water

By Dan Bacher - Indybay.Org, September 23, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Jerry Brown, one of the worst governors for fish, water and the environment in California target="_blank" history, spoke to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City today in a cynical attempt to greenwash his deplorable environmental record.

During his U.N. address, Governor Brown touted California’s controversial carbon trading policies as an example of "innovative climate strategies."

“The California story is a very hopeful one,” Brown gushed. “It’s a story of Republican and Democratic governors pioneering innovative climate strategies. It’s not been easy, it’s not without contest, but we’re making real progress."

“I believe that from the bottom up, we can make real impact and we need to join together,” added Governor Brown. “We’re signing MOUs with Quebec and British Columbia, with Mexico, with states in China and wherever we can find partners, because we know we have to do it all.”

Brown's remarks at the summit are available at: http://cert1.mail-west.com/oUyjbH/myuzjanmc7rm/21oUgt/r8kgy/vnqoU2xx1jy8d/uqc5hy21oUq/043i8kyepg?_c=d%7Cze7pzanwmhlzgt%7C12lu5pdhlx8v340&_ce=1411519461.60b50da8597e418eaeff8b1b85e25029)

In a video message ahead of the Summit, Brown claimed, "We are carrying on because we know in California that carbon pollution kills, it undermines our environment, and, long-term, it’s an economic loser. We face an existential challenge with the changes in our climate. The time to act is now. The place to look is California.”

Yes, California, now under attack by the anti-environmental policies and carbon trading greenwashing campaign by Governor Brown, is definitely “the place to look” for one example after another of environmental destruction.

Once known as "Governor Moonbeam" for his quirkiness and eccentricities during his first two administrations from 1975 to 1983, has in his third administration transformed himself into "Big Oil Brown.”

By Ellen Dannin - Truthout, September 11, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The Value of Water Coalition was formed by large, well-resourced water and wastewater organizations to change the way we think about water. The rest of us need to know that we may not like the way they think of us and our rights to water.

Remember Total Recall? It's the film in which the powerful shut off oxygen to punish the powerless, all the while hiding the truth that still functional ancient Martian technology could produce oxygen for all - had the elite not hidden the oxygen and the truth.

In this country, we use water with little thought of its special value. But recall that we sent rovers to Mars to search for water, because, as far as we know, life everywhere depends on water. If Mars once had flowing water, then Mars may also have had - or even have - life.

The National Association of Water Companies (NAWC), one of the members of the Value of Water Coalition (VoW), reminds us of the many ways that water is essential for us all:

Water. It's the invisible thread that weaves together our daily lives. We often take it for granted and we easily forget that there is simply no substitute for water. Although Americans consume a lot of water, few people realize what is required to treat and deliver water every day or how wastewater is cleaned so that it can be safely reused or returned to the environment.

The typical American household uses 260 gallons of water every day, making our nation's water footprint among the largest of any country in the world.

Should We Care What the Value of Water Coalition Members Say About Water?

NAWC tells us we use a lot of water and should celebrate water, but NAWC and other VoW members fail to make clear how regular people should treat water. Should we conserve water? Or pay more for water and wastewater also known as sewage? If so, why? Do they want to raise prices so private water companies make bigger profits, or do they want us to invest in high quality water and water services for the benefit of us all? The VoW Coalition does a poor job in explaining its goals.

Perhaps the VoW could do a better job explaining its views if its members were people. Instead, its members are large organizations with some connection with water.

By Carsten Pedersen, et. al. - World Fishers, September 2014

The term ‘ocean grabbing’ aims to cast new light on important processes and dynamics that are negatively affecting the people and communities whose way of life, cultural identity and livelihoods depend on their involvement in small-scale fishing and closely related activities. Small-scale fishers and fishing communities in both the Global South and the Global North are increasingly threatened and confronted by powerful forces that are dramatically reshaping existing access rights regimes and production models in fisheries. This process is leading not only to the dwindling of control by small-scale fishers over these resources, but also in many cases to their ecological destruction and very disappearance.

Today we are witnessing a major process of enclosure of the world’s oceans and fisheries resources, including marine, coastal and inland fisheries. Ocean grabbing is occurring mainly through policies, laws, and practices that are (re)defining and (re)allocating access, use and control of fisheries resources away from small-scale fishers and their communities, and often with little concern for the adverse environmental consequences. Existing customary and communal fisheries’ tenure rights systems and use and management practices are being ignored and ultimately lost in the process. Ocean grabbing thus means the capturing of control by powerful economic actors of crucial decision-making around fisheries, including the power to decide how and for what purposes marine resources are used, conserved and managed now and in the future. As a result, these powerful actors, whose main concern is making profit, are steadily gaining control of both the fisheries’ resources and the benefits of their use.

Read the report (English PDF).

By Carl Gibson - Occupy.Com, August 15, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Toledo's recent water crisis isn't unlike this year's water-related crises in West Virginia and Detroit. As in those other events, the poisoning of Toledo's water is ultimately tied to corruption at the highest levels of state government by corporate special interests.

Freedom Industries's toxic chemical spill in Charleston's Elk River in January, which poisoned drinking water for 300,000 people, was a direct result of West Virginia's state government deregulating coal, the state's top industry, and selective enforcement of environmental laws when it concerns big campaign donors in the coal business.

In Detroit, the poorest 40 percent of the city stood to lose water in their homes – something the UN has declared a basic human right. The Detroit water shutoffs were proposed by an unelected emergency manager who singlehandedly made the decision to pay off big foreign banks with $537 million meant for city water infrastructure, while making the most vulnerable foot the bill.

Toledo's water crisis would never have happened if agricultural runoff had been properly regulated – and if Ohio's government hadn't systematically diverted tax dollars meant for cities and counties to upgrade infrastructure, meanwhile rewarding corporations and the rich with more tax breaks.

By Karen Doerer - American Prospect, August 6, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In Michigan’s largest city, a water crisis has been raging for months. Since spring, 17,000 city residents have had their water shut off by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) for unpaid water bills. Now living in unsanitary conditions, citizens in homes without running water can’t even flush a toilet. Deemed by public health officials to be living in inadequate conditions, many parents in homes without water are sending their children to live with family or friends for fear of losing their sons and daughters to Child Protection Services. For the elderly and the ill, lack of home access to water can be fatal.

Last week, after weeks of negative news coverage, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr relinquished control of the debt-laden Detroit Water and Sewerage Department—described by one activist as “a hot mess”—to Mayor Mike Duggan. Now, as Duggan tries to manage DWSD’s nearly $6 billion debt and much-despised water shut-off policy, he has extended a moratorium on water shut-offs and is expected to announce a new plan on Thursday for collecting past-due payments from residential customers.

Surrounded by the Great Lakes, home to 20 percent of the world’s fresh water, Detroit faces a crisis that is not only paradoxical; it’s complicated by the city’s bankruptcy. That didn’t stop the U.N. from calling the water shut-offs a violation of human rights.

While DWSD claims to offer assistance to residents who have difficulty paying bills, these assistance programs merely postpone water customers’ payments without offering any reduction. The plan to shut off water to roughly 40 percent of Detroit’s residents was delayed on July 21 and again on August 4, but so far no definitive solution to the problem has been tried.

Whether Detroit stands better off today than when Orr ran DWSD a week ago has yet to be seen. Some label the leadership transition as a partial victory for Detroit residents, suggesting that amid protests and national media attention, Orr folded to criticism and returned control of DWSD to a democratically elected official. (In a controversial move, Orr waa appointed to his position in March 2013 by Governor Rick Snyder, as the city teetered on the brink of financial collapse. Orr, a corporate bankruptcy lawyer, has overseen Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy protection.) Others are more skeptical, wondering if Orr just handed off the mess of DWSD’s debt to Duggan, or whether the move is part of a bigger plan to privatize the water system.

Suzanne McGee - The Guardian, July 27, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

"Is now the time to buy water?" enquired the email that showed up in my inbox earlier this week.

Its authors weren't worrying about my dehydration levels. Rather, they were urging me to think of water in quite a new way: as a commodity to invest in.

Making money from water? Is this what Wall Street wants next?

After spending nearly 30 years of my life writing about business and finance, including several years dedicated to the commodities market, the idea of treating water as a pure commodity - something to bought and sold on the open market by those in quest of a profit rather than trying to deliver it to their fellow citizens as a public service - made me pause.

Sure, I've grown up surrounded by bottled mineral water - Evian, Volvic, Perrier, Pellegrino and even more chi-chi brands - but that has always existed alongside a robust municipal water system that delivers clean water to whatever home I'm occupying. All it takes is turning a tap. The cost of that water is fractions of a penny compared to designer bottled water.

By Ben Ptashnik and Victoria Collier - The Progressive, July 8, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Oh, make you wanna holler
The way they do my life
This ain’t livin’, this ain’t livin’
No, no baby, this ain’t livin’
No, no, no, no

–Marvin Gaye, “Inner City Blues”

On July 18 thousands of activists and dozens of organizations will converge on downtown Detroit to protest the privatization of the city’s assets and the disconnection of water to tens of thousands of low-income residents. The UN has called the shutoff a human rights violation.  Demonstrators from around the country will rally in Hart Plaza at 1 pm, linking arms with the citizens of Detroit to protest the hostile corporate takeover by Wall Street banks and their ALEC-led political allies in the Michigan Statehouse, including Governor Rick Snyder.

July 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that Detroit must file for bankruptcy—a decision that County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina immediately ruled violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn. “I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina stated.  Orr and Snyder managed to circumvent her ruling, and the bankruptcy proceeded. The next few months will determine how successful they will be.

On July 4 the activist community of Detroit put out this call to action:

“We call on activists everywhere to come to Detroit on Friday, July 18th, for a rally and march to fight the dictatorship of emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by millionaire Republican Governor Rick Snyder, and backed by Wall Street bankers and the 1 percent.  Under a state-imposed bankruptcy, the City of Detroit workers face severe cuts to their pensions and tens of thousand people face water shut-offs.

“The banks, which have destroyed Detroit’s neighborhoods through racist predatory sub-prime mortgages and saddled the city of Detroit with fraudulent financing, continue to loot the people of Detroit.

Detroiters have lost their democratic rights – ‘elected’ officials serve at the pleasure of the unelected Emergency Manager – and may be fired at any time.”

– Detroit Moratorium Now and Freedom Fridays Coalition

By Carl Gibson - Occupy.Com, July 11, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

“Your human dignity shouldn’t be truncated because you’re priced out of the commodification of an essential resource.“ - Charity Hicks