for the aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. Now that water source is threatened and Farmers are being denied water which could cause a nation wide food shortage and skyrocket prices of staples like potatoes and grains! Most people are unaware how muuch our water is reliant upon the good will of sovereign native tribes who despite the genocide attempts historically culturally view water as a human right and see themselves as protectors of the resource . Especially from governmentand corporate greed.
Providing safe drinking water is a partnership that involves EPA, the states, tribes, water systems, and water system operators. The public drinking water systems regulated by EPA and delegated states and tribes provide drinking water to 90 percent of Americans.From the beginnings of recorded history and even before, across the expanse of human settlement and migration, indigenous as well as extraneous religions and spiritual traditions have celebrated water as the primordial source of life. For Indigenous peoples, water is not just a commodity, but a language, a community, and a source of knowledge and law.
The Court’s decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation held that the United States did not have an affirmative treaty or trust obligation to identify and account for Navajo Nation water rights in the Colorado River. As tribes have battled to save clean water for decades the US has consistently failed and allowed corporate interests free reign to pollute and overuse water resources. While the Court agreed tribal nations indeed have water rights under the Winters doctrine, the Court nevertheless concluded there was no obligation to take steps to safeguard, secure, or even identify, the water needed for the reservation. Winters rights, confirmed in the Winters case, are water rights tribal nations have to ensure their reservations are livable and productiveas long as they don't interfere with the corporate profits of outsiders who only care about the bottom line.
There is a longstanding conflict between surface water users in Western States like Idaho who tend to have more senior water rights and groundwater users with junior rights. The major conflict now is over rights to the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer. The groundwater users having their water cut off argue that they are in dire straits.The Eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) is a geologic feature in the state of Idaho. It's a wide, flat, bow-shaped depression that stretches over 170 miles from Ashton to Twin Falls and King Hill, covering more than 10,800 square miles of southeastern and south central Idaho. The ESRP's elevation ranges from over 6,000 ft. to about 2,900 ft. above sea level. Farms that have been in the area for over 100 years are facing the loss forever of their land and the last generation of ESRP farmers. Most feel their is less than ten years of water left in the Aquifer!
Thousands of farmers across Snake River Plain must abandon fields, or face steep fines. According to a report by The Idaho Capitol Sun "From 2016 through 2022 groundwater pumpers, on average, conserved (through pumping reductions and aquifer recharge) over 312,000 acre-feet of water annually — much more than was required under the 2015 settlement agreement between canal and groundwater users. Groundwater users have offered, several times, to pay to modernize the Twin Falls Canal, but that offer has been repeatedly rejected..."(Adam Young 2024)
The lack of thoughtful use of water that could have been informed by working with native tribes is also causing farm losses and droughts in multiple states case in point is Kansas and Missouri...all reliant on the Ogallala Aquifer. The nation’s largest underground store of fresh water, the Ogallala transformed this arid region into an agricultural powerhouse.
After 50 years of studies, discussions and hand-wringing about the aquifer’s decline, the state is demanding that local groundwater managers finally enforce conservation. But in this region where water is everything to maintain high profits, they’ll have to overcome entrenched attitudes and practices that led to decades of overpumping and the looming catastrophe to the American farming industry.