Chilean water rights system leaves town parched

This article is outlines some of the issues around the privatization of water rights and water use in Latin America.

From the International Herald Tribune:

¨During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air.

What the town did have was a river, feeding an oasis in the Atacama Desert. But mining companies have polluted and bought up so much of the water, residents say, that for months each year the river is little more than a trickle — and an unusable one at that....¨

Read the complete article at: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/15/america/chile.php