Thinking outside the bottle (water)
October 31, 2007 - 6:03am
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Let's continue the water discussion here.
Which thread are we continuing from?
"We have come together, very simply, for one reason and one reason only," he said. "To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm."
....
Down in Georgia, Perdue acknowledged that part of the problem is wasteful consumption of a precious resource. But he and most others there figure they're just enduring another dry cycle. The main question for them is whether the skies will open before their shrivelling reservoirs go bone dry.
Their plea to God: Send a cloudburst sooner rather than later.
Nice try, says Maude Barlow. But they're on the wrong track.
Barlow, a long-time advocate for environmental, social and political change, sets out her reasons in a new book, Blue Covenant and highlighted them in a recent interview.
The current shortages aren't a low point in a normal up-and-down pattern, she says.
The global crisis, she says, is a new permanent threat – more serious than climate change; "like a comet aiming at Earth" – that humans can hope to fend off through hard choices, not divine intervention.
Source
The Growing Battle for the Right to Water
I do blame in a very big way, the political leadership in most of our countries for having failed to heed the call of scientists and ecologists and water managers who've been telling us for years now there is a crisis coming -- there are 36 states in the U.S. in some form of water stress, from serious to severe. Thirty-six states! Most Americans don't know this -- why is this not part of people's everyday concerns? That is what I'm hoping this book will help do.
An internal report drafted last December by Environment Canada warns that climate change and a growing population will further drain resources.
"We can no longer take our extensive water supplies for granted," says the report, titled A Federal Perspective on Water Quantity Issues.
The Canadian Press obtained the 21-page draft report under the Access to Information Act.
It suggests the federal government take a more hands-on role in managing the country's water, which is now largely done by the provinces. Ottawa still manages most of the fresh water in the North through water boards.
The Conservatives promised a national water strategy in last fall's throne speech but have been criticized since for announcing only piecemeal projects.
The Tories, like the previous Liberal government, are also behind in publishing annual reports required by law that show how water supplies are used and maintained.
The last assessment posted on Environment Canada's website is from 2005-06.
The internal draft report says the government currently does not know enough about the country's water to properly manage it. - Source
The Council of Canadians has reacted to this story as follows:
“There is a growing freshwater crisis in Canada, with causes including contamination, shortages and pressure to export water to the United States through pipelines and diversions,” says Meera Karunananthan, national water campaigned for the Council of Canadians. “The suppressed report from Environment Canada demonstrates that the Harper government has known about the water crisis facing Canada and has suppressed the information in a startling lack of transparency and accountability. Instead of taking leadership to solve the water crisis, the Prime Minister has made it worse by pursuing a comprehensive strategy of undermining water protection in Canada.”
"This Environment Canada report is further proof that successive Canadian governments haven't taken water seriously,” says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. “The Harper government has bought the myth of limitless abundance, which this report on looming water scarcity in Canada indicates is clearly not true. He should release this report to the public in full immediately.”
“The Harper government has consistently chosen corporate profits over the protection of water,” adds Karunananthan. To address this misplaced priority, the Council of Canadians is calling on the federal government to adopt an immediate national water strategy in Canada that includes:
• Renegotiation of NAFTA to exclude water, ensuring Canadian water access.
• Abandon the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership), which aims at a fivefold increase of tar sands production, despite the already serious drain on local water supplies and related water contamination.
• An important step would be to revoke water licenses of tar sands companies.
• Stop TILMA (Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement), which puts water protection at risk by allowing corporations to sue local and provincial governments for protecting water, much like Chapter 11 in NAFTA.
• Call for the exclusion of water diversion in the Great Lakes Compact (GLC): The Great Lakes hold 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, providing drinking water to 45 million people. The GLC, currently being rushed through US congress, would allow corporations to start draining the Great Lakes, provided it is not done using containers that hold 21 litres (with no limit on the number of containers). The bottled water exception must be removed from the GLC and replaced with recognition of the water as a public trust doctrine.
• Reign [sic] in the bottled water industry by encouraging bans on bottled water wherever possible, including at the national level with enforced legislation to stop bottled water companies from extracting groundwater.
• Support water as a human right: The Canadian government is the only one in the world to oppose water being recognized as a human right at the United Nations
• Halt the use of lakes for the dumping of mining waste: At least a dozen lakes across Canada have been slated for destruction with mining waste.
At one point does the Left start distrusting the federal government and not press it to take over provincial fields of jurisdiction when it suits its interest? I would think that with Harper well in place, one would look deeper into that old centralizing reflex, regardless of its predictable results.
No doubt the perspective is different from Quebec, but in the ROC, there's no reason to "trust" provincial governments to protect the environment any more than the feds.
Where does the Council of Canadians call for a constitutional amendment to change the division of powers?
Doesn'it do so indirectly by putting its weight behind a report that is said, after describing provinces as "pitted against each other", to quote:suggest the federal government take a more hands-on role in managing the country's water, which is now largely done by the provinces
Its own position is clearly centralist: quote:The Council of Canadians is calling on the Government of Canada to implement a comprehensive National Water Policy, as there is currently no national strategy to address urgent water issues and no federal leadership to conserve and protect our water.
, a factor that may have consistently hobbled the NDP's fortunes in Quebec which has consistently opposed federal attempts at overall takeovers in health, eucation, natural resources, etc. AND often done better in these fields.
[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
The constitution does not specifically allocate jurisdiction over water resources to either the federal or provincial governments. Jurisdiction is therefore divided between them, as it is with certain other matters such as agriculture or public health.
The federal government has powers to legislate in a number of areas that bear on water management, such as fisheries, navigation, international trade, international boundary waters, etc. The provinces have jurisdiction over matters such as property and civil rights, "natural resources", local works and undertakings, etc. which incidentally involve management of water supply, flood control, water quality, etc.
The feds have the power to permit or prohibit the export or import of water. They have made treaties and agreements with other countries that affect our water resources: International Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909; NAFTA; the Security and Prosperity Partnership; GATS; and the WTO. The feds must be central to any strategy for protection of our water. This is particularly so because of the increasing commodification of water and its entry into the globalized stream of trade, as well as the context of a looming worldwide water crisis.
Canada has a Federal Water Policy that is over 20 years old, and the Council of Canadians has pointed out how it ought to be improved and updated. Yes, they are centralists. They demand the federal government take the initiative in protecting Canada's water instead of trying to lobby for a patchwork of provincial laws and regulations. I agree with them that it's the only practical way to proceed.
Peak Water
The warnings, in an annual report by the Pacific Institute in California, come as ecologists have begun adopting the term “peak ecological water” — the point where, like the concept of “peak oil”, the world has to confront a natural limit on something once considered virtually infinite.
The world is in danger of running out of “sustainably managed water”, according to Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute and a leading authority on global freshwater resources.
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
March 8, 2011
AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement has privatized Canadian water, trade committee hears
Ottawa - The record-setting $130-million NAFTA settlement with AbitibiBowater has effectively privatized Canada's water by allowing foreign investors to assert a proprietary claim to water permits and even water in its natural state, says trade lawyer and Council of Canadians board member Steven Shrybman, in a presentation to Parliament today.
"It would be difficult to overstate the consequences of such a profound transformation of the right Canadian governments have always had to own and control public natural resources," says Mr. Shrybman in his presentation to the Standing Committee on International Trade, which is studying the AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement from last August.
"Moreover, by recognizing water as private property, the government has gone much further than any international arbitral tribunal has dared to go in recognizing a commercial claim to natural water resources."
In 2008, AbitibiBowater, a Canadian firm registered in the United States, closed its pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls-Windsor, NL. The company asserted rights to sell its assets, including certain timber harvesting licenses and water use permits. These permits were contingent on production. More importantly, under Canada's constitution they are a public trust owned by the Province, not by private firms. So the Newfoundland government moved to re-appropriate them as it has a right to do under Canadian law. AbitibiBowater sidestepped the courts to challenge the Newfoundland government.
"The case clearly put the concept of water as a public trust on a direct collision course with treaty-based corporate and commercial rights. However, rather than defend public ownership and control of water, the federal government has agreed to settle AbitibiBowater's claim," says Mr. Shrybman. "By stipulating that the payment of compensation is on account of rights and assets, the government of Canada has explicitly acknowledged an obligation to compensate AbitibiBowater for claims relating to water taking permits and forest harvesting licenses."
By settling with the company rather than challenging its case, we have no response from the federal government to refute the company's proprietary claims to water and timber rights, explains Mr. Shrybman. The settlement also fails to identify the particular rights for which compensation will be paid, and makes no attempt to exclude any of the company's claims, "thereby acknowledging the validity of the claims."
"Moreover, by recognizing a proprietary claim to water taking and forest harvesting rights, Canada has gone much further than any international tribunal established under NAFTA rules, or to our knowledge, under the rules of other international investment treaties," he says.
A statement by the government that the settlement shall not set a precedent is "entirely ineffective," because of NAFTA's National Treatment clause which grants foreign companies treatment no less favourable than national companies in like circumstances.
"It is not therefore an overstatement to describe the consequences of this settlement as effectively representing a coup-de-grace for public ownership and control of water and other natural resources with respect to which some license or permit had been granted."
Shrybman suggests water takings by tar sands operations in Alberta, a golf course in Ontario or a water bottling plant in Quebec are other examples of where even a partial recovery of water rights by the provinces could detrimentally affect business. If any of these companies were foreign owned they could claim compensation on the same terms granted AbitibiBowater.
***
The Council of Canadians strongly believes there is no place in existing or future trade agreements for such overstretching investment protections. It has repeatedly called on the federal government to reopen NAFTA to remove the investor-to-state dispute process. The Council also recently joined several other Canadian organizations in writing to all members of the European Parliament urging them to reject the inclusion of NAFTA-like investment protections in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which could be signed by the end of the year.
- 30 -
For more information:
Dylan Penner, media officer, Council of Canadians: 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org
To read Mr. Shrybman's full presentation to the trade committee: http://council-of-canadians.c.topica.com/maaoFrkab3jp5aXBQhOb/
Paris Offers Water With Bubbles, but No BottlesInaugurated on Tuesday by Eau de Paris, the public water company, “la pétillante” — “the bubbly” — is a water fountain installed in a wooden hut of the Jardin de Reuilly, in eastern Paris, that delivers sparkling water.
“We chill the water between 6 and 8 degrees Celsius,” said Philippe Burguière, the spokesman for Eau de Paris, “and then we inject carbon dioxide into regular tap water to make the bubbles thin and tasty.” Those temperatures translate to 42.8 to 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
The new water fountain is part of an operation “aimed at promoting tap water in a country where we invest a lot to preserve its quality,” Mr. Burguière added.
The fountain is connected to the public water system and uses six taps to provide both sparkling and flat water.
!!
I suggest " to the last drop " by Micheal Keating written in the mid 80s as a reference to Canadian fresh water issues. " Cadillac desert" forgot the author's name for a good overview of US water issues.