Water is one of the basic needs people. For this particular reason, many municipalities put a lot of effort in protecting their source of water. When there's trouble it's the water restoration process that save the day. The government has a tremendous amount of responsability preserving the nation's water reservoirs.

You may know about the Water Restoration Act. Before this bill was introduced in May 2007, it was known as The Clean Water Act (CWA). In order to preserve the nation's water reservoir, The Clean Water Act (CAW) was passed in 1972. The bill protects the "navigable waters of the United States". Under this law, polluting the waters under the jurisdiction of the country is a crime. However, defining what embodies a "pollutant" or the scope of "navigable waters" has often left the authorities uncertain and property owners in no win situations.

Take for example the case of one father and son in Florida. They were penalized and imprisoned for 21 months for filling a presumed marshy low-lying area on their property in transgression of The Clean Water Act. The perturbing thing about the case discovered by a district court judge is that the two were apprehended for placing clean fill loam on a lot of subdivided dry land.

It was just a few years back; the U.S Supreme Court outlined the irregularity of federal regulators when handling wetlands under the Act, which environmentalist strongly oppose.

In May 2007, Congressman James Oberstar revised Clean Water Act to correct the inaccuracy and introduced the "Water Restoration Act". In this revised bill, the term "navigable waters of the United States" was substituted with "waters of the United States".

This new term in the Water Restoration Act raised a lot of questions especially in the environmental sector. Environmental organizations believe that this just re-established the first intent of the Act. Opposers of the Water Restoration Act, however, believe that the revision does not change the original content but rather significantly expand the ambit of the Clean Water Act. It threatens property rights and generates even more uncertainty concerning the federal prerogative of the Act.

Opponents of the Water Restoration Act claim that federalizing all sources of inland and costal waters will give the federal government control over all water in the country which may result to its privatization. This Act will provide the underlying basis for the corporate privatization with the assurance of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In effect, this would transform the whole source of water supply into commodity status.

Noticeably, the World Bank and United Nation are seen active in an attempt to employ both NAFTA and CAFTA in transforming the global water supply to commodity status with private investors to be the key players in global trade.

If the World Trade Organization succeeds in converting water to tradable commodity status, giant corporations and investors will have a favorable position of controlling this tradable commodity under international trade policies.

Privatization will end community or individual right to water and all source of it. Privatization may steer to exploitation. This is the side of Water Restoration Act that we should be aware of.