The Latest News...
Digby
Neck and the TPP
AfD Defending
Water for Life chair
Ruth Caplan details
a trip to Digby
Neck, NS. A mining
company, Bilcon,
thwarted in an
attempt to open a
quarry, took
advantage of NAFTA's
investor state
dispute procedure to
sue and is seeking
$300 million in
damages from Canada.
Read more here.
Linking
Maine's woods to global
trade
An article by Defending Water
for Life organizer Chris
Buchanan links the corporate
push for global free trade to
the regional push for the
East/West Corridor, and
emphasizes the need for
communities to be legally able
to protect local livelihoods
and ecosystems. Read it here.
Defending
Water demands
Anacortes City Council
vote to terminate
Tethys Water contract
Sandra Spargo, who has
organized the local
campaign against the
Tethys water agreement as
part of our Defending
Water for Life campaign,
has written this letter to
the Anacortes WA City
Council asking to formally
terminate the agreement.
More here.
Tethys
backs out!
Tethys Enterprises has given
up efforts to build a massive
water bottling plan in
Anacortes. Kudos to Sandra
Spargo for years of diligent
watchdogging and organizing
through Defending Water in the
Skagit River Basin. More here.
Earth
Democracy returns to
Madison
The conference announcement is
here,
and videos of many sessions
are online here.
What
kind of jobs do rural
communities want?
Maine's environmental
movement reinvents itself
in an era of globalization
and extraction, notes a
Portland ME Phoenix
article, with kudos to
Defending Water in Maine
Organizer Chris Buchanan.
Details
and link to article
here.
Populist
Dialogues focuses
on water exports
in Oregon
What are the latest
plans for Cascade
Locks, coal terminals,
LNG pipelines, and
fracking in
Oregon? David
Delk talks with
Bethany Cotton of
Greenpeace and FLOW,
and Julia DeGraw of
Food and Water Watch.
Video
and details here.
No Keystone XL
Pipeline. Campaign
coordinator Ruth Caplan
testified at a State
Department hearing in DC. Read
more here.
Four out of
five "Human Right to Water"
bills are law! Read
a thank you to Californian
supporters here.
Read
Defending Water for Life posts
on the AfD blog
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Water
is
about life itself.
But for giant corporations like
Vivendi, Suez, Perrier/Nestlé
and Bechtel, water is about
profits. Around the world, local
communities are fighting the
devastating impacts of
corporations and entrepreneurs
coming into communities to make
a profit. It is the "Blue Gold"
rush.
The Blue Gold seekers treat
water as a commodity rather than
a fundamental human right which
should be protected as a public
trust. The threat comes in three
forms:
·
Municipal
water/sewer systems.
Here in the United States
communities have fought to keep
municipal water under public
control in Lawrence MA, Stockton
CA, New Orleans LA, Indianapolis
IN and many other communities.
Privatization is touted as a way
to control costs in times of
tight city budgets, but it leads
to higher rates, poorer service,
and the loss of good-paying
jobs. Privatization is a global
problem, too. In South Africa,
communities are fighting the
installation of pre-paid water
meters.
·
Bottled
Water. In other
communities, the fight is
against corporate take-over of
local springs and over-pumping
of groundwater or municipal
water in order to keep fueling
the demand for bottled water.
Soft-drink companies have sold
the public on single-use plastic
bottles on the premise that
municipal water is of poor
quality, but consumers are
catching on, and beginning to
refuse to pay to drink a
beverage than costs up to 1000
times more than it does from the
tap. But corporations will fight
for the profits they used to
count on when they paid little
if nothing for the water they
pump from Mother Nature.
·
Bulk
water. High-flying
entrepreneurs have proposed
withdrawing water from aquifers
and wild rivers so they can
profit by transporting it to
water-hungry cities. The
Alliance for Democracy is
working with communities and
linking with other organizations
to stop these corporate
takeovers.
Campaign Coordinators:
National and East
Coast
|
Ruth Caplan
Washington, DC
202-244-0561
rcaplan [at] igc [dot] org |
West Coast
|
Nancy Price
nancytprice39[at] gmail
[dot] com
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State Websites:
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