At a time when, across the country, communities are told to cut back on water usage to protect the environment while bottled water corporations pump water for their own profit, the people of a small town in southwest Maine have taken a large step toward local control and long term protection of water.
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At their August 20 town meeting, Brownfield residents voted 136-17 to enact a new “Town of Brownfield ME Water Extraction Ordinance.” The ordinance puts limits on how much groundwater can be pumped from local wells. It also ensures the town can stop water extraction if testing demonstrates that groundwater levels are falling. In addition, the ordinance also bars large-scale extraction for bottling and sale, and puts controls on water-related truck traffic.

Voters in Edison NJ have overwhelmingly rejected their mayor's plan to turn over the township's wastewater system, and part of its water system, to a joint venture between two corporations.

SUEZ North America, a private water utility company, and KKR, an equity firm, would have operated the facilities under the name Edison Environmental Partners, and leased the equipment from the town. Instead, following a landslide "no" on the proposal in a special election, the township will create a water department and beef up its existing sewer department to do maintenance and repair.

The election was the result of a grassroots petition drive and local organizing over most of the past year. While SUEZ and KKR modified their proposals in response to opposition by the community, cutting the length of the contract from 40 to 25 years and offering money to install air conditioning in township schools, Edison residents held their ground. In June, nearly 5,000 petitions were received by the township council asking that an ordinance be introduced to require Edison to permanently own and operate the sewer and water systems that were to be turned over to SUEZ and KKR. In response, SUEZ and KKR sent out investigators who posed as representatives of the "Edison Utility Improvement Program," showing up at the homes of petition signers, reportedly inquiring about whether they signed the petition and why. 

Water privatization, whether of resources or infrastructure, is not the answer. Edison needed only to look to Hoboken to see a pattern of indifference from water profiteers to real concerns about service and safety of the public water supply.

The Alliance for Democracy worked with residents in Lawrence MA, many years ago to prevent the private takeover of their municipally-managed sanitation system, and from our support of local rights-of-nature ordinances to local control of producer to consumer food sales, we are big fans of keeping vital systems under the public's oversight. We hope that Edison residents remain involved in setting up the new water department and that this example of democratically-determined municipal control of water is an inspiration to other communities looking to take back control of their water and sanitation systems. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom is taking "unprecedented steps" to block President Trump's attempts to send water to San Joaquin Valley's agriculture interests. In the fight to protect the Delta's water, fishery and ecosystems, not to mention the drinking water of 25 million Californians, California has temporarily stopped deferring to the federal government on environmental rules, and is drawing up its own regulations. Newsom's move will potentially add a court showdown over whether the federal government has to comply with state law to the 45 lawsuits the state has brought against the Trump administration on other issues.

The question has also gone to the Legislature, with California Senate Bill 1 requiring the federal government's actions on water to comply with the state's Endangered Species Act. You can read more here, including how some federal environmental officials feel caught in the middle between the state and the White House.

Newsom's focus on protection hasn't gone unnoticed. In this commentary by Don Nottoli, a Sacramento County supervisor and chair of the Delta Counties Coalition, and Bill Dodd, a CA senator representing the Delta, Newsom is praised for rejecting the twin tunnels proposal and thereby calling for a more thoughtful process to conserve water and preserve the Sacramento Delta while also addressing irrigation needs. They praise Newsom's openness to "a more holistic approach that could include alternatives like water use efficiency measures, levee restoration, additional storage and other local projects supported by the Delta Counties Coalition."
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They note that while the two-tunnel project was rejected, a single tunnel plan is still on the table, though its impacts have not been studied and there are no details about its size, location, cost or operation. What is certain, though, is that a tunnel alone won't be a sustainable solution for California water needs. "The funds allocated for tunnels would be better spent on regional portfolio-based measures, including strengthening levees, restoring ecosystem habitat, increasing water use efficiency, developing local and regional water supplies, and providing additional surface and groundwater storage and recharge." they write. "This winter’s storms underscore how much excess runoff we could have captured for future droughts and retained if we had more reservoir and groundwater recharge projects completed."

Congratulations to the people of Toledo OH, who recently amended their city charter to give legal standing to Lake Erie, the first time such recognition has been accorded to an entire ecosystem.

The victory follows years of collaboration between Toledoans for Safe Water and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, as well as decades of regulatory failure and recent severe algal blooms. Opponents included big agricultural interests represented by the Chamber of Commerce and the Farm Bureau. The lake is the primary source of drinking water for Toledo, so its health impacts the health of some 300,000 people on its shores. In 2014, more than 100 people were sickened by algae which had proliferated thanks to agricultural run-off. 

The Alliance has also played a role in the movement to gain legal standing for nature. Back in 2005, the Alliance for Democracy's Defending Water for Life campaign brought the CELDF strategy of rights-based ordinances to Barnstead NH where citizens were organizing to prevent bottled water companies from privatizing their water. By the following spring, the citizens passed the first ordinance in the country to declare...

“...We the People of the Town of Barnstead declare that we have the duty to safeguard the water both on and beneath the Earth’s surface, and in the process, safeguard the rights of people within the community of Barnstead, and the rights of the ecosystems of which Barnstead is a part...”

In quick succession three more towns in NH passed similar ordinances and the following year two towns in Maine did so as well. You can read the full Barnstead ordinance here. 

"We praise the residents of Toledo Ohio for expanding this rights-based strategy to apply to the whole Lake Erie ecosystem," said AfD's Ruth Caplan, who brought the rights-based approach to Barnstead.

Weed CA area water activists Angelina Cook and Bruce Shoemaker were guests on last week's edition of the Brain Labor Report, hosted by Wes Brain. The show originates on KSKQ in Ashland and Medford, Oregon. You can listen to the show here.  The interview begins at the 12:32 mark.

Bruce detailed the 100-year history of weed's water issues. A former company town, where land, homes, infrastructure, and the local store were all owned by a lumber company, Weed was incorporated only in the 1950s. After incorporation, a public water utility was set up, using gravity-fed spring water.

When International Paper sold its interests in town to Roseburg Lumber, paperwork indicating ownership of water rights were lost, said Bruce. Roseburg Lumber, now Roseburg Forest Products, claims that it still has legal right over local water, including what is delivered through the town's water system. The company has sold water to Crystal Geyser, a bottle water brand owned by a Japanese pharmaceutical company, and plans to sell more, while currently charging Weed $100,000 a year for the water the town used to be able to access for free.

The company has also sued in an attempt to shut down citizen activism that was leading to negative publicity.  "I think they thought we were small town people that they could intimidate," said Bruce, who was named in the suit. The case was dismissed in Superior Court in December. A court case over the ownership of the water itself continues.  

Mt. Shasta's volcanic aquifers are an important source of spring water, and have been under attack nearly constantly since Nestle's failed attempt to build the world's largest bottling plant in nearby McCloud, according to Angelina. Current regulation of bottling is insufficient--towns can't even find out how much water is being pumped for bottling and sale.

She pointed our vulnerability to corporate interests, even in towns with good water supplies. From consumer susceptibility to the bottled water marketing hype, to deep problems with failing public water infrastructure and water security, private interests see opportunities to profit from concerns--legitimate or otherwise--about what comes out of the tap.

But she noted that this is a unifying campaign for the town, which has taken on the responsibility to "get informed, get involved, contribute to the groups that are representing the public interest and the human right to water, and participate."

Weed, CA water rights, Mount Shasta and the topic of water bottling and water privatization will be the focus of the fourth episode of an upcoming series on food and water, produced by UK's Fusion/LightBox Productions. Here's a one minute trailer advertising the 8-part series. While the Weed area water protectors are only on screen for 5 seconds, starting at 0:34, they make their point, and the whole series looks like it will be worth checking out. 

Episodes will be posted online shortly after the airtime, and the water program is scheduled for Tuesday, April 17. The first three in the series are available here. 

The Weed Area Water Alliance (WAWA) is a newly-formed California non-profit  consisting of local citizens and supporters who have come together to protect their source of clean water and other related conditions in their town of Weed, located northeast of Mt. Shasta city and Mt. Shasta.

WAWA is trying to protect the town’s water supply, originating at nearby Beaughan Springs, which has supplied water to the city for over a century. But a local timber company, Roseburg Forest Products, claims ownership of the spring. Roseburg's plan is to cut off water to the town of Weed, while selling it to Crystal Geyser LLC, owned by a French investor and Japanese pharmaceutical company. This New York Times article looks at the corporate actors claiming water rights and the community response, and this Sierra Club article goes into competing legal claims for ownership. It's a sadly too-classic tale of water rights, water privatization and environmental review that pits the corporate "right" to profit against the community rights of 2,700 Weed citizens. 

Most recently, residents have focused on expansion plans for the Crystal Geyser bottling plant, which is located just adjacent to the city, but is hooked into the city sewer system from discharging toxic waste water. Citizens lost on a 3-2 vote that an environmental impact report was needed and that Crystal Geyser failed to disclose the harmful chemicals because this would have triggered the need for this environmental review. You can read more about this latest battle here and here. And to get a sense of the community and how determined they are to protect their water, watch the trailer for the short documentary "Water Town."

California's recent severe drought convinced many in the state of the importance of securing water for human needs, and there have been protests around expanded bottling operations as well as renewed scrutiny of water rights claimed by bottlers and exporters. The Alliance is proud to support WAWA's fight for water for people, not for profit.

Food and Water Watch reports that a community effort in Atlantic City scored a major victory against Governor Chris Christie’s state takeover with a  new law protecting the publicly-owned water system from privatization. 

The local law was under threat of a governor's veto, thanks to a 2016 takeover law that allows the state Department of Community Affairs (oh the irony in that name!) to block actions taken at city council meetings within 15 days. But the ordinance passed by the Atlantic City city council on July 11 will stand. 

That ordinance, introduced by the citizens group AC Citizens Against the State Takeover, protects the public’s right to participate in any decision to sell Atlantic City’s water system.

According to Food and Water Watch, "Governor Christie and other state political leaders have long shown interest in selling the city’s water system to a corporation. While residents of every municipality in the state have the right to hold a referendum on any sale of a public water system, the state takeover law removed that right. The ordinance seeks to restore that power to Atlantic City residents. At the July 11 Atlantic City Council meeting, the ordinance was unanimously passed 8-0, with one abstention.

AC Citizens Against the State Takeover, a project led by Food & Water Watch, the Atlantic City chapter of the NAACP, Atlantic City Civic Associations, ACLU of New Jersey, and the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center, released a statement, calling the state takeover legislation "an act of complete arrogance on the part of the Governor and his Democratic ally, Senator Steve Sweeney. They expected to be able to come into Atlantic City and steal one of the most valuable assets that remains in public hands. We said no, and now people power has prevailed in Atlantic City.

“When the takeover law passed in 2016, Christie didn’t think the people of Atlantic City would come together and put up a challenge. He was wrong. The takeover law is a clear violation of our civil rights, and a threat to black and brown communities and hard-working communities across the entire state.

“Governor Christie’s arrogance was stopped by the people of Atlantic City. The next governor of the state should undo the damage done by Christie’s takeover by restoring full democracy to Atlantic City."

And, we hope, to the entire state! Congratulations to Atlantic City and to their responsive local elected officials.

Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-NY-3. This brings total cosponsors of HR 1673, the Water Affordability , Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act of 2017, to 36. You can read more about the bill here.