This is the letter for customers who have not yet had their Arad meter installed
Southern Water
Southern House
Yeoman Road
Worthing
West Sussex
BN13 3NX
Dear Southern Water,
Re: Installation of water meter
I wish to inform you that I do NOT want to have a meter fitted at my home, due to the fact that the meters you are installing have been supplied by an Israeli company.
I support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and therefore strongly object to Southern Water purchasing water meters from the Israeli company, Arad.
Not only is Arad an Israeli company, but it works extensively in the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank – having installed 3,200 water meters in the settlement of Ariel and the Barkan settlement industrial zone.
What’s more, Arad develops water meters for the Israeli state-owned company Mekorot. Mekorot has a near monopoly on water supply in Israel and also operates and develops water infrastructure in Area C of the West Bank, where Palestinians are forbidden to develop even basic water infrastructure.
Arad is therefore an integral part if Israel’s apartheid water policies, which systematically deny water to Palestinian communities, whilst subsidising water supplies to illegal Israeli settlements. As a result of these apartheid policies Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
I would like to draw your attention to Amnesty International’s recent report which clearly revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/027/2009).
I have seen in the newspapers that one household in Brighton refused to allow Southern Water to install an Arad meter at their home, and that you agreed to install an alternative meter in recognition of their position. I do not object to water metering as such, but I strongly object to your contract with Arad in general, and to having an Arad meter installed in my home in particular.
In your Corporate Responsibility policy you state:
“Consider the balance between economic, environmental and social aspects of our business decisions against sustainable development principles”
And that you will:
“Seek and respond to the opinions and wishes of our stakeholders”
I therefore request that you immediately review your contract with Arad, given their complicity in the development of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the destruction of sustainable Palestinian communities in favour of non-sustainable Israeli settlements, which contribute to the over-extraction of water through the use of industrial farming practices and excessive domestic water use.
Yours sincerely