Over a century ago, Mark Twain said, "...In California, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over."
What he couldn’t know then, was just how bad things would become.
What does it say when the price of drinking water is higher than the price of gasoline? There is a common sentiment that the "politics of water" is getting as treacherous as the fight for oil. Around the world there is a growing social movement to protect water as a common resource. Far too many people on our planet live without access to clean healthy water.
Let's explore how all of this will play out in local communities while sharing with each other our own methods of water conservation. Email barbara@voiceyourself.com with your story leads or concerns.
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Kingston coal ash spill worse than Valdez spill
Home buried in coal ash.
The Kingston spill is over 40 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, if local news accounts are correct. This is a huge environmental disaster of epic proportions; approximately 525 million gallons of nasty black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
By Adrian Wilson - Rainforest Action Network , December 23, 2008
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Court Reinstates Clean Air Rule During EPA Fix
The is clean coal technology.
In a ruling hailed by environmentalists, a federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated one of President George W. Bush's clean air regulations while the Environmental Protection Agency makes court-mandated changes. The court said the EPA overstepped its authority by instituting the rule, citing "more than several fatal flaws" in the regulation. However, a three-judge panel decided to reinstate the rule while the EPA develops a new clean air program.
By Jesse J. Holland - The Associated Press | Washington, D.C. , December 23, 2008
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Nuclear Regulatory Commission Decision a Huge Victory for...
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) panel ruled in favor of petitioners seeking to intervene in the 10-year license renewal proceeding for Cameco, Inc.’s In Situ Leach (ISL) uranium mine in Crawford, Nebraska, and to block the expansion of the “Crow Butte” mine.
Katya Kruglak - Aligning For Responsible Mining , November 24, 2008
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Uranium mine expansion threatens the Lakota
The Canadian-based uranium giant Cameco Resources is attempting to expand their mining operation near Crawford, Nebraska. Last year they submitted a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), asking permission to use another 2.4 billion gallons of water over the 4.7 billion they currently exploit (per year) from the High Plains aquifer, the largest aquifer in America.
Intercontinental Cry , March 9, 2008
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Time to Deal with Pesticide Risks in California's Coastal...
Pesticide runoff effects everyone.
A Santa Cruz jury recently returned a verdict that secures a brighter future for organic farming in California, and perhaps over time, if adopted as precedent, throughout the United States. The jury found that a commercial pesticide applicator, Western Farm Service, had an obligation to prevent toxic pesticides from drifting after application with wind and fog onto Jacobs Farm's organic crops in Wilder Ranch State Park. While Jacobs Farm was the clear winner in this case, press coverage of the trial and its conclusions missed the main significance of the jury's decision.
By Charles Benbrook, PhD | Chief Scientist - The Organic Center , November 11, 2008
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Manufacturing Thirst: The Hidden Water Costs
The Cananea Consolidated Copper Company -- one of the world's largest open pit copper mines, run by Grupo Mexico -- forms a beautifully surreal landscape. Carefully sculpted red and gold curves of earth hug pools of brilliant turquoise. Before the vast expanse of the mine flies a huge Mexican flag, a symbol of pride in the mine's significant contribution to the country's economy.
Kari Lydersen - Earth Island Journal , October 27, 2008
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Who Owns The Water? The Secret Water Crisis.
Water shouldn't be a commodity.
We are facing a crisis that is bigger than the financial mess we are in, is scarier than terrorism, and puts global warming to shame because it is so immediate: We are running out of enough fresh water for ourselves. Without fresh water we as human beings die within about 72 hours. And according to myriad projections, we need to increase our fresh water supply by some 20% over the next decade to meet demand. That’s a difficult task considering almost the exact same amount of fresh water has existed on the planet since the time of dinosaurs. As it stands, five million people die each year because of lack of access to H2O; half of them are children under the age of five. The numbers worldwide and in the US are expected to increase exponentially in the near future.
By Thomas M. Kostigen - SundanceChannel.com , October 13, 2008
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Water seen as the new oil for U.S. Army
Military Water Containers.
Soldiers, weapons, food and fuel are important but the U.S. Army absolutely cannot operate for long without water, a top Pentagon official said on Tuesday. This simple fact is just as true for domestic bases as it is in "austere" forward installations in Iraq, said Tad Davis, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health. "Somebody recently said water's the new oil and there's a lot to be said for that," Davis said at the Reuters Global Environment Summit. "You can get out there ... and deploy to an area for conducting operations, but if water's not there for drinking purposes and for cooking, showering, laundry, things like that, then you're not going to be able to sustain the force."
By Deborah Zabarenko | Environment Correspondent - Reuters | Washington, D.C. , October 08, 2008
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The New Corporate Threat to Our Water Supplies
In the last few years, the world's largest financial institutions and pension funds, from Goldman Sachs to Australia's Macquarie Bank, have figured out that old, trustworthy utilities and infrastructure could become reliable cash cows -- supporting the financial system's speculative junk derivatives with the real concrete of highways, water utilities, airports, harbors, and transit systems. The spiraling collapse of the financial system may only intensify the quest for private investments in what is now the public sector. This flipping of public assets could be the next big phase of privatization, and it could happen even under an Obama administration, as local and state governments, starved during Bush's two terms in office, look to bail out on public assets, employees, and responsibilities. The Republican record of neglect of basic infrastructure reads like a police blotter: levees in New Orleans, a major bridge in Minneapolis, a collapsing power grid, bursting water mains, and outdated sewage treatment plants.
By Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman - Tomdispatch.com , October 06, 2008
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Canada faces water challenges
Canada's troubled waters.
Canada's borders may contain 21 per cent of the world's freshwater but surging demand is the warning sign for guarding against complacency, writes Jeff Buckstein. Water has been called the "blue gold" of the 21st century, and it is one of Canada's most abundant resources. While many countries struggle to ensure their citizens have enough fresh water for drinking and agriculture, Canada has about one-fifth of the planet's supply. But that statistic is no reason for complacency: the only meaningful figure for conservation purposes, say environmentalists, is renewable freshwater from rain and snowmelt. Natural Resources Canada reports the country has less than 10 per cent of the world's renewable water supply.
Canwest News Service - The Ottawa Citizen , September 30, 2008
