Blog Posts: November 2011

By Claudia Campero

The seventh Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management (D7) took place last week in Medellín, Colombia. It actually took me by surprise when I received the invitation. Seventh? When, where and with what purpose and focus had the previous six happened? While the D7 web page has some information, it doesn’t include a lot of details.

The “dialogues” started off in 1993, but they haven’t had significant impact; they’re just a communications mode of what we could call the “international water elite”. This elite goes around the world pushing water privatization and mercantilization of nature.

This time around, things got interesting because the local counterpart, Corantioquia, made a great effort to ensure this conference was indeed a dialogue. They made sure to invite a diversity of groups that would not necessarily agree with the mainstream international organizers—and they incorporated participatory methodologies to instigate meaningful discussions.

The Colombian NGOs, community managed water systems and indigenous groups were present to send a message—loud and clear—against water mercantilization and for the human right to water. Read the full article…

By Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch Executive Director

I’m writing this Thanksgiving message from my family’s small organic farm in Virginia. My husband is the farmer, and I see firsthand the hard work needed to operate an independent, sustainable farm — the days are long and sometimes hard, but the outcome makes all the work worthwhile. The same is true for the work Food & Water Watch is engaged in with you, because we are fighting for the kind of world we want — not just the best we can get.

This Thanksgiving, I’m incredibly thankful to you for being with us in our fight. At this time of year, food and water feel more precious than ever, and we couldn’t continue to fight for them without your help. Whether you’ve contacted your legislator, joined a campaign in your community, made a contribution toward a healthy future or simply urged your friends and family to care about their food, you’ve been a part of our success.

Here are just a few of the victories you’ve been a part of this year: Read the full article…

The Obama Administration is caving to meatpacker interests and many Democratic members of Congress aren't standing up for independent livestock producers.

By Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch

[Originally posted at Huffington Post]

While the big news among good food activists has been the unsettling possibility that a secret farm bill could be snuck into the Super Committee’s recommendations and passed with no public input, Republicans have furtively dealt a crippling blow to family farmers and consumers. This week, House Republicans included language in a budget bill that gutted the fair livestock rules that have languished for more than 80 years. Once again BIG MEAT has derailed the commonsense protections that allow small livestock producers to compete and check the abusive practices of the poultry industry.

The 2008 Farm Bill included reforms to protect small and medium-sized farmers who raise cattle, hogs, and chickens from unfair treatment at the hands of meatpackers and poultry companies. In 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration proposed rules (known as the GIPSA Rule, after the agency) to protect poultry and hog farmers from unfair contract terms – like retaliating against poultry and hog growers who speak out about abuses – and ensured that cattle and hog producers could get a fair price from meatpackers for their livestock.

Nearly three years later, the fair livestock rules have been shredded and there is plenty of blame and shame to go around. The Obama administration failed to show leadership on this issue and reneged on President Obama’s campaign pledge to “fight to ensure family and independent farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.”

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack caved to meatpacker money and power by issuing significantly watered down rules – after nearly 18 months of foot dragging to issue the final rules at all. USDA’s final proposal indefinitely postponed any efforts to protect independent cattle and hog farmers and issued a much weaker set of protections for contract chicken and hog farmers. Many Democratic Senators on the Agriculture Committee – including Chairman Debbie Stabenow from Michigan – stood on the sidelines and refused to stand up for livestock producers in their states. Read the full article…

The pleasant surprise of the month is that the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) cancelled their upcoming vote—scheduled for Monday, November 21—for whether or not to allow fracking in the Delaware River Basin, a source of drinking water for 15 million people. It’s possible that the commission was nervous; they just weren’t ready to host thousands of demonstrators about to converge on Trenton’s courthouse. How big a deal is a cancelled vote? It means the members of the commission are listening!

On Thursday, Delaware Governor Jack Markell said that his state would vote against allowing fracking in the region, which prompted the DRBC to cancel their vote, as they no longer have three out of five “yes” votes from members of the commission. This is the second time that the DRBC has delayed their course of action. They initially scheduled their vote for October 21, but pushed it back to November 21.

Our activists on the ground Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania —along with allies Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Frack Action, Catskill Mountainkeeper, United for Action, Sierra Club New Jersey, Damascus Citizens, Protecting Our Waters —-voiced their concerns through phone calls, letters, petitions and public comments and called on the commissioners not to open up the Delaware River basin to fracking. Their voices made a difference.

While this is not a final victory, it’s certainly a critical success for now. Most likely, the DRBC will reschedule their meeting to vote on this issue, which is why it’s so important that we keep voicing our opposition and expressing our concerns about the risks and dangers of allowing shale gas drilling.

For now, we need to stamp this as a victory so that people know our efforts are indeed moving us forward. But this does not mean we’re finished. We need to keep the pressure on by continuing to seek a fracking ban.

On Monday, we will gather in Trenton for a rally outside of the Trenton War Memorial—where the vote was scheduled to take place—with Food & Water Watch staff, our key allies, Josh Fox, Deborah Winger and others. Come join us for the rally starting at 11 am with the day ending around 3pm.

By Rich Bindell

Right now, some members of Congress are pushing hard for “regulatory reform” that would make it next to impossible for the federal government to create any new regulations. Their anti-regulatory battle plan attacks on two fronts: the REINS Act and the Regulatory Time-Out Act. While their rhetoric conveniently claims these bills would address issues of money, jobs and inefficiency in government, their main goal is to kill all regulations, even those regulations that are tantamount to public safety.

The “reforms” that some members of Congress are trying to pass could strip federal agencies of their ability to update meat and poultry inspection, safe drinking water standards and even fair competition in the marketplace among food producers —basic functions of government that shouldn’t be tied into the political dysfunction of the past several years.

Remember the Food Safety Modernization Act that became law early this year? This recalibration of the FDA’s food safety program should enable federal regulators to catch up to modern challenges in food production, including provisions that protect against pathogens like Listeria and Salmonella in produce and processed food. We’ve had recent outbreaks of both, complete with massive product recalls. The Regulatory Time-Out Act would push these critical regulations off for another year.

Imagine, for a moment, that your drinking water wasn’t monitored or that food processors were no longer properly inspected for safety. Life without these protections in place would be very different, indeed. While the public would go unprotected, the powerful corporations would get to operate as they please, with no one reigning in practices that could damage the environment or public health. No matter what folks think about the budget deficit or job creation, most would agree that there are basic functions best performed by the government – and protecting common resources like food and water are pretty high on that list.

The claims made about creating jobs and saving money by deregulating powerful industries are rhetoric, not reality. We need regulations to safeguard our food, water and natural resources. These are basic protections that ensure public health and safety, not a source for savings.

By Rich Bindell

From advertisements touting the environmental benefits of “clean, natural gas,” and energy independence, to the Penn State professor who claims that there is 50 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Marcellus Shale, the powerful energy lobby has aggressively positioned itself to give us nothing but good news about fracking for shale gas. But, the data that industry clings to most in its clarion call to drill and frack for shale gas—the number of jobs that will be created—may be their biggest exaggeration. Exposing the Oil and Gas Industry’s False Jobs Promise for Shale Gas Development, Food & Water Watch’s latest report on fracking, demonstrates how a cascade of flaws inflated one industry-backed job projection by 900 percent. They were just a little off!

Many of the flaws identified in the Food & Water Watch report came from a series of widely-cited studies out of Penn State, but the Public Policy Institute of New York State (PPINYS) added to these flaws to make the bogus projection. PPINYS claimed that the drilling of 500 new wells each year would create 62,620 new jobs (15,500 direct jobs plus an additional 47,120 indirect or induced jobs as an economic spillover effect) in five counties of New York State by 2018.

Food & Water Watch revealed, in painstaking detail, the making of this rosy projection. The new report identifies and corrects numerous methodological flaws to show that the economic forecasting models used only support a claim of 6,656 total jobs—one tenth of the PPINYS claim! And it used actual on-the-ground labor data to show it, data that policy makers should be heeding instead of industry projections based on flawed models.

Regardless, this is just a projection of the potential job gains. It does not account for the public health, public infrastructure, and environmental costs that would come from opening up New York to drilling and fracking for shale gas. Neither does it account for the negative impacts on employment in other economic sectors such as agriculture and tourism.

Now, such negative impacts ARE reflected in actual employment data, and the report’s accompanying issue brief looks at actual employment data in five counties in Pennsylvania with shale gas development…specifically five counties that border counties in New York where shale gas development is being planned. Read the full article…

By Rich Bindell

You know Jillian Michaels as the now-famous inspirational trainer (and former overweight consumer) from The Biggest Loser. Did you know that the main reason she has been able to maintain her healthy body is from eating organic foods and staying FAR AWAY from processed food products? It sounds like Jillian is well aware of the problems that burden our corporate-controlled food system, run by giants like Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson and Nestlé. If only the show could focus on that part of a better health strategy, it could really teach people about the critical importance of the Farm Bill in improving our food and our health as a nation.

Wait a minute… that gives us an idea!

America has already opened its collective consciousness to the lessons of The Biggest Loser. The show’s contestants are close to our hearts for good reason: they’ve allowed us to examine ourselves and how we view our own health. But, now it’s time to welcome a new group into the fold and follow them as they head down a path toward self-improvement and healing. Only this time, the contestants aren’t playing for themselves, but for everyone who depends upon a healthy food system.

Welcome to the Biggest FARM BILL Loser. Read the full article…

By Rich Bindell

Anyone lucky enough to see the Grand Canyon should understand why Grand Canyon National Park officials wanted to institute a ban on the sale of bottled water in the park. Visitors to the park should be able to see the Canyon in its pristine condition, not littered with plastic bottles. But National Parks Service Director Jon Jarvis blocked the ban right before it took effect, and shortly after Coca-Cola made inquires about the ban. Since Coca-Cola is a major donor to the National Parks Foundation, contributing about $13 million in total to the Foundation and the Parks, we have to ask: how much influence should a corporate donor have on the operations decisions of an entity like National Parks Service?

Stephen P. Martin, a Grand Canyon park official, developed the ban because 30 percent of park waste is from plastic bottles. In a place like a national park, a preserved location, protected from the usual scars (like garbage) left by human beings, this seems like a reasonable course of action to take. There’s really no reason to object to any attempt to keep a national park free from excess waste.

But, Coca-Cola sells its Dasani brand of bottled water to park visitors. The park’s ban would include providing water stations for reusable bottles, but Coke would, of course, prefer people buy their product.

When asked about the ban, Susan Stribling, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, exposed a serious lack of understanding when it comes to waste and recycling. According to Stribling, Coca-Cola’s strategy isn’t to try to eliminate waste before it’s created, but to provide recycling bins instead. She offered this ridiculous and preposterous response: Read the full article…

By Rich Bindell

If you’re concerned about the potential dangers that shale gas fracking poses, you might want to pay close attention because the oil and gas industry just identified you as part of the insurgency. You could be dangerous. An environmental activist recently captured audio from a media strategy session of an industry conference where energy companies discussed incorporating military strategies when dealing with citizens concerned about fracking. Calmly look at yourself in the mirror at this time. Do you have a rifle strapped to your back? Have people called you a rebel in the past few days? Have you taken to wearing a beret and/or camouflage cargo pants? Welcome to Frackville.

Activist Sharon Wilson paid her way into an industry conference in Houston, Texas and recorded conversations at a few of the sessions. At a session about “educating the public,” Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Manager of External Affairs Matt Carmichael recommended that his colleagues download the U.S. military counterinsurgency manual.

Carmichael said… Read the full article…

By Rich Bindell

The USDA has once again failed to protect independent farmers from the companies that control our broken food system. They have sent part of the much-debated GIPSA rule over to the White House for final approval – without critical parts of the proposed rule that are needed to equalize competition for independent cattle and hog producers in the livestock marketplace. While there may be some positive changes in the rule for the poultry industry (see more detail in the statement from Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter), it is clear that those companies who have solid control over the livestock market also have a lobbying arm that exerts solid control over the current administration.

In 1921, the U.S. government came to the conclusion that something needed to be done about the lack of competition in the meatpacking industry that was allowing a few companies to dominate the market. Congress passed a law called the Packers & Stockyards Act and the USDA created the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) rule to address the problem. The problem is that they have never enforced the law. What good is a seatbelt if you don’t use it? Read the full article…