We've documented the Portland water bureau's backroom deals with a large private engineering firm called Carollo. Carollo is the second largest consumer of water from the city, pumping it out of the Columbia River well fields the year 'round. And they get it at a bargain rate, in part because the water isn't treated. They use the water in their testing laboratory, which was quietly built on city property, then flush it into the Columbia Slough. Carollo has lots of other cozy contracts with the water bureau.

Anyway, a reader down Lake Oswego way has uncovered an eerily similar situation down there. The reader writes:

I have been doing some research into a company that The Lake Oswego-Tigard Water Partnership has a proposed contract with for a water filtration system -- about $10m. As it is a sole-source procurement, I needed a second look. The findings as to why LOT needed to go with this one company look to be bogus, but the research led me to the parent company called Veolia Environmental, based in France and owned by shareholders who are mainly large investment groups.

If you have never heard of Veolia, it is because they deal in industrial systems that almost no one hears about, and they buy up companies which then become their subsidiaries. They buy/own thousands of patents on processes and equipment. They are a global firm that has projects in every part of the world -- 4 in the metro region so far, 5 if LOT signs this deal.

I don't know if this is a good deal or not, but buying a patented process for a municipality from a sole source does not seem like a good idea under all but the most unusual circumstances, and this is not the case here. At least we would be in the same boat as Wilsonville. But I digress.

After reading about this giant, multinational company, I then looked up the privatization of water, and they fit the bill. Veolia's full spectrum of services can help a municipality clean the water, deliver the water, maintain the plant and water system, charge and collect fees for the water, and even provide funding if necessary. They also have their hand in solid waste, wastewater treatment, passenger rail and other transportation technologies, and I read that at least one company is getting into food. I think they have all of modern man's basic needs covered.

I have no grand thought for you to present to your readers, but the chill that went up my spine was real when I envisioned a future ruled by groups of investors that control our basic needs. Forget the planners we have today, unless they are also on the same wavelength as the globalists. (Maybe that's why they like chickens and it isn't global warming after all.) And certainly forget the common man. Therein lies my fear for the present and future. How to make the individual relevant and have his or her rights protected and/or restored.

Buying water will eventually become like buying cable TV. A big corporation that couldn't care less about the consumer will be calling the shots. Nurse Amanda and Ginny Burdick will be watching out for the little guy's interests. It's gonna be Com-crap-tastic.