radiofree.asia

Category: water

  • A New Water Source That Could Make Drought a Thing of the Past

    Lack of fresh water is now a global crisis. Water shortages mean food shortages, with hunger creating death tolls substantially exceeding those of the current Covid-19 crisis. According to the United Nations, some 800 million people are without clean water, and 40% of the world’s population is impacted by drought. By one measure, almost 100 percent of the Western United States is currently in drought, setting an all-time 122-year record. Meanwhile, local “water wars” rage, with states, cities and whole countries battling each other for scarce water resources.

    The ideal solution would be new water flows to add to the hydrologic cycle, and promising new scientific discoveries and technologies are holding out that possibility.

    But mainstream geologists have long contended that water is a fixed, non-renewable resource; and vested interests are happy to profit from that limiting proposition. Declaring water “the new oil,” an investor class of “Water Barons” —including wealthy billionaire tycoons, megabanks, mega-funds and investment powerhouses — has cornered the market by buying up water rights and water infrastructure everywhere. As Jo-Shing Yang, author of Solving Global Water Crises, wrote in a 2012 article titled “The New ‘Water Barons’: Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the World’s Water”:

    Facing offers of millions of dollars in cash from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, and other elite banks for their utilities and other infrastructure and municipal services, cities and states will find it extremely difficult to refuse these privatization offers.

    For developing countries, the World Bank has in some cases made water privatization a condition of getting a loan.

    Competing Theories

    Geologists say that all of the water on Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, surface water and groundwater, participates in the natural system called the “hydrologic cycle,” a closed circuit in which water moves from the surface to the atmosphere and back again. Rainwater falls, becoming groundwater which collects in aquifers (underground layers of porous rock or sand), emerging as rivers and lakes, and evaporating into clouds to again become rain. New water called “juvenile water” may be added through volcanic activities, but this addition is considered to be negligible.

    The most widely held theory is that water arrived on the planet from comets or asteroids, since any water on Earth when it was first formed would have evaporated in the intense heat of its early atmosphere. One problem with that theory is that comet water is different from Earth water. It has a higher ratio of deuterium (“heavy water” with an extra neutron in it). Asteroids, too, are not a good fit for Earth’s water.

    A more likely theory gaining new attention is that Earth’s water comes largely from within. Minerals containing hydrogen and oxygen out-gas water vapor (H2O) under intense pressure and heat from the lower mantle (the layer between Earth’s thin crust and its hot core). Water emerges as steam and seeps outward under the centrifugal force of the spinning earth toward the crust, where it cools and seeps up through the fractured rock formations of the crust and the upper mantle.

    Studies over the past two decades have found evidence of several oceans’ worth of water locked up in rock as far down as 1,000 kilometers, challenging the assumption that water arrived from space after  Earth’s formation. A study reported in January 2017 based on isotopes from meteorites and the mantle found that water is unlikely to have arrived on icy comets after Earth formed.

    Another study, reported in New Scientist the same month, showed that Earth’s huge store of water may have originated via chemical reactions in the mantle rather than coming from space. The researchers ran a computer simulation of reactions between liquid hydrogen and quartz in Earth’s upper mantle. The simulation showed that water forms within quartz but then cannot escape, so the pressure builds up – to such high levels that it could induce deep earthquakes. Rather than hydrogen bonding into the quartz crystal structure, as the researchers expected, it was found to disrupt the structure by bonding with oxygen. When the rock melts under intense heat, the water is released, forming water-rich regions below Earth’s surface. The researchers said that water formed in the mantle could reach the surface in various ways — for example, via magma in the form of volcanic activity — and that water could still be being created deep inside the Earth today. If so, that means water is a renewable resource.

    New Technological Solutions

    The challenge is drawing this deep water to the surface, but there are many verified cases of mountaintop wells that have gushed water for decades in arid lands. This water, which could not have come from the rainwater of the conventional hydrologic cycle, is variously called “deep-seated,” “juvenile” or “primary” water. It is now being located and tapped by enterprising hydrogeologists using technological innovations like those used in other extractive industries – but without their destructive impact on the environment.

    According to Mark Burr, CEO of Primary Water Technologies,  these innovations include mapping techniques using GIS layering and 3-D modeling, satellite imagery and other sophisticated geophysical data collection; radiometrics, passive seismics, advanced resistivity and even quantum physics. A video capturing one of his successful drills at Chekshani Cliffs, Utah, and the innovative techniques used to pinpoint where to drill, can be seen here.

    Burr comments that locating “primary water” does not require drilling down thousands of feet. He says that globally, thousands of primary water wells have been successfully drilled; and for most of them, flowing water was tapped at less than 400 feet. It is forced up from below through fissures in the Earth. What is new are the innovative technologies now being used to pinpoint where those fissures are.

    The developments, he says, mirror those in the U.S. oil and gas industry, which went from cries of “Peak Oil” deficiency to an oil and gas glut in less than a decade. Dominated for 40 years by a foreign OPEC cartel, the oil industry was disrupted through a combination of scientific advancements (including recognition of abiotic oil and gas formations), technological innovation, and regulatory modernization. The same transformation is under way in water exploration and production.

    Water Pioneers

    These developments were pioneered in the U.S. by Burr’s mentors, led by Bavarian-born mining engineer and geologist Stephen Riess of San Diego. Riess drilled over 800 wells around the world before his death in 1985 and was featured in several books, including New Water for a Thirsty World (1960) by Dr. Michael Salzman, professor of economics at the University of Southern California.

    Partnering with Riess until his death was Hungarian-born hydrogeologist Pal Pauer, founder of the Primary Water Institute based in Ojai, California. Pauer has also successfully located and drilled over 1,000 primary water wells worldwide, including over 500 in East Africa. One noteworthy well was drilled high on the top of a mountain in Kenya at Ngu-Nyumu, captured in a short video here. The workers drilled through rock and hit water at 300 feet, pumping at 15-30 gallons per minute. The flow, which is now being captured in a water tank, is still serving hundreds of villagers who were previously hauling water from heavily infested streams in jugs balanced on their heads.

    Another remarkable mountaintop project overseen by Pauer involved two wells drilled at a 6,000 foot elevation in the Tehachapi Mountains in California. The drill first hit water at 35 feet. The 7-inch diameter borehole proceeded to eject water at a rate estimated to be over 800 gallons per minute. The event is captured on YouTube here.

    Like California, Australia is an arid land with chronic water problems. An Australian company called Sustainable Water Solutions (SWS), a partner of Burr’s Primary Water Technologies, was featured on a local TV news program here. A video of one of SWS’s successful case studies detailing its methodologies is here.

    A rival company is Australian-based AquaterreX Deep Seated Water Technology. According to its website, AquaterreX is an international enterprise employing  geology, environmental and earth sciences with a range of proprietary methodologies to identify and analyze geologic, hydrologic, atmospheric, and other data to locate reliable sources of Deep Seated Water with nearly 100% accuracy. Some of the company’s results are shown in a video which describes “deep-seated water” as being stored in a deeper layer of aquifers below those of the conventional hydrologic cycle.

    Fresh Water Is Ubiquitous and Renewable

    What these researchers call “primary water” or “deep seated water” is classified by the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) simply as a form of “groundwater,” since it is in the ground. But whatever it is called, these newly tapped flows have not been part of the hydrologic cycle for at least the last century. This is shown on testing by the lack of the environmental contaminants found in the hydrologic water cycle. From the time when atomic testing began in the Pacific, hydrologic water has contained traces of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used as a fuel in thermonuclear bombs. Primary water shoots up tritium-free —clean, fresh and usually drinkable without filtration.

    The latest NGWA fact sheet explicitly confirms that water is a renewable resource. It states:

    • About 90 percent of our freshwater supplies lie underground, but less than 27 percent of the water Americans use comes from underground sources, which illustrates the under-utilization of groundwater.
    • Groundwater is a significant water supply source — the amount of groundwater storage dwarfs our present surface water supply.
    • Hydrologists estimate, according to the National Geographic Society, U.S. groundwater reserves to be at least 33,000 trillion gallons — equal to the amount discharged into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River in the past 200 years.
    • At any given moment, groundwater is 20 to 30 times greater than the amount in all the lakes, streams, and rivers of the United States….
    • Groundwater is a renewable resource. [Emphasis added.]

    In some states, such as Texas,  property owners have the right to capture the water beneath their property  (called the “Rule of Capture”), but this is not true in other states. California, for example, has a complicated system of regulation requiring costly and laborious permits. Granting property owners the right to drill wells on their own property, particularly where the water has been tested and shown to be “deep” or “primary water,” could be a major step toward turning water scarcity into abundance.

    According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. needs over $500 billion in infrastructure investment just for drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and dams. But legislators at both federal and state levels have been slow to respond, chiefly due to budget constraints. One proposal is a National Infrastructure Bank (HR 3339) constructed on the model of Franklin Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation (discussed in my earlier article here). When allocating funds for water usage, however, policymakers would do well to consider investing in “primary water” wells.

    Tapping into local deep water sources not only can help ease pressures on debt-strapped public treasuries but can bypass the Water Barons and relieve territorial tensions over water rights. Water sovereignty is a critical prerequisite to food sovereignty and to national and regional independence. As noted in a recent Water Today article, quoting James D’Arezzo:

    The fact is, we do not have to severely restrict water usage, if we leverage all the tools at our disposal. There is plenty of water available on the planet and we now know how to find it. We also have newer best practices that can make a dramatic difference in total usage…. If we start acting now, in a short time the headlines about ‘water restrictions’ and grotesque pictures of dead animals and starving children can be replaced with headlines about more food production, smarter use of water and less conflict.

    • First published in ScheerPost.

    The post A New Water Source That Could Make Drought a Thing of the Past first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Almonds guzzle water from Murray Darling Basin

    Almond plantations are guzzling so much water from the Murray Darling Basin that even the Almond Board of Australia wants new orchards to be put on hold until the water supply can be assured. Daniel Pedersen reports.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Indigenous Peoples In Mexico Defend Their Right To Water

    Lerma/Coyotepec, Mexico – In the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan Otomí indigenous community, in the state of Mexico –adjacent to the country’s capital–, access to water has been based on collective work.

    “Public services come from collective work. What we have done is based on tequio (free compulsory work in benefit of the community), cooperation. The community has always taken care of the forests and water,” Aurora Allende, a member of the sector’s Drinking Water System, told IPS.

    In San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan, a town of 18,000 people in the municipality of Lerma – about 60 kilometres west of Mexico City – some 10 autonomous community water management groups are responsible for the water supply in their areas.

    The first community system emerged in 1960 to meet local needs.

    The post Indigenous Peoples In Mexico Defend Their Right To Water appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Drought Clobbers the World

    According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, no continent is spared the ravages of severe drought, except for Antarctica. This is happening at a global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above baseline which climate scientists agree is locked in. This article explores the countrywide impact of 1.2°C above baseline for the most vulnerable as well as the most privileged. The journey starts in Glasgow.

    The world’s political leaders need to pay special attention to the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for November 1st-12th in Glasgow as scientists of the world meet to present the latest info on climate change/global warming.

    Those world leaders need to hone in on the most far-reaching most effective most promising ideas to fix the climate, tame global warming, and stop fossil fuels by doing whatever it takes to halt carbon emissions (Biden’s plan won’t do it).

    Climatically, how much longer can the planet hang in there?

    The world is coming apart at the seams as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from factories, utilities, cars, planes, trains, agriculture, and a horrifying meltdown of permafrost in the farthest northern latitudes, spiked by Biblical fires, and soon the rainforests will kick in as tipping points trigger, thus reversing the world’s greatest carbon sinks to carbon emission sources in competition with cars, trains, and planes. The entire planet is trapped in a drought that’s so severe that it’s difficult to quantify. It’s that pervasive.

    By ignoring science for far too long, leaders of the world have failed their own people. To that end, if the world’s leaders cannot figure out what’s happening to the climate system as fire, drought, and floods strike like never before (explained in more detail herein) then they should be tossed out of office. Weak leaders beget feeble solutions.

    After all, there is little room for error for society at large. Climate change has backed them into a corner from which they can barely escape, maybe not at all. Soon, there will be no choice other than outright revolution, forcing the world’s leaders out, similar to the French Revolution of the late 18th century when aristocracy and royalty, the one percent (1%) of the era, holding onto their heads for dear life, fled Paris by the thousands, many fleeing to England (See: Ninety-Three, by Victor Hugo, 1874 publication detailing The Great Terror)

    Throughout history when the masses are harmed or abused beyond some undefined incongruous limit, but enough to seek recompense, they follow the money, similar to The Revolutions of 1848 and actually witnessed in person by aristocrats in the streets, holding their breath whilst horrified by the Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.

    As it happens, ubiquitous drought conditions know no boundaries. A Middle East water crisis is threatening millions of people to the precipice of famine. According to a recent AP article, Aid Groups: Millions in Syria, Iraq Losing Access to Water d/d August 23, 2021, it is a dire situation that, by default, could lead to desperate open warfare and massive human tragedy.

    In the face of extreme heat, millions of people in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon are at risk of losing access to essentials for life: (1) water (2) electricity (3) food. Similar to America’s West, water resources are at record lows due to little rainfall and drought conditions caused by global warming now widely recognized as an anthropogenic affair, meaning “human-caused” for the benefit of those who’ve missed class.

    More than 12 million people in those countries are at risk, today, right now. And, making matters much worse, two dams in northern Syria that supply power to 3 million people face “imminent closure” because of low water levels (a new phenomena starting to appear throughout the world). Moreover, drought conditions are spreading water-borne diseases throughout displacement settlements. Alas, the Middle East crisis stands above all crises.

    What will the people do? Will they fight for survival? Indeed, the situation is fraught with danger. It’s a time bomb that’s already ticking.

    In Lebanon 4 million people face severe water shortage. Not only that but making matters equally bad, in addition to severe drought, the Litani River is overloaded with sewage and waste and polluted nearly beyond recognition. It is the country’s longest river and major source for water supply, irrigation, and hydropower.

    The planet is aching, crying out for relief. It’s truly a worldwide crisis. Global warming is strutting its stuff whilst greenhouse gases increase beyond all-time record levels, never decreasing, heating up the planet more and more to the breaking point at the global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above, not 2.0°C above.

    What of 1.5°C (IPCC’s top end preference) or 2.0°C above baseline as discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, levels that should not be exceeded? Yet, uh-oh, the planet is already in trouble at 1.2°C above baseline. Indeed, it’s an open secret that the climate system is struggling; it’s in trouble.

    “The climate in trouble” resonates far and wide; e.g., Fridays for Future, started in 2018 by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, which is a very popular org for young activists, is openly critical of the outright stupidity and blatant ignorance of adults. “How Dare You!” blurted Greta Thunberg age 16 at the UN Climate Summit in NY in 2019, as she addressed an imperial body of climate intellects.

    Droughts take no prisoners, as the entire Mediterranean region has been hit hard. Turkey faces its most severe drought in a decade. Istanbul is dangerously close to losing its water supply. Dr. Akgun Ilhan, a Turkish water mgmt. expert told Euronews: “The natural water cycle is already interrupted by climate change,” but Dr. İlhan suggests it’s also affected by urban surfaces that are sealed with asphalt and concrete (the human footprint) “leaving very little green spaces where water can meet soil and fill groundwater resources.”

    Worldwide, wetlands are down 87% over the past 200+ years, only 13% remains as they’re plowed under or covered over with no green spaces for water to meet soil or fill groundwater resources. It is significant that wetlands are the primary source for replenishment of aquifers.

    Alas, with 87% of wetland hydrologic systems gone, massive destructive floods precede ironic losses of aquifer resources. With wetlands gone, water goes to where the people live (think Germany or China) and not through nature’s wetlands for distribution via the natural hydrology network. Meantime, according to NASA, one-third of the world’s largest aquifers are “stressed” because of the loss of wetland feeder systems. This is an invisible monumental festering problem.

    In the United States, nearly one-half of the country is currently afflicted by drought. Worse yet, the West is experiencing ultra dire conditions, the worst in 1,200 years, with several small outlying communities suffering complete (100%) loss of water. Arizona is already calculating what industries will be forced to cut water in the near future as the Colorado River is already overly stressed and overly depleted, unable to meet heavy demand.

    Brazil’s drought is the worst ever recorded. Hydroelectric plants can’t fully operate because of low reservoir levels. Chile has endured a mega drought for years. According to a recent Reuters report: 400,000 people who live in rural areas of Chile today receive water via tanker trucks. Chile’s spectacular “Mediterranean climate” in the central region, home to vineyards and farms, has taken a big hit. Scientists doubt it’ll ever recover its spectacular climate zone.

    Even Israel, which invested $500 million in the world’s largest desalination plant, supplying 20% of its water needs, is warning citizens that the drought/water crisis is so severe that it will “struggle” to provide all residents with enough water to meet basic needs by next summer.

    In Russia, some agricultural regions are at risk of losing up to one-half of their harvest because of punishing drought. Russia’s famous Black Earth Region, nicknamed as such because of its world famous high soil moisture content is now a bleak greyish color. Meanwhile, drought in Madagascar has pushed the country to the edge of famine.

    A recent major research report claims that since 2014 Europe has experienced the most extreme series of droughts and heat waves in more than 2,000 years.  1

    According to BBC News, in Taiwan, considered one of the “rainiest places in the world,” many reservoirs are at less than 20% of capacity and some below 10%. At the primary water source for Taiwan’s $100B semiconductor industry, the water at Baoshan No. 2 Reservoir is at 7%. This has serious international business ramifications.

    The list of drought conditions hitting every continent, except Antarctica, is overwhelming. Indeed, the worldwide drought should be categorized as a triple-extra-alarm emergency with all hands on deck. Will it be?

    Will world leaders convene to stop fossil fuel destruction of the planet?

    Or, will a neglected broken climate system force people to fight for survival, and what does that imply?

    1. “Recent European Drought Extremes Beyond Common Era Background Variability”, Nature Geoscience, March 15, 2021.
    The post Drought Clobbers the World first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Who speaks for Afghans? Climate realities with the Taliban takeover

    ANALYSIS: By Megan Darby

    A suicide bombing near Kabul airport on Thursday added another dimension to the chaos in Afghanistan as Western forces rush to complete their evacuation.

    Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts that killed at least 175 people, including 13 US soldiers, challenging the Taliban’s hold on the capital.

    Either group is bad news for Afghan women and girls, and anyone with links to the former government or exiting armies.

    Taliban officials are on a charm offensive in international media, with one suggesting to Newsweek the group could contribute to fighting climate change if formally recognised by other governments.

    Don’t expect the Taliban to consign coal to history any time soon, though. The militant group gets a surprisingly large share of its revenue from mining — more than from the opium trade — and could scale up coal exports to pay salaries as it seeks to govern.

    Afghan people could certainly use support to cope with the impacts of climate change. The UN estimates more than 10 million are at risk of hunger due to the interplay of conflict and drought.

    Water scarcity
    Water scarcity has compounded instability in the country for decades, arguably helping the Taliban to recruit desperate farmers.

    There was not enough investment in irrigation and water management during periods of relative peace.

    One adaptation tactic was to switch crops from thirsty wheat to drought-resistant opium poppies — but that brought its own problems.

    The question for the international community is: who gets to represent Afghans’ climate interests?

    If the Taliban is serious about climate engagement as a route to legitimacy, Cop26 will be an early test.

    Megan Darby is editor of Climate Change News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • There Is No Fixing This Industry

    Ohio – My city sits on the western edge of a body of water that has figured large in the nation’s history, Lake Erie. My wife and I are fortunate to live in the part of Toledo where the lake is literally our front yard.

    Grade school history classes, consisting mostly of memorizing wars and generals, taught that in the first battle for Lake Erie a small American fleet of wooden ships built in Erie, Pennsylvania, by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, defeated the British in the War of 1812 and that’s the reason Michigan and Ohio are not the southern boundary of Canada.

    Later, I witnessed a second battle for Lake Erie in the 1960s and ’70s when outraged citizens demanded industries and cities quit dumping waste and raw sewage that threatened to turn the world’s 11th largest body of fresh water into a thick, fetid stew unable to sustain life.

    The post There Is No Fixing This Industry appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Murder of the “Menacing” Water Technician: On the Shadow Wars in the West Bank  

    There is an ongoing, but hidden, Israeli war on the Palestinians which is rarely highlighted or even known. It is a water war, which has been in the making for decades.

    On July 26 and 27, two separate but intrinsically linked events took place in the Ein al-Hilweh area in the occupied Jordan Valley, and near the town of Beita, south of Nablus.

    In the first incident, Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Maskiyot began construction in the Ein al-Hilweh Spring, which has been a source of fresh water for villages and hundreds of Palestinian families in that area. The seizure of the spring has been developing for months, all under the watchful eye of the Israeli occupation army.

    Now, the Ein al-Hilweh Spring, like most of the Jordan Valley’s land and water resources, is annexed by Israel.

    Less than 24 hours later, Shadi Omar Salim, a Palestinian municipal employee, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the town of Beita. The Israeli army quickly issued a statement which, expectedly, blamed the Palestinian for his own death.

    The Palestinian victim approached the soldiers in a “menacing manner”, while holding “what appeared to be an iron bar,” before he was gunned down, the Israeli army claimed.

    If the “iron bar” claim was true, it might be related to the fact that Salim was a water technician. Indeed, the Palestinian worker was on his way to open the pipes that supply water to Beita and other adjacent areas.

    Beita, which has witnessed much violence in recent weeks, is facing an existential threat. An illegal Jewish settlement, called Givat Eviatar, is being built atop the Palestinian Sabih Mountain, in Arabic, Jabal Sabih. As usual, whenever a Jewish settlement is constructed, Palestinian life and livelihood are threatened. Thus, the ongoing Palestinian protests in the area.

    The struggle of Beita is a representation of the wider Palestinian struggle: unarmed civilians fighting against a settler-colonial state that ultimately wishes to replace a Palestinian village or town with a Jewish settlement.

    There is another facet to what may seem a typical story, where the Israeli army and Jewish settlers work together to ethnically cleanse Palestinians: Mekorot. The latter is a state-owned Israeli water company that literally steals Palestinian water and sells it back to the Palestinians at an exorbitant price.

    Unsurprisingly, Mekorot operates near Beita as well. The Palestinian worker, Salim, was killed because his job of supplying water to the people of Beita was a direct threat to Israeli colonial designs in this region.

    Let us put this in a larger context. Israel does not just occupy Palestinian land, it also systematically usurps all of its resources, including water, in flagrant violation of international law which guarantees the fundamental rights of an occupied nation.

    The occupied West Bank obtains most of its water from the Mountain Aquifer, which is divided into three smaller aquifers: the Western Aquifer, the Eastern Aquifer and the North-Eastern Aquifer. In theory, Palestinians have plenty of water, at least enough to meet the minimally-required water allotment of 102-120 liters per day, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). In practice, however, this is hardly the case. Sadly, most of the water in these aquifers is appropriated directly by Israel. Some call it “water capture”; Palestinians call it, more accurately, “theft”.

    While in Israel the daily per capita water consumption is estimated at 300 liters, illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank consume over 800 liters per day. The latter number becomes even more outrageous if compared to the meager amount enjoyed by a Palestinian, that of 70 liters per day.

    This problem is accentuated in the so-called ‘Area C’ in the West Bank, for a reason. ‘Area C’ consists of nearly 60 percent of the total size of the West Bank and, unlike ‘Areas A’ and ‘B’, it is the least populated. It is mostly fertile land and it includes the Jordan Valley, known as the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’.

    Despite the fact that the Israeli government had, in 2019, decided to postpone its formal annexation of that area, a de facto annexation has been in effect for years. The illegal appropriation of the Ein al-Hilweh Spring by illegal Jewish settlers is part of a larger stratagem that aims at appropriating the Jordan Valley, one dunum, one spring, and one mountain at a time.

    Of the more than 150,000 Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, nearly 40 percent – over 200 communities – suffer from “severe shortage of clean water”. That shortage can be remedied if Palestinians are allowed to drill new wells, expand current ones or to use modern technologies to allocate other sources of freshwater. Not only does the Israeli army prohibit them from doing so, even rainwater is off-limits to Palestinians.

    “Israel even controls the collection of rainwater throughout most of the West Bank and rainwater harvesting cisterns owned by Palestinian communities are often destroyed by the Israeli army,” an Amnesty International report, published in 2017, concluded.

    Since then, the situation became even worse, especially since the idea of officially annexing a third of the West Bank obtained widespread support in the Israeli Knesset and society. Now, every move made by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers in the West Bank is directed towards that end, controlling the land and its resources, denying Palestinians access to their means of survival and, ultimately, ethnically cleansing them altogether.

    The Beita protests continue, despite the heavy price being paid. Last June, a 15-year-old boy, Ahmad Bani-Shamsa, was killed when an Israeli army bullet struck him in the head. At the time, Defense for Children International-Palestine issued a statement asserting that Bani-Shamsa did not pose any threat to the Israeli army.

    The truth is, it is Beita that is under constant Israeli threat, as well as the Jordan Valley, ‘Area C’, the West Bank and the whole of Palestine. The protest in Beita is a protest for land rights, water rights and basic human rights. Bani-Shamsa and, later, Salim, were killed in cold blood simply because their protests were mere irritants to the grand design of colonial Israel.

    The irony of it all is that Israel seems to love everything about Palestine: the land, the resources, the food and even the fascinating history, but not the indigenous Palestinians themselves.

    The post The Murder of the “Menacing” Water Technician: On the Shadow Wars in the West Bank   first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Iran: The Uprising of the Thirsty

    On 15 July 2021, people took to the streets in the Iranian province of Khouzestan to protest against the lack of water due to government mismanagement. Since then, despite the Iranian state’s brutal repression, the uprising has spread all over the country.

    This was a collaboration with The Federation of Anarchism Era & Antimidia.

    For more information on struggles in Iran:
    http://asranarshism.com

    The post Iran: The Uprising of the Thirsty first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Rio Tinto in Serbia: The Jadar Lithium Project

    The company has been looking forward to this for some time.  For an outfit found wanting in dealing with inhabitants of a land whose culture it eviscerated in a matter of hours in May last year, Rio Tinto could think grandly about another future. The Anglo-Australian mining giant could add its name to a sounder, more environmentally sensitive programme, join the responsible future gazers and stroke the ecological conscience. Forget the destruction of the Juukan Gorge Caves in Western Australia.  It was time to control the narrative.

    Eyes have shifted to the Balkans.  The company is promising $2.4 billion for the Jadar lithium-borates project in Serbia provided it gets the appropriate permits.  In the coming weeks, it will transport a pilot lithium processing plant in four 40-foot shipping containers, suggesting a sure degree of optimism.  From its science hub located on the outer parts of Melbourne, the company’s research team claim to have identified an economically viable method of extracting lithium from the mineral jadarite.

    A statement from the company outlined the importance of the Jadar project.  “Jadar will produce battery-grade lithium carbonate, a critical mineral used in large scale batteries for electric vehicles and storing renewable energy, and position Rio Tinto as the largest source of lithium supply in Europe for at least the next 15 years.  In addition, Jadar will produce borates, which are used in solar panels and wind turbines.”

    Those at the company are already anticipating a nice public relations coup.  The project “would scale up Rio Tinto’s exposure to battery materials, and demonstrate the company’s commitment to investing capital in a disciplined manner to further strengthen its portfolio for the global energy transition.”

    In terms of schedule, Rio Tinto hopes to start construction of the underground mine in 2022, with saleable production commencing in 2026.  Full production is anticipated three years later.  The complement will comprise 58,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, 160,000 tonnes of boric acid and 255,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate.

    The company hopes to win over the Serbian authorities by promising rich additions to the local economy and stroking the ego of strategic significance.  “It’s not a huge mine,” Sinead Kaufman, Chief Executive of Rio’s Minerals division, told reporters, “but from a lithium perspective, it’s going to be the largest producer in Europe for at least ten years and bring lithium to the market at scale.”  Estimates are put at 1% of gross domestic product coming directly from Jadar itself, with 4% being the indirect contribution to the Serbian economy.  The mine will come with incidental additions: relevant infrastructure and equipment, electric haul trucks, a beneficiation chemical processing plant dealing with dry stacking of tailings.  In all, enough lithium will be available to power a million electric vehicles.

    All this rosiness cannot detract from the issue of environmental sustainability.  Rio promises that a commissioned environmental assessment impact will be made available for comment “shortly”.  “We are committed to upholding the highest environmental standards and building sustainable futures for the communities where we operate,” states the company’s CEO Jakob Stausholm.  “We recognise that in progressing this project, we must listen to and respect the views of all stakeholders.”

    These statements are at odds with reality, both current and historical.  Rio Tinto’s Serbian subsidiary firm Rio Sava Exploration is currently facing charges by two Serbian NGOs, the Coalition against Environmental Corruption and the Podrinje Anti-Corruption Team, PAKT, citing violations of environmental regulations since 2015.

    In fact, Rio’s conduct has produced something of a green awakening in Serbia.  A disparate number of environmental groups, academics and politicians have found rare common ground.  In June, the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences sent a letter to Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlović outlining the grave implications of permitting the project to go ahead.  “The mine would cause great and irreversible damage not only to the area where it would be located, but to the entire country.”  The location of the mining complex would threaten agricultural land, forests, meadows and the water supply areas in Mačva.  “Tailings with toxic residues from ore processing would span over 160 hectares.”

    Last month, protesters gathered at Loznica to vent their concerns.  At the gathering, Marijana Petković of the Ne Damo Jadar initiative gave an insight into the way Rio dealt with locals.  “They came in 2004, they never answered us as people on three key things: what to do with the noise; with the water; what is the minimum amount of pollution.”

    An online petition against the mine has also attracted 125,685 signatures.  It describes the Jadar Valley as having “Serbia’s fertile land” marked by “thousands of sustainable multi-generational farms.” It speaks to fears about the imminent poisoning of water sources.  “The process of separating chemically stable lithium from jadarite ore involves the use of concentrated sulphuric acid.”  The process would be undertaken some 20km from the Drina River using 300 cubic metres of water per hour, with the chemically treated water returned to the Jadar River.  Entire basins of water, and water sources beyond Serbia, risked being contaminated.

    The petitioners also take issue with the lack of transparency on negotiations between Rio Tinto and the Serbian government, fearing “potential corruption on the government’s behalf.”  Some homework of the company’s sketchy record on the environment was also recounted, including “the destruction of a 45,000 year old sacred Australian Aboriginal cave.”

    Rio Tinto is a company loose with figures, selective in its consultative process (some call it bribery) and its accounts. The London Mining Network documents a record replete with ruthless indifference, environmental crimes, and human rights abuses.  At the company’s 1937 annual general meeting, chairman Sir Auckland Geddes expressed his gratitude to the fascist forces of Spain’s General Francisco Franco, who had crushed a mining revolt that threatened the smooth operations of the company.  “Miners found guilty of troublemaking are court-martialed and shot,” he noted with approval.

    The company is currently the subject of an investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on suspected breaches of disclosure rules on the value of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi mine, the company’s biggest copper growth project.  The expansion of the mine, coming in at $6.75 billion, is $1.4 billion higher than Rio’s own estimate in 2016.

    Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić, sufficiently troubled by the indignation, is floating the idea of putting the project to a referendum.  This is unlikely to trouble Rio Tinto, whose promises of economic manna for Serbia through jobs and placing it at the forefront of the lithium-electric car revolution is bound to mask potential environmental depredations.  As with its record in other countries, this mining giant’s understanding of consultation and accountability is estranged from that of a local populace treated as nuisances rather than citizens.

    The post Rio Tinto in Serbia: The Jadar Lithium Project first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Dear Congress: Say No To Water Privatization

    Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McCarthy, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sanders, and House Budget Committee Chairman Yarmuth: “We, the undersigned 218 organizations, oppose the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework that promotes privatization, and we urge you to reject it and water privatization in all its forms and fight for a bold, uncompromising infrastructure package that provides real federal funding at the level our communities urgently need.”

    The post Dear Congress: Say No To Water Privatization appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: A Unifying Peoples’ Project  

    With a population of 118 million (expected to top 200 million by the end of 2049) Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. 70% (c.80 million) are under thirty, the median age being just 20.

    The majority of people live in rural areas where infrastructure is poor or non-existent: around 67 million are currently without electricity; for millions of others (including in the capital, Addis Ababa) the supply is inconsistent, with frequent power cuts, 62 million, according to the WHO Joint Monitoring Programme, do not have access to safe drinking water (7.5% of the global water crisis is in Ethiopia); farmers are routinely hit by floods or drought, millions are food insecure.

    In an attempt to address these basic needs, some would say rights, in 2011, Ethiopia revised plans first drawn up in the 1950s, and began constructing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Owned by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO), the $5 billion “Peoples’ Project” has been largely funded by the Ethiopian government through the sale of government bonds, together with donations from Ethiopian citizens with an initial investment by China of around 30%.

    Situated in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz (about 40 km from the Sudan border) on the Blue Nile, the dam is 80% complete, and to the jubilation of Ethiopians everywhere the reservoir has been part filled (in 2020 5 billion m3 – total capacity is 74 billion m3) for the second year in succession.

    The GERD is the biggest hydroelectric dam in Africa (the seventh largest in the world), it harnesses water from the Blue Nile and will provide millions of Ethiopians with secure electricity and a reliable water supply. The Blue Nile is the major tributary of The Nile: it flows from Lake Tana (the largest lake in Ethiopia) in the Ethiopian Highlands and supplies 86% of the great river’s water. Despite this fact, it is Egypt and Sudan that use almost the entire flow.

    Since its inception, Egypt and Sudan, with political support from the U.S., Britain and Co., have attempted to derail the project and maintain their historic control over the Nile, which both countries depend on. In the early days there was even talk, by Egyptian leaders, of war, and in March 2021, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stated hyperbolically: “No one can take a drop of water from Egypt… If it happens, there will be inconceivable instability in the region that no one could imagine. This is not a threat.” To their credit the Ethiopian government, which holds all the Nile cards, has ignored such inflammatory rhetoric, and persevered with the work of construction. When the project was first announced in 2011 the Ethiopian government invited Egypt and Sudan to form an International Panel of Experts (IPoE) to understand the benefits, costs and impacts of the GERD. The recommendations made by the IPoE, however, were not adopted.

    For decades, access to, and control of, the life-giving waters of The Nile has been governed by various unfair agreements dating back to British colonial rule (Egypt and Sudan were both British colonies). 1902, 1929 and 1959 agreements all gave control of the Nile to Egypt and Sudan, primarily Egypt. The 1959 agreement allocated 75% of the total flow of the Nile to Egypt and 25% to Sudan, and nothing at all to Ethiopia, not a drop.

    Enraged by these lop-sided, antiquated “agreements” in May 2010, the upstream states of the Nile (including Ethiopia) signed a Cooperative Framework Agreement pronouncing the 1959 Treaty dead in the water, and claiming rights to more of the river’s bounty. Egypt and Sudan, unwilling to share what they had hoarded for decades, refused to sign. As a result of this intransigence no mutually acceptable agreement between upstream and downstream countries exists, and Egypt and Sudan worried, they say, about water security, have consistently argued against the project.

    Egypt in particular has been pushing for a legally binding agreement on the operation of the GERD and the filling of the reservoir. At the request of Tunisia the matter was recently heard at the UN Security Council (UNSC), a completely inappropriate forum for such a topic: the Security Council is set up to establish and maintain international peace and security (something it has serially failed to do), not intervene in development issues, and the GERD is a development project. Negotiations are set to continue under the auspices of the African Union, and early signs are more positive. Ethiopia’s willingness to work towards an agreement (not a legal requirement) is in itself an act of goodwill, and augers well. Any agreement must reject totally the colonial constructs and recognize that Ethiopia has a right to utilize the natural resources that lie within its territory, a right that has been denied for generations.

    A vital resource

    The GERD is badly needed.  It will play a significant part in reducing poverty and transforming the country. Among the many potential benefits to Ethiopia, it will quadruple the amount of electricity produced, providing millions of people with access to electricity for the first time while allowing surplus electricity to be exported to neighbouring states, generating national income. It will provide clean water, which will lower the spread of illness, provide decent drinking water to those who currently have none, and irrigate 1.2 million acres of arable land – helping to create successful harvests, therefore reducing or eliminating food shortages.

    All dams have an impact on the natural environment and surrounding ecosystems, and the GERD is no exception. However, while solar and wind are the ideal, hydroelectric dams are preferable to nuclear or fossil fuel power plants and the broader positive effects are potentially substantial. Without electricity, millions of people burn wood or dry dung to cook with. This causes de-forestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as respiratory illnesses. As electricity is generated and supplied, these practices, which are embedded in many communities and have been followed for generations, can be dropped, resulting in a decrease in GHG emissions, the revitalization of natural habitat, and enable dung to be used as a fertilizer by farmers.

    The dam will also help manage the impact of climate change by providing consistent water flow. Not only for Ethiopia, but also for downstream countries (particularly Sudan) that are frequently hit by drought or flooding. As Meles Zenawi (Ethiopian PM when construction began) said, “when the dam becomes operational, communities all along the riverbanks and surrounding areas, particularly in Sudan, will be permanently relieved from centuries of flooding.”

    The GERD is rightly a source of national pride, a unifying symbol in a dangerously divided country and an essential resource if the country is to move into a new phase of economic and social development. Its successful completion is a significant achievement, and reaffirms Ethiopia’s place as a major regional power, not just within the Horn of Africa, but the continent as a whole. Once the dam is fully operational, Ethiopia will once again become a beacon of hope and empowerment to other nations in Africa, many of which have lived under the shadow of poverty, conflict and external control for far too long.

    A powerful Ethiopia, however,  is something neither Egypt or “the West”, meaning the U.S. and her allies, welcome. Ethiopia has been a thorn in their imperialist side for centuries; never colonized by force, fiercely proud and independent with a rich diverse culture. An example to nations throughout the continent, Ethiopia and the Ethiopian flag have long been a symbol of defiance for other African countries, many of which incorporated the colors of the Ethiopia flag (red, yellow, and green) into their own.

    This is a crucial moment in Ethiopia’s long history; the country has just staged its first democratic elections, which should be seen as extremely positive, but millions are displaced and armed conflicts in Tigray and elsewhere continue. Ethiopians are faced with a choice: unite and prosper or withdraw into ethnic rivalries and fall into further conflict and discord. While there are those inside and outside the country that are fanning the flames of division, hatred and fear, the vast majority yearn for peace and social harmony. It is these voices that must prevail if this wonderful country is to flower once again.

    The post Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: A Unifying Peoples’ Project   first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Graham Peebles.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran accused of using unlawful force in water protest crackdown

    Amnesty says security forces used live ammunition on protesters while officials blame ‘opportunists’

    Iran is using unlawful and excessive force in a crackdown against protests over water shortages in its oil-rich but arid southwestern Khuzestan province, according to international rights groups.

    Amnesty International said it had confirmed the deaths of at least eight protesters and bystanders, including a teenage boy, after the authorities used live ammunition to quell the protests.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Let the Vandalism Begin: Adani Strikes Coal

    He began on RN Breakfast by claiming that he, and his company, would be open and transparent about mining operations.  But Lucas Dow, chief executive of Adani’s Australian operations, soon revealed in his June 25 interview that his understanding of transparency was rather far from the dictionary version.  When asked how the Carmichael Coal Mine was getting its water, he claimed that these were from “legally regulated sources” and in commercial confidence.  Businesses work like that, he stated forcefully, preferring to praise the company for it – and here, he meant no irony – its sound ecological credentials in solar energy and renewables.

    The interview set the background for another sad chapter in the continued environmental renting of Australia.  The company had found its first coal seam in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.  As the ABC reported, it meant “the extraction of thermal coal at the 44,700-hectare site can begin.”  The head of the Indian Adani Group, billionaire Gautam Adani, was celebrating his 59th birthday.  “There couldn’t be a better birthday gift than being able to strengthen our nation’s energy security and provide affordable power to India’s millions,” tweeted the delighted chairman.

    Even as oil and gas giants face court decisions and shareholder insurgencies about not having sufficient, tenably projected plans to reduce emissions, Adani remains antiquated in its stubbornness.  Its vandalising behaviour flies in the face of even such conservative, pro-fossil fuel defenders as the International Energy Agency.  In its May report, the IEA noted, keeping in mind the target of a net zero emissions world by 2050, that more simply had to be done.  Certainly, it argued, more could be done to meet 2030 targets.  “Mandates and standards are vital to drive consumer spending and industry investment into the most efficient technologies.  Targets and competitive auctions can enable wind and solar to accelerate the electricity sector transition.  Fossil fuel subsidy phase-outs, carbon pricing and other market reforms can ensure appropriate price signals.”

    Such observations are distant siren calls for the Indian giant, whose Australian branch, swaddled in controversy, has gone for a rebrand.  Well as it might.  Adani’s Carmichael Coal project, originally proposed in 2010 by the Adani Group, has catalysed the largest environmental protest movement since the Franklin campaign of the 1980s.

    Having no doubt hired a goodly number of public relations consultants, the company’s rebadging as Bravus Mining and Resources suggests a stealthy deception.  And it was as Bravus that success was announced: “We have struck coal at Carmichael,” came the headline in a June 24 company release.

    The company CEO David Boshoff treated it as a matter of success in the face of opposition.  “We have faced many hurdles along the way, but thanks to the hard work and perseverance of our team, we have now reached the coal seams.”  The CEO would even have you believe that Bravus was playing a humble servant to many noble causes.  “The coal will be sold at index pricing and we will not be engaging in transfer pricing practices, which means that all our taxes and royalties will be paid here in Australia.  India gets the energy they need and Australia gets the jobs and economic benefits in the process.”

    Boshoff is optimistic that Bravus will be able to export its first coal shipments in 2021.  “We’re on track to export [the] first coal this year, and despite reaching this significant milestone, we will not take our eyes off our larger goal of getting coal to the market.”  But do not worry, insists Bravus and the Adani Group: we have green credentials as well.  Adani Green Energy Ltd (again, the PR consultants really have been working hard) had acquired SB Energy Holdings, which would see the company “achieve a total renewal energy capacity of 24.3GW.”  What the Carmichael coal project did was contribute to a “burgeoning energy portfolio designed to create a sustainable energy mix” of thermal power, solar power, wind power and gas.

    There were a few glaring omissions of detail from the fanfare, both in Dow’s interview and the company announcement.  First came that pressing issue of water, one of its most scandalous features given the preciousness of that commodity on a water starved continent.  The Queensland regulator notes that Adani has but one viable source, what is described as “associated” groundwater, drawn from the Carmichael site itself.

    In May, the company’s North Galilee Water Scheme fell foul in the Federal Court, scuttling a pipeline project that would have supplied in the order of 12.5 billion litres a year from Queensland’s Sutton River.  The Court agreed with the Australian Conservation Foundation that the federal government had erred in law when the Environment Minister failed to apply the “water trigger” in assessing the Scheme.  The quashing of the plan led the ACF’s Chief Executive Officer Kelly O’Shanassy to conclude that, “Without the North Galilee Water Scheme, it’s hard to see how Adani has enough water to operate its mine.”

    On water, as with much else, Bravus has adopted a policy of dissembling.  In correspondence between an employee and Dow regarding a query by Guardian Australia on available aqueous sources, it was suggested “we do not give [the paper] anything more than what is already on the public record from us. They are clearly struggling to work out where we are getting our water, so I don’t think we give them any further clarity.”  Dow approved of the measure.

    There was also an absence of detail on the issue of the rail line, which is intended to link the mine to the Abbot Point coal terminal.  Boshoff might well be confident about coal shipments this year, but the line is not, as yet, finished.  That aspect of the project has also faced its share of problems, being accused of having a less than adequate approach to minimising erosion.  The Queensland state government, after investigating those claims, found in favour of Adani, though it recommended that “construction activities within waterways should not be undertaken during the wet season”.

    The Friday interview with Dow was also marked by the usual numbing apologetics and justifications long deployed by the fossil fuel lobby.  If we don’t do it, others will. If we do not dig and exploit the deposits, Australians will miss out.  Families will suffer.  Coal remained a king with a firmly fastened crown, left un-threatened for decades.  Precisely such a frame of mind is firmly fastened to the raft of dangerous unreality, and it is one that is sinking.

    The post Let the Vandalism Begin: Adani Strikes Coal first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Is Nestlé Launching a 100% Sustainable Water Bottle?

    3 Mins Read Nestlé unveiled a hybrid bottle for Vittel which uses 100% recyclable components to move the French water brand into a sustainable direction.

    The post Is Nestlé Launching a 100% Sustainable Water Bottle? appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Book review of “The Water Defenders” tells the story of environmental defenders in El Salvador

    In Toward Freedom of 31 May 2021 Charlotte Dennett reviews the book “The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed“. It is a very uplifting story that teaches a lot about how to continue a sometimes hopeless-looking case

    The Water Defenders

    At a time when all caring people are seeking a new way forward out of a year of unimaginable death, destruction and rampant inequality, along comes a book that gives us hope that a better world may be possible. The book, recently published, is based on a struggle in a small section of a small country—El Salvador—beginning in 2002, when a group of “white men in suits” entered the province of Cabañas and tried to convince poor farmers that gold mining would be good for them. Their resistance, done at great peril and resulting in the assassinations of some of their leaders, ended up years later in a landmark case against corporate greed, garnering support from around the world. The basis of their success lies in the most fundamental of human needs: Water, for which left-right antagonisms fall apart once the deadly consequences of mining’s misuse of it—including causing cyanide poisoning—become patently clear.

    Authors Robin Broad and John Cavanagh have brought us this amazing David versus Goliath story in their new book, The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed. Their first-hand accounts of working with front-line communities, both in El Salvador and in the United States. provide lessons along the way about how to fight an immensely powerful entity and win, whether the enemy be Big Gold, Big Oil or Big Pharma (to name a few). As they write in their introduction, “You may find yourselves surprised to find the relevance of the strategies of the water defenders in El Salvador, whether your focus is on a Walmart in Washington DC; a fracking company trying to expand in Texas or Pennsylvania, or petrochemical companies outside New Orleans.” By the end of the book, they added relevant struggles in countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, as well as in South Africa, South Korea, and India.

    In an interview with John Cavanagh, I asked if he and Robin had an inkling of the huge ramifications of their story right from the beginning, and his answer was decidedly no. In fact, when they first got involved, back in 2009, they never expected to win. They knew what they were up against and had no illusions. As they wrote about the ensuing years of twist-and-turn battles lost and won, the authors described a combination of events that made the water defenders’ decades-long struggle unusual… Yet now, with lessons learned, replicable.

    Their involvement with the water defenders began in October 2009. That month, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive organization “dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society,” invited a group of Salvadorian water defenders to accept IPS’s annual Letelier Human Rights Award for their struggle against Pacific Rim (PacRim), a huge Canadian gold-mining company that sought permits in El Salvador. [See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/06351cb8-8cc0-4bdd-ac3a-2f7ee5a0b553]That year’s award was particularly poignant because one of the awardees, Marcelo Rivera, had been assassinated the month before. Five people still came to Washington, with Marcelo’s brother, Miguel, traveling in his place. Leading the delegation was a small-statured, seemingly nervous Vidalina Morales. But when she stepped up to the podium at the National Press Club and began her acceptance speech, her voice filled the room with a sense of urgency. She described the dangers of gold mining—for drinking water, for fishing and for agriculture. By the time she got to explaining the use of toxic cyanide in separating the gold from the rock, she had the audience—including the authors—mesmerized.

    Miguel Rivera in front of anti-mining mural in his town in northern El Salvador
    Miguel Rivera in front of anti-mining mural in his town in northern El Salvador / credit: John Cavanagh

    Another factor made this occasion different. Cavanagh, who is the director of IPS, explained that usually the awardees arrive in Washington to accept their awards and return home. But on this occasion, “They asked for our help. El Salvador had just been sued by PacRim in an international tribunal that argued that El Salvador had to allow it to mine gold or pay over $300 million in costs and ‘foregone profits.’ They also asked if we could help them with research on companies involved in gold mining.”

    John had previously engaged with IPS in fighting against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and had become familiar with the tribunal and the rules set by the World Bank involved in regulating a global economy. Robin Broad, for her part, had written her doctoral dissertation and first book on the World Bank, and she had worked on the bank at her job with the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid-1980s. But she was less familiar with the workings of the tribunal the World Bank had set up in 1964, “The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).” Its mission was to hear cases brought by foreign investors demanding compensation for lost profits from countries that tried to limit or regulate their activities. The couple figured they could be helpful.

    “That’s how we were drawn in,” John explained, while emphasizing the extraordinary role local Salvadorans played in educating local communities about the dangers of landfills and then the dangers of gold mining. It was their groundbreaking work, often under dangerous conditions, that had earned them the Letelier award.

    What happened next is a remarkable story of a growing North-South alliance that eventually went global, succeeding in two monumental victories: 1) a decision by ICSID in October 2016 that rejected PacRim’s claims for damages, while ordering the corporation to pay El Salvador $8 million in costs, and 2) the world’s first-ever comprehensive metals mining ban, brought by the El Salvador legislature in March 2019.

    The Challenge

    Up until 2016, Cavanagh explained, “we never thought we would win.” But that did not stop the momentum of coalition building, which had begun as early as 2005 by local village defenders, human rights advocates, farmers, lawyers, Catholic organizations and Oxfam America. They united to call themselves the National Roundtable on Metallic Mining, or La Mesa Frente a la Mineria Metálica—La Mesa for short. Their ultimate goal, beyond building resistance at the local level, “seemed like a pipe dream,” the authors wrote. That goal? “Getting the Salvadoran Congress to pass a new national law banning metal mining.”

    Over the years, spurred on by their quest to find out who was responsible for Marcelo’s murder, the water defenders and their international allies yielded a treasure trove of insights on how to fight the Men in Suits, regardless of the outcome. Here are just a few lessons learned from their struggles described in the book:

    • Listen to the horror stories coming from refugees, in this case, those fleeing Honduras. Marcelo; his brother, Miguel; and Vidalina made several trips to Honduras to learn more about the gold mines there. (Honduras had become a haven for Big Gold after the 2009 coup). They returned with “shocking stories of rivers poisoned by cyanide, of dying fish and skin disease, of displaced communities, denuded forests, and corruption and conflict catalyzed by mining company payoffs.” Those trips, the authors write, made a huge impression on the water defenders and “crystallized their thinking… They were vigilant researchers, thirsty to know more.”
    • Seek out unexpected allies. One was Luis Parada, a Salvadoran government lawyer with a military background. As it turned out, he was a disciple of Sun Tsu, a Chinese military strategist from 2,500 years ago, who had written The Art of War. Among the lessons Parada (and Sun Tsu) imparted: “Know thy adversaries”—be one step ahead of them, and also know your possible allies. “Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor.” Luis also offered valuable practical advice, including the fact that the Sheraton Hotel in the capital, with its bar and pool, “offered some of the best intelligence in El Salvador.” Another unexpected ally was the ultra-conservative Archbishop Saenz Lacalle, a member of the right wing Opus Dei. “All it had taken was the word cyanide,” the authors explain, to cause him to oppose mining. His replacement in 2008, Archbishop Escobar, followed suit. He was “hardly an activist cleric,” but he “had long-held unexpected and firm views on mining,” and in his inaugural messages called on the government to reject mining operations in El Salvador. Getting the Catholic Church behind the water defenders was crucial. The martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, “whose photo is omnipresent throughout the country,” was no doubt a factor for widespread community support behind the water defenders, as was the encyclical put out by Pope Francis urging priests to take to the streets to defend the environment. Yet another surprise endorsement came from a member of one of El Salvador’s richest families and a leader of the right-wing ARENA party, which dominated the legislature. It turned out that John Wright Sol had a passion for the environment. Also noteworthy: His family’s vast sugar plantations consumed a lot of water. As he studied the impact of mining on water, he reached out to fellow members of ARENA. “I didn’t want to turn this into mining companies are the devil,” he advised. Instead, he chose to emphasize that “every citizen in the country must have access to clear water.”
    • Be wary of corporate PR campaigns. PacRim put out a report emphasizing that a whopping 36,000 jobs would be created from its mining operations, a vastly inflated claim. In radio interviews, PacRim aimed separate messages to the ARENA party and to the left-wing FMLN party, in which it claimed revenues would fund social agendas. Trips abroad arranged by PacRim often resulted in swaying politicians, whether on the left or right, to support their corporate agenda.
    • No matter how big, corporations can make mistakes. OceanaGold, a Canadian-Australian mining company which took over PacRim in 2014, had put on a brave face after the ICSID ruled against PacRim, acting as though it had won, and refusing to cough up the $8 million the company owed El Salvador. Yet it made a fatal error by choosing its mining operations in The Philippines as an example of its environmentally pristine practices. Robin Broad knew otherwise, and along with other international allies had cultivated a professional relationship with the governor of the Philippine province where OceanaGold had its mine. Governor Carlos Padilla arrived in El Salvador on the eve of the crucial legislative vote on the mining bill and presented a “before and after” slideshow to the Environmental Committee. He pictured a lush landscape before the mining, contrasted with images of waste-filled “tailings ponds,” dead trees, dried-up springs and rivers, dead fish on river banks, and, as he explained, “No access to water for drinking or for irrigation.” He ended with an appeal to future generations. “Grandpa,” he imagined them asking. “Why did you allow mining?” 

    His presentation was “sort of a clincher,” Cavanagh told me. “It raised the level of indignation.” The legislative vote followed soon afterwards, on March 29, 2019. The results were stunning, with 69 votes tallied against OceanaGold, zero nays and zero abstentions. Shouts of Sí, Se Puede!—“Yes we can!”—erupted from the floor, as members of La Mesa waved banners that read, “No a la Minería, Sí a la Vida”—No to Mining. Yes to Life!

    Children performing on the 10th anniversary of Marcelo Rivera’s assassination
    Children performing on the 10th anniversary of El Salvadorean water defender Marcelo Rivera’s assassination / credit: John Cavanagh

    Today, the water defenders remain cautiously optimistic, though constantly on guard. In the past, mining corporations have been able to convince even leftist governments that mining is good for the economy. Cavanagh speculates mayors of small towns, pressured to provide jobs, may have been behind the assassination of Marcelo Rivera and other water defenders.

    But to date, Marcelo’s killers have never been identified. On an equally sobering note, he and Board remind us in the book that “over 1,700 environmental defenders had been killed across 50 countries between 2002 and 2018.”

    I asked John for an update since finishing his book in mid-2020. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s “new Trump-like president,” he wrote, “hasn’t raised mining, and it doesn’t look like he is personally interested. He knows the public opinion polls that showed that the overwhelming majority of Salvadorans are opposed to mining.”

    However, he added, “We remain worried. El Salvador, like all developing countries, is suffering economically after the pandemic, and other countries have increased mining to get more revenues. So, La Mesa remains vigilant against any actions that could indicate that the government wants to mine.”

    We can only hope that water defenders around the world will strengthen their alliances. Fortunately, they now have a handbook that will help them in their journey of resistance.

    Charlotte Dennett is the co-author with Gerard Colby of Thy Will be Done. The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. Her new book is The Crash of Flight 3804: A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.

    The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh. Boston: Beacon Press; 2nd edition. March 23, 2021.

    For a bit more critical review see: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/el-salvador-s-water-defenders-and-fight-against-toxic-mining

    Book Review: “The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed”

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Rural Communities Have Waited Nearly a Decade for Clean Drinking Water Systems

    a faucet dripping water

    When Ramona Hernandez turns on her kitchen faucet in El Adobe, an unincorporated town just a few miles southeast of Bakersfield, the water that splashes out looks clean and inviting. But she doesn’t dare drink it.

    “You worry about your health,” she said in Spanish as she sat in her tranquil front yard one morning early this spring, her elderly mother-in-law working in the garden behind her.

    “I’m scared,” Hernandez said, “of getting sick from the water.” Drinking the tap water in this tiny community of dusty ranches and unpaved roads could expose Hernandez to arsenic. So, for years, she and her husband, Gerardo, have shuttled twice a week to the nearby town of Lamont to load up on bottled water. At a cost of about $80 a month, it’s enough for drinking and cooking. If they had the money, Hernandez, 55, would buy bottled water to shower with and use for her chickens. But given her husband’s salary as a farmworker, she says, that’s not a realistic option.

    Like more than 300 communities across California, El Adobe lacks safe drinking water. Since 2008, the arsenic levels in one of its two wells have regularly exceeded the safety standards set by federal and state authorities, often by more than double. Long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water is linked to diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer.

    Contaminated drinking water affects an estimated 1 million people in California, many of whom rely on private wells or small community water systems like El Adobe’s. A majority of these residents live in the Central and Salinas valleys. These are largely low-income, rural and Latino communities, where lack of access to clean water exacerbates the health disparities that already exist due to structural inequities. Since 2012, California law has recognized that access to safe and affordable water is a human right, but action has lagged behind the language.

    Arsenic levels in El Adobe’s other well are currently deemed safe, but the well can’t provide enough water to meet year-round demand. That means that many residents of the unincorporated town, including the Hernandezes, continue to pay for water they can’t drink. The El Adobe Property Owners Association charges households $125 a month for tap water, money that also covers streetlights and road maintenance (although only one road is paved). Most residents also buy bottled water at the store. Others take their chances and drink the tap water despite the risks. Many townspeople are low-income farmworkers and retirees, and buying bottled water is a significant expense.

    “I can’t afford bottled water all the time,” said Kyle Wilkerson, 40, a father of three who lives on a fixed disability income. He’s also president of the El Adobe Property Owners Association, a small cadre of community members who manage the town’s water infrastructure almost entirely as volunteers.

    Wilkerson said he worries about his own health as well as that of his family. “But what am I going to do?” he said. “You get to the point of, it is what it is.”

    And indeed, residents in towns like El Adobe have few options. Arsenic can be removed from water, but it’s prohibitively expensive for most small towns. An arsenic treatment facility requires millions of dollars to build and another $100,000 or more per year to operate, said Chad Fischer, an engineer who works at the California Division of Drinking Water’s district office in Visalia, which regulates water in the region.

    El Adobe is so small — just 83 homes — that if community residents split the cost of a treatment system, they’d spend tens of thousands of dollars each and face dramatically increased water rates. “The math is awful,” Fischer said. “It ends up being unaffordable.”

    It’s possible for individual users to install an advanced filtration system, such as reverse osmosis, in their homes, usually under the sink, to remove arsenic. But these systems can cost hundreds of dollars to install and maintain. Some small water systems do install these in people’s homes, passing on the cost to consumers, but the state considers this a temporary fix. Inexpensive pitcher-type filters do not remove arsenic.

    A permanent solution was supposed to be coming for El Adobe. In 2013, with funding from the California State Water Resources Control Board, El Adobe commissioned a report that concluded that the best option for the community was to connect with the larger water system in Lamont. According to Scott Taylor, general manager of the Lamont Public Utility District, the state promised to grant Lamont enough money to build the connecting pipeline, service lines and new wells needed to accommodate the increase in users and replace aging infrastructure.

    “Eight years, it still hasn’t happened,” said Taylor. “I think it’s bureaucracy. For example, when we submit any kind of a document, a cost estimate, an engineering report … for whatever reason, it takes them two to three months to review it. If it took any of my staff a month to review a document, I don’t care if it’s 100 pages, I’d fire them.”

    Blair Robertson, a spokesman for the California State Water Resources Control Board, said the state is still waiting for Lamont to purchase land for the new wells and drill test wells to see if water at the proposed sites is contaminated. There is currently no start date for the project, which is estimated to cost between $13 and 22 million and will likely be split into several construction phases. Formal state approval of the project will likely be in 2022, Robertson said, but there’s currently no timeframe for when El Adobe residents will have clean drinking water.

    Planning and implementing a water system consolidation takes time, Fischer said, especially when the community, like El Adobe, is small and lacks a team of engineers and other professionals to manage the water supply. Lamont has its own water problems with contaminants and aging wells, which have added to the difficulties of the project, he said. Projects usually take five or more years to accomplish, he said, depending on their complexity. But it has already been eight years, and construction has yet to begin.

    More Than 100 Others

    Beyond those delays, dozens of other communities in California are also waiting on construction projects for clean water. Approximately 110 other out-of-compliance water systems in the state are planning or considering consolidation with another system. Sometimes, the larger communities resist appeals to absorb the smaller systems because they fear it will increase costs and strain their own water supply, particularly as droughts continue. The state often offers financial incentives to encourage consolidation, and can mandate it, if necessary. Other times consolidation isn’t even an option because a community is too remote.

    In 2019, California passed a law that established a program called Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER), designed to help fund water improvements for communities that struggle to provide clean water to their residents. The state water board is working to complete a needs assessment to determine which water systems need help and to what extent, according to a recent report by the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. However, the state is still “in the very early stages of implementation,” and “much work remains to be accomplished” before all Californians have access to safe and affordable drinking water, the report stated.

    Cheryl Blackhawk, 67, and her husband Edward, 69, are fed up with not having safe water in El Adobe. They moved to the town four years ago from nearby Greenfield, seeing it as a quiet and affordable place to retire. At the time, the seller assured them the water connection to Lamont would happen within a year. They’re still buying water bottles by the caseload from Walmart.

    “You can’t go to the faucet to get water to drink,” said Edward Blackhawk. “You can’t cook.”

    Contaminants aren’t the only problem. Like innumerable systems across California and the country, El Adobe’s wells, pipes, pumps and other water infrastructure are showing their age. El Adobe’s most critical well, the one without arsenic, was built in 1967, the same year Ronald Reagan became governor of California and labor activist Cesar Chavez initiated a nationwide boycott of the state’s table grapes. The community’s arsenic-laced well was built in 1985.

    The life of a well depends on the chemicals in the local soil and water, and the quality of the well materials and construction, said Dave Warner, community development manager at Self-Help Enterprises in Visalia, which helps low-income communities access funding for water projects. But a well as old as 1967 “is really pushing it,” he said. Over time, the casing inside the well corrodes, and sand and other contaminants can get into the pump, causing it to fail. Still, drilling a new well costs more than $1 million, according to water officials. Securing state funding for it can take more than a decade, Warner said.

    The precariousness of the situation is not lost on Edward Blackhawk. Without functioning wells and pumps, people’s faucets would run dry. Toilets wouldn’t flush.

    “If these wells go down, we’re out of luck,” he said. “We’re out of water.”

    Widespread Water Woes

    Three miles down the road, Lamont has its own water struggles. Five of the town’s eight wells are contaminated with a highly toxic chemical called 1,2,3-trichloropropane, or 1,2,3-TCP. The chemical was added to soil fumigants used in agriculture during the 1940s through the 1980s. It persists in the environment indefinitely and is recognized as a carcinogen by the state of California. The state started regulating the chemical in drinking water in 2017, which meant communities like Lamont had to find a way to remove it.

    Just like arsenic, 1,2,3-TCP is expensive to get rid of. A treatment system costs over $1 million per well, plus about $100,000 a year to change the filter, said Taylor. Lamont has installed treatment on four wells, using money from a settlement with Dow Chemical and Shell Oil, the companies allegedly responsible for the contamination. But two of the treatment systems are leased, and the utility district still doesn’t know how it will pay for them long-term. Two other wells still need 1,2,3-TCP and arsenic treatment systems, respectively.

    Lamont’s population of 15,000 is almost entirely Latino, and many residents are farmworkers. The average per capita income is just over $13,000 a year. Plans to raise water rates last year to help cover some of the district’s expenses were delayed because of the pandemic. Even so, dozens of accounts fell into delinquency as people lost jobs and struggled to pay bills. The district is now short about $70,000 from delinquent accounts, Taylor said.

    Lamont’s wells are also nearing the end of their lifespan. Last year, shortly after the district installed a $1 million filtration system for 1,2,3-TCP on a 60-year-old well, the well collapsed. Taylor said he “raised holy hell” with the state water board and obtained emergency funding to build a new well, which is now under construction. Another three wells need replacing, he said. Those new wells may also need treatment systems. Funding for that is supposed to be included in the consolidation project with El Adobe.

    So far, Lamont has managed to provide clean water to residents, but that could change if another well breaks or demand increases enough to require making a contaminated well operational, said Taylor.

    “It’s a little discouraging,” said district board member, Miguel Sanchez. “You’re trying to comply with all these regulations and the system is crumbling.”

    A Reason for Hope?

    But Californians now have a reason to be optimistic: A $2 trillion proposal by President Joe Biden to fund infrastructure improvements across the nation, including for clean water, could provide their state with more money for these types of projects. Biden’s plan — if approved by Congress — would include $111 billion dollars in clean water investments. The proposal seeks $10 billion to monitor and remediate new drinking-water contaminants and to invest in small rural water systems like El Adobe’s. The plan also requests $56 billion in grants and loans to upgrade and modernize America’s aging drinking water, wastewater and stormwater systems. Support for low-income communities and communities of color is a big focus of the proposal.

    It’s not yet clear how much of the money would go to California. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called Biden’s plan “a game changer.”

    And Warner, with Self-Help Enterprises, agreed. Right now, there’s not enough state and federal money available to efficiently tackle all of California’s water contamination and infrastructure problems, he said. Biden’s plan “gave me a lot of hope,” he said. “But it’s got to get approved.”

    Meanwhile, Susana De Anda, co-founder of the Community Water Center, an environmental justice organization based in Visalia, applauded California’s SAFER program, but said communities need help faster. A short-term solution would be for the state to implement a rate-assistance program for low-income residents who are struggling to pay their water bills, including those who pay for water twice because their tap water is contaminated, she said.

    “We want solutions now,” she said. “It’s a huge problem, and we have generations that have been condemned to this reality.”

    In El Adobe, Hernandez worries that she may be inhaling contaminants or absorbing them through her skin when she showers. The concentration of arsenic in the water is still safe for bathing, according to state regulators, and arsenic does not evaporate into the air, but Hernandez remains distrustful, particularly since she and her husband both have lung problems.

    If only officials in Sacramento could spend a day in her shoes, she said. “How would they like it?” she asked. “They don’t have to worry about having a shower, about drinking the water.”

    At the edge of the community, Cheryl and Edward Blackhawk checked on El Adobe’s second well, the arsenic-laden one, and its water tank, which sits inside a small enclosure littered with tumbleweeds. Cheryl Blackhawk, who serves as financial secretary for the property owner’s association, said she fears that drought conditions this year will lead to falling water levels that result in higher arsenic concentrations in the well.

    Her husband, standing quietly beside the aging pump, confessed he’s beginning to doubt the connection to Lamont will actually happen.

    “There’s a lot of people out here who think it’s dead in the water,” he said softly. “And it’s not just us. There are hundreds (of communities) like us in the state.”

    This story was supported by a grant from The Water Desk, with support from Ensia and the Institute for Nonprofit News’s Amplify News Project.

    This article first appeared on California Health Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Water Activists Win Against Adani

    Australia – In a victory for people power, the Federal Court found, on May 25, that the federal government had failed to apply the “water trigger” test when assessing — and approving — Adani’s North Galilee Water Scheme (NGWS) in April 2019.

    The NGWS refers to a pipeline that would extract 12.5 billion litres of water a year from the Suttor River to service Adani’s Carmichael Coal Mine in central Queensland.

    The “water trigger” refers to The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 2013 (EPBC Act) that stipulates that coal seam gas and coal mining developments need federal assessment and approval if they are likely to have a significant impact on water resources.

    The post Water Activists Win Against Adani appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Land Governance: Present

    The second video in the “Land Governance” series highlights the current crisis in land management in Canada, which has sparked, among other initiatives, the Indigenous-led Land Back movement. It explores what happens when two systems of law and governance come head-to-head, on land, and about land, highlighting the move toward activism and the need for difficult conversations.

    See:

  • “Land Governance: Past”
  • “Land Governance: Future”
    • The post Land Governance: Present first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Land Governance: Past

    The first video in the “Land Governance” series examines the historical context of Indigenous Peoples’ dispossession from the lands that sustain them within Canada, and identifies the legal and policy landscape that created the conditions for today’s environmental and social crises. It explores the need to build on the rights and responsibilities of Indigenous Peoples, which are rooted in inherent governance of their territories.

    See:

  • “Land Governance: Present”
  • “Land Governance: Future”
    • The post Land Governance: Past first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Ted Cruz, Mike Lee Are Only Two No Votes on Bipartisan Drinking Water Bill

    The Senate passed a bipartisan bill to provide $35 billion to fund water infrastructure in states and on tribal lands on Thursday. The legislation, which sets aside funding for underserved communities, now goes to the House for consideration.

    The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act (DWWIA) allows for gradual increases in state funding for water infrastructure programs from 2022 to 2026.

    It nearly doubles funding for lead removal projects, including removing lead pipes from schools, and allows for over 40 percent of funds to go toward helping underserved and tribal communities. It also promotes investments in projects to improve water infrastructure to be more resilient to the effects of the climate crisis.

    The legislation passed the Senate 89-2. The two no votes were cast by Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Proponents of the bill say that the bill is desperately needed to improve water infrastructure in the U.S.

    “To truly ‘Build Back Better,’ our nation must prioritize putting Americans back to work repairing and upgrading the aging pipes we all depend on to deliver our water,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), lead author of the bill. “Years of failure to make adequate investments in our water infrastructure has led to a status quo where millions of Americans are served their drinking water through what is essentially a lead straw.”

    Water infrastructure in the U.S. is indeed in need of improvement. In their 2021 infrastructure report, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave drinking water infrastructure in the U.S. a C minus, saying that “the system is aging and underfunded.”

    Investment in water infrastructure in the U.S. has seen a dramatic decline in the last four decades. A 2020 study by the ASCE found that the investment gap for drinking water and wastewater would grow to $434 billion by 2029 if left unchecked.

    This is particularly an issue for poor and minority communities. Studies have shown that the problem of a lack of access to clean drinking water — like the still-ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan — is most often experienced by poor communities with large nonwhite populations.

    A 2019 study by the National Resources Defense Council found that water systems that continually violated the laws on clean drinking water were 40 percent more likely to be located in communities with a high proportion of residents of color.

    Wide support for the DWWIA in the Senate indicates that there is bipartisan support for infrastructure investments — a topic du jour, thanks to President Joe Biden’s recent infrastructure proposals. Biden’s infrastructure bill also includes a proposal to replace all lead pipes among many other infrastructure improvements, but Republicans have aligned themselves against it.

    The DWWIA might be a welcome step toward repairing the country’s water systems, but some environmental advocates say that it still won’t be sufficient to address issues of years of racist policies that have long disadvantaged nonwhite communities.

    “While this legislation is a great start, it cannot be the final investment in communities that have been in peril even before the COVID-19 pandemic further devastated them,” said Julian Gonzalez, legislative counsel for Earthjustice, in a statement. “We look forward to Congress continuing to act through a larger infrastructure package, with significantly more robust funding for removal of lead service lines, more grants to disadvantaged communities and tribal nations, and more funding for ratepayer assistance.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Bolivia Proposes To The UN To Urgently Convene An Earth Assembly

    During the Reunion with Mother Earth: Global reflections for the defense of Pachamama, the Plurinational State of Bolivia assumed the commitment to lead, in coordination with all the peoples of the South, a global action in this matter and requested the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, to urgently convene an Earth Assembly to “continue developing the cosmobiocentric paradigm, not anthropocentric, within the framework of multilateralism.”

    Representing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the People’s Power Minister for Foreign Relations, Jorge Arreaza, focused his speech on the failure of the savage capitalist system, which has turned nature into merchandise and under which there is no way to comply with the goals of humanity…

    The post Bolivia Proposes To The UN To Urgently Convene An Earth Assembly appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Saving The Salmon

    Canada – B.C.’s free-entry mining system allows any individual or company to stake a claim — and subsequently explore for minerals on that claim — anywhere in the province that is not already set aside as a protected area. This includes private land and Indigenous territory. Under provincial laws, which date back to the mid-1800s, no consent or consultation is required. 

    “It’s so archaic. It’s so colonial,” Marsden says.

    In the mid-2010s, mineral exploration and mining companies started staking claims on Gitanyow territory. A tenure allows a company to conduct exploratory work, and if it finds enough evidence of minerals, it can then propose a mine. But even exploratory work has impacts on the landscape, Marsden says.

    The post Saving The Salmon appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • We Sampled Tap Water Across The US

    In Connecticut, a condo had lead in its drinking water at levels more than double what the federal government deems acceptable. At a church in North Carolina, the water was contaminated with extremely high levels of potentially toxic PFAS chemicals (a group of compounds found in hundreds of household products). The water flowing into a Texas home had both – and concerning amounts of arsenic too.

    All three were among locations that had water tested as part of a nine-month investigation by Consumer Reports (CR) and the Guardian into the US’s drinking water.

    Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, access to safe water for all Americans has been a US government goal.

    The post We Sampled Tap Water Across The US appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Florida Workers Race to Prevent Massive Spill of Radioactive Waste

    Water flows across a darkened landscape

    Florida workers over the weekend rushed to prevent the collapse of a reservoir wall containing hundreds of millions of gallons of wastewater from a defunct phosphate mine, a looming environmental catastrophe that prompted mandatory evacuation orders and a declaration of emergency by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    A leak in the Piney Point reservoir was first reported late last month, sparking fears of a complete breach and possible upending of stacks of phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste product of fertilizer manufacturing. During a briefing on Saturday, a public safety official for Florida’s Manatee County warned that “structural collapse” of the storage reservoir “could occur at any time.”

    To prevent a full-fledged breach and contain spillage, local work crews on Sunday continued actively pumping tens of thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater per minute into Tampa Bay. As The Guardian reported Sunday, Manatee County officials “warned that up to 340 million gallons could engulf the area in ‘a 20-foot wall of water’ if they could not repair” the leak.

    Justin Bloom, founder of the Sarasota-based nonprofit group Suncoast Waterkeeper, said in a statement Sunday that “we hope the contamination is not as bad as we fear, but are preparing for significant damage to Tampa Bay and the communities that rely on this precious resource.”

    “It looks like this is turning out to be the ‘horror’ chapter of a long, terrible story of phosphate mining in Florida and beyond,” Bloom added.

    Aerial footage posted to YouTube by a local news outlet shows the leak at the Piney Point reservoir as of Sunday morning:

    The Environmental Protection Agency said late Sunday that it is “actively monitoring the ongoing situation at Piney Point” and has “deployed an on-scene coordinator” to work with local officials.

    Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Sunday that the crisis was “entirely foreseeable and preventable” and cries out for immediate intervention by the federal government.

    “With 24 more phosphogypsum stacks storing more than one billion tons of this dangerous, radioactive waste in Florida, the EPA needs to step in right now,” Lopez said. “Federal officials need to clean up this mess the fertilizer industry has dumped on Florida communities and immediately halt further phosphogypsum production.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Jackson’s Water Crisis: How You Can Help

    “This is the first time that we’ve ever had record-breaking, five to six straight days of below-freezing temperatures,” Ronnie Crudup Jr., Member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and Executive Director of ‎New Horizon Ministries told WURD radio in an interview on Wednesday. “Our infrastructure just could not handle that.”

    The ice on the ground didn’t help the speed of government aid either once Jackson’s water treatment plant went down. “The local guys are doing the best they can,” Crudup said. State leaders have done little to help with on-the-ground needs or longer-term efforts to replace the sewer and water treatment system, estimated to cost $2 billion—six times the city’s annual budget. “We haven’t seen the federal government at all.”

    “Just that ‘landmass’ in between, right? It’s just like that. We’re always last.

    The post Jackson’s Water Crisis: How You Can Help appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Jackson Residents Are Going on Week Four Without Water in Mississippi

    Volunteers help to distribute water at a water and food distribution drive held by College Hill Baptist Church and the World Central kitchen on March 7, 2021, in Jackson, Mississippi.

    After a winter storm caused record low temperatures and snowfall across the U.S. in February, thousands of residents in Jackson, Mississippi, lost water in their homes. As the city slowly fixes water breaks, some residents are now in their fourth week without water.

    Tens of thousands of Jackson’s 160,000 residents went weeks without water after the storm, and the rest of the city was, and still is, under a boil-water advisory. Last week, the city’s public works director Charles Williams said that a quarter of the city, or about 10,000 connections, still lacked water. As of Friday, the city had restored connections to 42,000 customers total and fewer than 5,000 customers still lacked water.

    The storm had frozen machinery at the city’s water treatment plant and had caused 101 water main breaks and leaks, at least 70 of which the city had repaired last week, the city said. The National Guard has been assisting in water distribution to the residents of the city, but they’re still waiting for hours in lines to get water bottles or non-potable water for flushing toilets.

    There are many residents, however, who can’t access the water that the city is distributing. With over a quarter of the city’s residents in poverty, many people don’t have the time or resources to wait in lines for hours for water.

    Many organizers, residents and observers say that part of the reason for the crisis is that the city has a majority Black population, and the city has thus had less funding and support. Over 82 percent of the city is Black, and the city has been losing residents, mostly white ones, for decades. The declining tax revenue as a result of the population loss is just one contributor to the city’s infrastructure problem.

    The Mississippi city’s infrastructure has been in poor shape for decades, and the city’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, has called Jackson an “aging city with an aging budget.” The city has a budget of about $300 million a year and “a more than $2 billion issue with our infrastructure,” Lumumba said during a press conference last month.

    Donna Ladd, editor of The Jackson Free Press and the Mississippi Free Press, said in an article for MSNBC that the state and city’s white supremacist leadership in the past decades has set up Jackson for failure.

    “The fact that low-income Jacksonians are living amid the stench of toilets that won’t flush is a direct legacy of white-supremacist thinking at the state level,” wrote Ladd. “It is the state of Mississippi’s role to help fix this problem.” White state-level politicians, Ladd says, have continually made moves to stunt Jackson’s growth, financially and otherwise.

    The crisis is also connected to climate catastrophe. The February storm was almost certainly a result of the climate crisis causing unusual weather patterns and increasing the frequency of extreme weather, which Lumumba has acknowledged. The city’s infrastructure, much like the energy infrastructure in Texas, was not ready for the cold temperatures that suddenly hit the state.

    “Not only do we need this investment because of the aging infrastructure,” Lumumba said earlier this month, “we need this investment because of the increased pressure that these extreme weather conditions are taking.” Lumumba has requested $47 million in emergency funding from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves for needed water infrastructure updates.

    This isn’t the first time that Jackson has experienced issues with their water; the city’s residents have continually experienced service issues over the years, and have grappled with lead pollution crises in the past. The recent water shortages, one local resident told Gizmodo, are just a continuation of environmental racism that Jackson and many other nonwhite communities will continue to face as the climate crisis worsens.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Jackson Water Crisis: Collective Effort Is Critical To Community Sustainability

    While the Mississippi city of Jackson works to fully restore water, various community organizations have been filling in the gaps with relief. Mutual aid is a new term for some, but providing it is an old practice in many Black communities.

    “As a southern Black girl, who grew up in rural Mississippi, mutual aid has always existed in my life,” Calandra Davis, an organizer with the Jackson chapter of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100), told NewsOne. Davis said community institutions have always provided aid in times of need. “The churches [and families] in my community always provided mutual aid,” she added.

    Providing support to communities in Jackson and across the state, the Mississippi Rapid Response & Relief Coalition is a statewide coalition, including rural partners. Member organizations include the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, the People’s Advocacy Institute, the Milestone Cooperative, Mississippi M.O.V.E., Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition, BYP 100 and Sarah’s Touch.

    The post Jackson Water Crisis: Collective Effort Is Critical To Community Sustainability appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Half Of Texas Without Clean Water

    More than 14.6 million Texans, about half of the population of the state, remained under a boil-water advisory Friday, according to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokeswoman Tiffany Young. This encompasses more than 1,225 water supply systems and 63 percent of Texas counties following the record winter storm which hit the state last weekend.

    In a press conference Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros stated that “we know that there are tens of thousands of leaks,” and that the Austin Fire Department responded to “thousands upon thousands of burst pipes.” In Houston, the fire department received almost 5,000 reports of burst pipes.

    Texas Republican officials are currently in the process of trying to pin the blame on each other for the disaster. Governor Greg Abbott blamed the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), claiming that it told state officials five days before the blackouts that everything would be under control.

    The post Half Of Texas Without Clean Water appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • How A Black And Latinx Coalition Turned Utilities Back On In LaGrange

    Anton Flores thought it would be simple to help someone get their water turned back on. 

    “I had a single mom, who was undocumentable, whose utilities had been cut off, and she came to me,” Flores, an immigration activist in the small Georgia city of LaGrange, said. He helped new immigrants navigate unfamiliar systems frequently.

    He figured all they had to do was come up with the money—so they did. Together, they went down to the municipal utility office. But it turned out, getting utilities turned on in LaGrange was a lot more complicated than having the money to pay. 

    In fact, for the undocumented woman in question, it was impossible: with no social security number, the municipal clerk denied her request.

    The post How A Black And Latinx Coalition Turned Utilities Back On In LaGrange appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.