“Blue Gold: World Water Wars,” which is a film about the overlooked crisis of U.S. water supply was brought to attention last Wednesday.

“Blue Gold: World Water Wars” will continue on Wednesday Oct. 26 with a presentation by Jerry Dennis, author of  the Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas.

The presentation and the following discussion will take place from 1:15 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in Banquet Room B of the Oakland Center.

The filmmakers hope to show people that water is often considered to be a renewable resource, but it isn’t.

They believe many people are unaware of how much of the world’s water supply is unusable due to pollution.

Deforestation is considered to be another cause of our dwindling water supply.

The more trees we lose, the more water we lose because roots store high amounts of fresh water.

According to the film, the world’s wetlands, a major water supply, are being demolished.

Six percent of the world’s wetlands have been destroyed in the past century.

Wetlands act as a holding and cleaning station for water, and once they are destroyed, the water  will run back into the streams and rivers and become polluted. Mendoza believes that the crisis, more imporatantly puts the youth of the world at risk.

“There are people across the world dying everyday, especially children, because they do not have access to clean water,” Lily Mendoza, organizer of the event and associate professor of communication, said, “while the rest of us, who do have access, are having to pay more and more for that access.”

The film also explores various companies and the part they playt in the crisis.

Companies such as Veolia, the leading global operator of water, are taking away the human rights of water.

Nestle Water North America, another leading company in the water industry, is making $2.8 million a day in profit according to the film.

The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation recently ended a nine-year lawsuit battle with Nestle.

The lawsuit resulted in preventing Nestle from pumping water in Michigan.

“When all is said and done, people need water to survive,” said Jim Olsen, attorney and chair of FLOW for Water.

FLOW is a non-for-profit organization with a mission to save the water in the Great Lakes area and keep them safe and under public control.

People now have to pay for water; those who can pay receive it, but those who cannot, must go without.

“Unless this privatizing take over is halted, water will be locked up in the control of a few corporations as a commodity, available only for a price, and even then only to ‘winners’ of a global game that pushes growing numbers of ‘losers’ into early graves,” Mendoza said.