Rob:  Well there’s an old adage that goes like this.  You can give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; or you can teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.  An Oklahoma organization has taken that advice to heart, training people and communities on how to make their own life-changing solutions to poverty and hunger.  World Neighbors is an international development organization striving to eliminate hunger, poverty, and disease in some of the most deprived rural areas around the globe, not by giving them food or material aid, but by giving them the knowledge and skills necessary to provide for themselves.  As our Russ Jowell reports, that is why the Oklahoma-based group is sponsoring a new film that looks at the future of water and its impact around the world.
Russ:  It’s the life blood of, well, just about everything. Water, aside from being one the most basic compounds on earth, is also one of the most essential and influential, which is why it’s the subject of a new documentary being shown at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
We have wars going on in the world over oil, because of the pricing of oil, and if we take the same path with water, that’s oil all over again.
FLOW is an unscripted journey around the country, and across the globe, that takes us inside the economics and politics of that most basic of nutrients, water.
Scott Killough:  It raises issues providing examples, both from the U S, but also examples from around the world.
Russ:  Scott Killough is associate vice president of World Neighbors, a not for profit rural development organization, who supported the film’s Oklahoma debut.
Killough:  Some of the same issues are affecting rural communities here in the United States.  And there are examples probably in every state in the union where small communities who may have access to water are being pushed or pulled either by corporate interests or possibly by larger municipal governments to access their water.  These issues are not only halfway around the world, but are very much localized here within Oklahoma and other parts of the U S.
Holly Spaulding:  At the point that I learned about Nestle’s intention, of establishing a bottling plant here in Michigan, I thought, Nestle, here in the heart of our state, bottling water, this is a big one.
Russ:  One particular issue caught the attention of Michigan journalist Holly Spaulding.
Spaulding:  They’re pumping upwards of 450 gallons per minute, and what that means in ecological terms is that streams are lowering, that what used to be bodies of water are turning into mudflats. Lake levels are dropping in the vicinity of this pumping site.
Killough:  But who really controls that water?  Is it the community?  Is it certain people within the community?  Is it the factory that’s built down the hill from that community?  Is it the people that live in the town that grew up below that community?  Who really has access and control over that water?  And what are the competing interests that come together around them?
Water is now a 400 billion dollar global industry, the third largest behind electricity and oil.  
Russ:  Also appearing in the film is Oklahoma’s very own T Boone Pickens, who weighs in on the possible effects of over-commercializing water.
T Boone Pickens:  People say that water is a lot like air.  Do you charge for air?  Of course not.  You shouldn’t charge for water; well, okay; watch what happens.
Russ:  But in spite of its serious subject, the film does manage to interject a little humor from a notable Vegas entertainer.
Penn:  Why would people pay such a premium for bottled water?  To find out, we took over a very trendy California restaurant.  We printed our own elegant water menus with phony imported waters costing as much as seven dollars per bottle.  Our water steward gives our first lucky couple our special water list.
Woman:  I guess we’ll get the Le’Deau Robinet.
Waiter:  The Le’Deau Robinet?  Okay, fantastic.
Penn:  It’s French for tap water.
Woman:  Yeah, it’s clean.
It has a flavor to it.
Waiter:  How would you compare it to tap water?
Man:  Oh yeah, definitely better than tap water.
Penn:  What was the actual source of these chic waters?  Laughs as he says:  A garden hose on the restaurant patio.
Russ:  Provoking thoughts that will make us think twice, when turning on the tap.
Rob:  You can see the entire FLOW film during a screening on January 11th at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.