> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution.

That bullshit gets trotted out with some regularity but it is clearly nonsense.

Have a read here and draw your own conclusions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests

If someone owns a resource they have an interest in extracting maximum value out of it, not in preserving it.

I've seen the case made for private ownership of air and water and I think it is utter rubbish. What we need instead is good stewardship of our natural resources, a way to extract tax on the depletion of natural resources instead of on production of value.