Turning Water into Money$

[JPatrick]

Power Shares created a new ETF in December to track the Palisades water index.  It is designed to hold stocks that are all about the delivery, purification or anything else water.
The symbol is PHO.  Not around long enough to have a track record, but it's index is respectable @ 1 year=8.48%, 3 year=33.91%, and 5year= 14.85% which is similar to the utility index and whips the S&P 500 for those periods.
Forgot the beta, but it is low at about .60.
Options are available and it is thought that a 1.50% div could be on the way, though nothing promised.

When I think about the places I have lived and the places I have considered moving to, I find that the majority have had or are now facing a water challenge.
No crystal ball here, but looking out 25 years or so, I find the H2O crisis a much tougher nut to crack than our current oil crisis.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I saw an interesting stat the other day. Allegedly, if we put 25% of the money we spend on bottled water every year into our water infrastructure, everyone in the country would have pure, safe, clean water to drink right out of the tap.

 

[JPatrick]

I saw an interesting stat the other day.  Allegedly, if we put 25% of the money we spend on bottled water every year into our water infrastructure, everyone in the country would have pure, safe, clean water to drink right out of the tap.

Science and dollars could solve the quality problem reasonably, but the quantity problem is a lot more science and many more dollars.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Just pour all that water out of the bottles into the reservoir. Problem solved!

Perpetual water machine?

 

[HFWR]

I'm fairly certain our water is safe/pure/etc, but it tastes like pi$$...

However, I filter it myself with a charcoal filter. Costs maybe $30/yr. 8)

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Our had arsenic and nitrates in it until last year. Now we're on "city water" and run through the fridge water filter it tastes decent.

Now follow this logic. The ground water we use for wells is polluted with nitrates because of overbuilding of homes using septic systems. The overbuilding was allowed even though the county collected building permit fees and supposedly had oversight to make sure such problems wouldnt occur. When the water company was informed by the state that the water was close to exceeding allowable nitrate limits, the nearest city bought the water company. Then the city owned water company gave us two options: allow the city to annex all the homes in the area (thereby allowing them to take our property taxes instead of the county) *and* we all pay $3500 to hook up to city surface water from a nearby river, OR stay unincorporated and pay the water company about $5000 to install a central water purification system.

Apparently *I* wasnt negotiating this deal.

I wish that was the end of the water story, but it turns out the state flagged the city water with spot contaminants that exceeded safety levels. I read this in some obscure report that a google search turned up. The city never told us about it.

Fortuntely the carbon fridge filter removes the contaminants in question.

 

[macdaddy]

Nuclear power + desalination plant = as much cheap, clean water you want... the "H20 crisis" is overblown.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I can build you either one or both. Call me when you have the check ready.

Ed the gypsy engineer

 

[AltaRed]

Just like gasoline, most Americans do not want to pay virtually anything for either.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I wonder why there arent any really good canadian early retirement web sites?

 

[REWahoo]

I wonder why there arent any really good canadian early retirement web sites?

Must have something to do with the exchange rate.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You think? I was sure it had something to do with that expensive and complicated mandatory french language page duplication for the seperatists...

 

[REWahoo]

Yeah, well there's that too...