Sit-ups, crunches, weightlifting, interval training – sounds like a rigorous workout for anyone trying to get in shape. Could this be a fitness regimen for salmon too?

That’s what the scientists in Norway are trying to prove. 

Since training and exercise are essential in maintaining good health for humans, could the same be applied to fish?

In order to make farmed salmon stronger and more resistant to disease once they are transferred to ocean cages, a research group in Norway is trying to get farmed juvenile salmon in shape for ocean water using some techniques from the top football team of Spain (we here in the U.S. call it soccer). Scientists from the project discovered that the heart capacity in wild salmon is greater than in farmed salmon, so they put the farmed salmon on a strict training regime to make their hearts stronger.

The exercise? They say the equivalent of jogging - swimming faster with increased water velocity in their tanks. The fish in the trial were divided into three groups – one was a control group (normal fish tank conditions), one group was put in a tank with increased water velocity throughout the day, and one group was put in a tank for “jogging” or intervals of increased water velocity (what the scientists call “high intensity training”). And how do they measure their heart rates? With tiny heart monitors, of course.

Although the experiment is still ongoing, the scientists are optimistic that their training program will help farmed fish handle the stresses of the ocean:

"Less stress means the fish have greater energy reserves to tackle the challenges of everyday life…In the long-term, we believe that this can make the fish even more robust. It's just like with us humans, healthier fish thrive better, and this will in turn increase profitability for the salmon farmers,” stated senior scientist, Harald Takle.

While the researchers claim that less stress could reduce the chance of disease in farmed salmon, the experiment is not getting to the root of the problem. Cramming thousands of genetically identical fish in ocean cages will inevitably lead to the spreading of disease. Once one gets sick, they often all get sick and can even spread diseases to wild salmon populations.

Instead of spending millions of dollars on a short-sighted experiments, these groups should be investing in research on promoting sustainable wild fisheries. Scientists need to be looking at the bigger picture to protect marine resources rather than trying to solve the numerous problems created by fish farms.

Corporate attempts to label their products as “green” for the sake of turning a fast buck are nothing new. Corporations exist, after all, in order to make money, and capitalizing on whatever is capturing the public’s collective imagination is often the best way of doing so. But Fiji Artisanal Water’s entree into the green movement strikes us as particularly suspect.

The company has recently launched fijigreen.com, a website outlining the ways in which their water is “good for the environment.”

If you’re anything like us, you are probably wondering how this claim could be true.

It can’t. 

While Fiji’s Artisanal Water’s commitment to reducing their packaging, investing in rainforest renewal and reducing their carbon emissions may be applauded by some, these measures are not enough to make them a green company. By definition, bottled water is simply not an environmentally friendly product.

When companies package and sell water, they take a natural resource that falls freely from the sky from communities that need it, stick it in plastic bottles (made from oil, of course), and ship it across the globe to sell it for hundreds, sometimes thousands of times its actual value.  And while Fiji and its cohorts can encourage consumers to recycle, the fact of the matter is that 86% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the trash, instead of being recycled.

With citizens and governments around the world abuzz with worries of oil shortages, how can companies continue to manufacture a needless product that directly contributes to this impending crisis, let alone have the audacity to proclaim it “green?”

The most sustainable water option isn’t actually green at all (if it were, that would be a bit scary). It’s actually quite clear: tap water.  It’s convenient, delivered through energy-efficient means, and in most cases, is just as healthy and pure as its froufy bottled counterparts--sometimes cleaner.  Even better, it requires spending very little green in order to do something green.

For more on why tap water is a better alternative to bottled, check out our resources at www.takebackthetap.org. Then tell us how you feel about Fiji Artisanal Water’s not-so-green marketing machine.

 

Excerpt: As the "I Heart Tap Water" student video contest submission deadline neared,  students pulled all-nighters to get their YouTube videos in shape and uploaded. In the closing days, the entries poured in. On the receiving end, Food & Water Watch staff watched an array of live action, animation, love story triangles, PSA's and music videos. Just prior to Earth Day, our celebrity judges including Alec Baldwin reviewed the finalists and an animation major named Elizabeth Klein from Cincinnati got the nod as the winner. Announcing the winner on Earth Day was exciting for the Food & Water Watch staff and the contestant about to get the big news.

Eager to speak with the winner of the "I Heart Tap Water" student video contest, Food & Water Watch staff gathered around a conference room speaker phone on Earth Day morning and placed the call to the producer/director of the stop-action animation video, Elizabeth Klein. Elizabeth, known as Lizzy, a student at the University of Cincinnati was in class. Drats. We'd had to wait to tell Lizzy she was the winner.

We left a message for Lizzy with her proud father that we wanted to talk with her and soon enough the staff gathered again for Lizzy's return call. Lizzy got an enthusiastic ovation from her Food & Water Watch fans and we got to know more about how the winning YouTube video came to be.

F&WW: How did the contest affect your relationship to tap water?

Lizzy: Through the research and work I did on my video I have completely changed my view on bottled water. I used to think it might be alright if I bought a bottle of water as long as I re-used it, but now I know that even that is harmful. I have come to realize that people waste way too much money on a product with almost no benefits.

F&WW: With all you've learned, will you be inviting your friends to Take Back the Tap?

Lizzy: I've shared my video with a lot of my friends and I am proud to say that it has changed a lot of their minds. Most of the time they are completely surprised to learn about the differences between bottled and tap water, especially about the testing regulations. I encourage everyone to drink tap water as much as I can.

F&WW: Tell us about your production process and how you came to animate your video:

Lizzy: I animated my video because I think it is easier for people to listen to a message if it is simple and fun to watch. I have a lot of fun doing stop-motion and I am always inspired by other artists like PES Jan Svankmajer. For this animation I collected water bottles from recycling bins and rescued them from the trash as well. As with any stop-motion I do, I made a small set and photographed each frame of the video. The song is something I created from a friends voice that I thought fit well with the video.

F&WW: Is there anything you want to share with other college students?

Lizzy: I think it is so important to do every little thing that we can to work toward a clean and safe environment. Even if that means making a little extra effort to remember to bring a re-usable water bottle with you. There really are a lot of myths surrounding bottled water and it's time we dispel them. Thank you so much again for choosing my video.

Actually, Lizzy, the thanks go to you for creating your engaging and inspiring video.  Be sure to check it out on YouTube. Don't forget to leave Lizzy 5 stars and a comment appreciating her for her excellent work.

If you were running out of ideas about how to get free money, maybe this will help. We recently read in an article that a Canadian man was awarded $340,000 for finding a fly in his bottled water. Kind of like finding the golden ticket, right?  Except that apparently the lucky guy, Waddah Mustapha, feels that seeing the fly has pretty much ruined his life. Oops.

According to one article, Mustapha and his pregnant wife vomited upon seeing the fly. Mustapha went on to develop severe depression and a phobia of water.  He can’t shower anymore, he can’t drink water. He even lost his sense of humor. (It couldn’t have been that robust to begin with.)

(And while it is certainly unacceptable and unappetizing to have dead animals of any kind in our beverages, it’s worth realizing that all water, even the purest mountain spring water bottled at the source, came out of the ground. And the dirt. And, well, the bugs.)

While the case was later overturned, the decision was made to award Mustapha the money because “the nature of bottled water is to assure ‘purity and cleanliness’ and thus psychiatric injury from finding a bug floating in it was foreseeable.”

What they must not have brought to the trial was any actual information about bottled water. What Mr. Mustapha might be surprised (and nauseated, and depressed) to hear is that bottled water is no cleaner or safer than tap water—in many cases, less so. While the EPA, which regulates tap water, requires testing hundreds of times each month, the FDA literally has one eye watching over bottled water—less than one full-time employee is responsible for its testing, which happens once a week. When tests do happen, bottled water has not passed with flying colors. A study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council to test 103 different bottled water brands found bacterial or chemical contamination at levels violating “enforceable state standards or warning levels” in about 25% of the brands, and nearly a fifth of tested brands “exceeded state bottled water microbial guidelines in at least some samples.” Some of the chemicals bottled water is likely to contain include DEHP, a type of phthalate that can leach into water from—you guessed it—plastic; and bromate, a possible human carcinogen that can be created in the purification process.

In all honesty, though, Mr. Mustapha’s fears, bogus or not, are not totally off-base. With an aging public water infrastructure and an ever-increasing list of contaminants and pharmaceuticals in our drinking supply, we should take a second to think about what we are drinking. So the impulse to look to bottled water for purity is an understandable one. What consumers need to know, though, is that bottled water is not really a solution to the problems. Since up to 40% of bottled water is tap water anyway, and, as noted above, we have no real guarantee of its cleanliness, the health argument is out. In addition, bottled water companies often create problems for communities by depleting their water supplies. And that’s only the beginning of the long list of environmental reasons to forgo those convenient little bottles. Take, for instance, the 17 million barrels of oil used each year just to produce plastic bottles for water. And though they are recyclable, that doesn’t mean they are recycled; 86% end up in landfills. And even if you aren’t concerned about the environment, most all of us are concerned about our own wallets, which, when we buy bottled, are shelling out hundreds or even thousands of times what we’d pay for tap water. You can read more in our report, Take Back the Tap.

So what is the solution, then?  Food & Water Watch recommends that we urge members of Congress to support a clean water trust fund—a permanent source of funding for maintaining the water systems of our communities. When tap water has problems, we shouldn’t simply put our heads in the sand, trusting that this water is much cleaner just because someone poured it in a bottle and slapped on a picture of mountains. We need to begin funding our public water infrastructure, so that clean water is available to all. Then no one has to be afraid of taking a shower.

And, clearly, so do you.

We are overwhelmed and exhilarated by the entries to the I Heart Tap Water contest. Videos were –– well –– pouring in over the last week of the contest. It was easy to tell whenever staff were screening videos by the laughing heard up and down our office halls. The hard work, creativity, and comic timing, and expertise developed on the subject of taking back the tap by our video directors has been impressive. 

We are pleased to present our finalists:

Winners will be announced for Earth Day.

Creative Commons Licensed Flickr Photo
Originally uploaded by [phil h].

Looks like there may be a new trend hitting catwalks…designer reusable water bottles. Stella McCartney, Diane Von Furstenberg, Zac Posen, Michael Kors are just some of the designers teaming up with global warming activist Laurie David and Elle magazine for their May Green issue. Fifteen designers decorated eco–friendly reusable aluminum beverage bottles by the Swiss company SIGG to be auctioned online starting April 14th for ten days with proceeds benefiting David's organization, StopGlobalWarming.org.

You may be asking how are water bottles and global warming connected? It turns out the production and transport of bottled water products causes pollution that contributes to global warming. Each year plastic bottle production in the United States takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil that more or less equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles on U.S. roads each year.

After the plastic bottles are produced, they are transported oftentimes thousands of miles which produces even more pollution. And in the end, about 86 percent of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the garbage instead of being recycled, and are ultimately incinerated which releases toxic byproducts. 

Using reusable bottles for tap water is just one piece of the puzzle in helping slow climate change, but at least it’s a place to start. You can look good and do good at the same time…now that’s fierce fashion statement!

Creative Commons Licensed Flickr Photo
Originally uploaded by Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan.

Farmer Bill Timmins may sound over–the–top when it comes to caring for his dairy cows, but he says he’s just doing good business. Timmins invested $800,000 in revamping his dairy farm, and spent $70,000 on installing waterbeds for his cows…yes, waterbeds. The reason? Happy cows produce more milk. In fact since making these cushy improvements, his cows have gained 10 lbs of milk per cow per day. According to Donald Sanders, DVM at Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, happy cows live longer, produce the most milk, and are healthier than other cows.

Perhaps this could be a great alternative to let’s say…rBGH or bovine growth hormone. This hormone, manufactured by Monsanto, causes health problems in cows and increases antibiotic use on dairies. While the effect on humans consuming rBGH milk is not clear, studies suggest that rBGH increases another chemical that is linked to increased cancer risk. As a result, most industrialized countries in the world have banned the hormone, including Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and all 27 countries in the European Union.

Consumers are becoming more aware of the potential health risks of rBGH and are demanding clear labeling of milk that is rBGH–free. Monsanto is catching on, and is now behind a series of state–by–state legislative disputes and is pushing to make this labeling illegal (you can fight this in your state by writing a letter to your governor here). 

This year, the hopeful month of April brings one more reason to be optimistic. New out on the shelves as of the first of this month is the updated version of the classic 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. And among suggestions for cutting back on energy use, buying organic, and voting “green” is nestled a two-page spread about what you can do to help ensure clean water for all Americans.

Among the suggestions for action are forgoing bottled water, as part of Food & Water Watch’s “Take Back the Tap” campaign, and contacting your legislators to urge support for a Clean Water Trust Fund to ensure a working water system for all Americans.

The book features Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter telling it straight: “If we don’t get control of our crumbling infrastructure, we’re going to time-travel back 200 years when people got dysentery and cholera from their water.” But it doesn’t stop at pointing out the problem; author John Javna offers several tips—and yes, they are simple—for starting a change right now.  This book’s readers can jump right into some of Food & Water Watch’s crucial campaigns—helping to make sure that they’ll be able to jump into their local body of water, too.

During the last year and a half, we have been overloaded with non–stop reminders about numerous imported seafood safety problems. This opened consumers' eyes to the fact that the majority of the seafood that we eat is imported from Asia and Latin America, regions that have potentially unsafe production practices. Claiming to have discovered the solution to U.S. reliance on imported seafood, NOAA and the Bush administration are promoting legislation that would allow federal ocean waters to be leased out for industrial fish farming (aka offshore aquaculture, open water aquaculture, or open ocean aquaculture).

Offshore aquaculture involves cramming thousands of potentially high-value fish, such as cobia and cod, into large cages in U.S. federal waters –– between three and 200 miles from shore. These ocean equivalents of the land-based factory farms that jam together thousands of pigs, chickens, and cows could threaten the marine environment, human health, wild fish populations, and local fishermen and coastal communities.

Such operations can pollute the surrounding marine environment with fish waste, excess fish feed, and chemicals. Cramped conditions that cause higher stress than in the wild can make farmed fish prone to diseases and parasites, which would likely be treated with antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals. Both the diseases and chemicals can be transmitted to wild fish through the open net pens. Wild fish populations can also be harmed when farmed fish escape from their pens and compete for resources or interbreed and weaken the wild genetic stock.

Not only is the push for offshore aquaculture reckless, its purported benefits are highly questionable. The administration’s campaign for ocean fish farming is blind to the current trends in the global seafood trade. Our country exports more than 70 percent of its high-quality wild-caught and farmed seafood, while importing cheaper seafood from countries such as China and Thailand, which have spotty food safety records. Meanwhile, Japan and Europe have high seafood safety standards and receive nearly half of U.S. exports. Makes a lot of sense, huh?

Things You Need to Know

• Only 19 percent of the seafood available to U.S. consumers is from this country because the U.S. exports 71 percent of U.S.-produced seafood.
• If we did not export U.S.-caught and farmed seafood, 66 percent of the seafood available to U.S. consumers would be from the good old U.S. of A.
• About 17 percent of the seafood available to U.S. consumers is from China and about 12 percent is from Thailand.
• We export 20 percent of U.S.-caught seafood to Europe and 13 percent to Japan where seafood safety standards are high.
• We export 69 percent of U.S.-caught salmon. Only 20 percent of the salmon available to U.S. consumers is from the United States, while about 36 percent is farmed salmon from Chile, where food safety and labor standards are questionable.
• We export 12 percent of U.S.-caught seafood to China, the world’s center of seafood processing for re-export back to the United States.
• Nearly 15 percent of U.S. wild salmon is shipped to China, where it is processed and shipped back to the United States. We export about 45,000 metric tons of unprocessed wild salmon to China. We then import close to 52,000 metric tons of processed salmon back from China.
• We ship 12 percent of U.S. cod to China where it is processed and then sent back to the United States.
• The United States has lost about 13 percent of its seafood processing and canning jobs in the past decade.
• Hypothetically, assuming current seafood trade patterns and consumption remain constant, the United States would have to produce about 36 billion pounds of seafood through ocean farming in order to offset the 10.6 billion pounds of imports that are consumed domestically.

Curious? Find out more in our new report, Fish Story. To make your trip to the seafood counter a bit easier, carry our Smart Seafood Guide with you. Remember to ask about your seafood’s country of origin, too.

Students across the country are choosing bottled water over tap water...APRIL FOOL’S!! The truth? This April Fool’s Day students from across the country are choosing not to be fooled by bottled water by entering our celebrity-judged I Heart Tap Water student video contest. Some of the judges include the actor Alec Baldwin (no joke!), two award–winning documentary filmmakers, an Emmy Award–nominated producer for National Geographic, and an Emmy Award–winning television producer.

And to help inspire those future successful filmmakers –– and just in time for the day of pranks –– Food & Water Watch produced a new video called “Don’t Be Fooled By Bottled Water,” with Food & Water Watch staff fooling people on the street into thinking they are drinking a new brand of bottled water when in actuality they are drinking water from the tap. Many people found out that tap water tastes just as good, if not better, than most bottled water, and furthermore, tap water is better for their health, their pocketbooks, and the environment.

To see other videos and to get more information on the contest visit our new Take Back the Tap website. Remember there are only two weeks left in the I Heart Tap Water contest! Submissions for the contest will be accepted until 11:59 am EST on April 14, 2008, and the winner of the contest will be announced on Earth Day, April 22nd.

On Friday, the AP published an article about the USDA’s plan to announce the “retail consignees” of recalled meat and poultry products –– the stores where they were sold. This rule has been in the works for nearly two years, and has been held up by pressure from the food industry. Finally, after all this time, the information may be made available so consumers can figure out, without having to dig in the freezer and scour packaging for tiny numbers on a tiny seal, whether the meat they’ve bought is part of a recall.

That is, if the problem causing the recall is deemed serious enough by the experts at USDA. For instance, the potentially Mad Cow-infected beef involved in the largest recall in U.S. history would not have been covered under this new proposal. Because the agency deemed this situation a “Class II” recall, their new policy would not apply –– meaning you’re not allowed to know which retailers sold it.

The problem is, USDA has watered down the rule to the point where this information would only be released for some recalls, based on a system they’ve constructed of “recall classes.”  Under this new rule, a Class I recall merits giving the public all the available information, but classes II and III do not. Unfortunately, the decision–making process for what class a particular recall will fall into is still a bit mysterious; if USDA decides it’s not likely you’ll die from the problem sparking the recall, they can slot a recall into a lower class. But don’t you want to know where you might have bought any recalled goods –– even if you will probably live through it?

More importantly, the decision about telling consumers where recalled products were sold shouldn’t be left up to USDA.  After all, all these items have been recalled. If it was serious enough for a recall, isn’t it serious enough to let consumers get all the information they need to actually avoid the product?

Instead of propping up their feet and soaking in the sun for spring break, some dedicated college students braved the chilly Washington, DC weather to do some good for world water.

The next generation of water activists visited the capital last weekend for the World Water Day Summit –– a three–day event drawing over a hundred college students to learn about world water issues and advocate for solutions in the United States. Food & Water Watch helped sponsor the event and hosted a Clean Water Lobbying Day and Grassroots Advocacy Day where students learned about lobbying and grassroots organizing.

World Water Day grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development to draw attention to the critical lack of clean and affordable water worldwide. Students participating in the World Water Day events saw this as an opportunity to urge their Members of Congress to keep water a public resource and human right by investing in the nation’s water infrastructure and creating a clean water trust fund.

Paul Kostuck (pictured), a student from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, visited the office of Congresswoman Moore to ask her for her support of a trust fund that would provide funding for needed water infrastructure projects in Milwaukee and across the country.

“Water security is a very broad issue that affects everyone. I got involved when I took a class on international water issues at Marquette, and learned about some of the water conflicts worldwide. Water should be safe, clean, and affordable for everyone, and I think that change can begin here.”

– Paul Kostuck

If you’re interested in getting students on your campus involved in our water campaign, check out Take Back the Tap.

Orange County, NY is one of the few areas in the country where some growers earn their farm income exclusively from onion crops. The black soil there, which enriches onions with their characteristic pungent flavor and odor, is particularly well suited to the crop.

Despite the soil’s predisposition to onion cultivation, most of the area’s onion farmers have gone out of business in the past 15 years. While the price of running a farm has risen steadily, the price that growers earn for their onions has not.

Cheap imports have played a role in keeping American farmers from receiving a fair price for their onions. Total fresh onion imports have been increasing steadily since the 1990s. Between 1990 and 2006, edible onion imports have grown by 71 percent. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that they will increase by another 32 percent in 2007. In that overall context, imports of onions and other vegetables from Peru have been increasing under current trade agreements. Peru’s exports to the United States have skyrocketed from 365 thousand pounds in 1994 to 122 million pounds in 2006.  In 2007, Congress has been considering a Free Trade Agreement with Peru that would further open our doors to cheap imports and, as a result, could send onion prices plummeting. Indeed, in early November 2007, the House of Representatives voted to approve the free trade deal with Peru. The Senate is expected to approve the agreement, as well.

Even The Packer, a produce industry publication, has raised concerns about Peruvian onion imports. It reports that both Peru and Ecuador glutted the onion market this fall with higher-than-expected yields and have pushed prices down from the $21 to $22 range for a 40-pound carton to a range of $10 to $12. The change in the market has hurt farmers who had no way of knowing they would have to produce more than usual in order to earn a decent profit.

As imports have increased, U.S. onion acreage has dwindled. Between 1997 and 2002, the harvested dry onion acreage in New York State decreased by 16 percent. Orange County, the number of harvested farms and the number of harvested acres has decreased by almost 50 percent.

Consumers cannot always recognize this difference when they choose onions at the supermarket. Be a smart shopper and combat crops in crisis with your fork.

1. Buy smart – Purchase food that is produced on small, local farms rather than large industrial operations, and choose organic over conventional foods.
2. Be label savvy – Demand Country of Origin Labeling for food so you know where it comes from.
   
3. Be in the know – Sign up for our e-mail lists to stay plugged into food issues that affect your dinner and your planet.

It was two in the morning when the hospice nurse knocked at our door. My father had died a little over an hour earlier but she was coming, as required by law, to dispose of the painkillers that had been prescribed to him. She gathered all the drugs and poured the morphine down the drain.  

It's some years later and AP has released its own report sounding the alarm about the safety of our drinking water. Our water supply is substituting as a toxic waste dump for pharmaceuticals. AP estimates that at least 41 million Americans may be getting water that includes tiny concentrations of antibiotics, anti–convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones. Currently, there are no federal laws regulating the presence of these drugs and, according to AP's report, the EPA knows of no sewage treatment systems designed to remove them. In addition, the chlorine we add to our water can increase the toxicity of these pharmaceuticals.

It's a wake-up call –– just in time. With bottled water being no safer AND less tested, we have to protect our precious water supply from the disposal of medications. Pharmaceutical companies must be accountable for safely disposing of unused prescriptions.  And we need to take action to support our water infrastructure.  

To the consumer, our advice is the same. Avoid bottled water, drink the water from your public utility and get informed about how to protect it. Find more incentives to take back the tap in our report Take Back the Tap: Why Choosing Tap Water Over Bottled Water is Better for Your Health, Your Pocketbook, and the Environment.

Our water is a public responsibility and that's why Food & Water Watch is working to get a steady and reliable source of funding to keep our water clean and make it safe for our communities. Find out how your state would benefit from the establishment of a clean water trust fund in Clear Waters: Why America Needs a Clean Water Trust Fund.

Finally, help protect our water, sign the petition for a trust fund today.

Welcome to Issue 27 of SnackCast.

This week, Maude Barlow, one of the world's leading water activists and author of the new book Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, visited Washington, DC to urge Americans to take action for water conservation, water justice, and water democracy. Food & Water Watch is sponsoring Barlow's national book tour and recently hosted an event to discuss some of the issues covered in her book. This week's podcast includes some highlights from Barlow's speech, as well as solutions to how the world can survive a global water crisis.

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Another one bites the dust! On March 1st, the city of Stockton, California regained control of its water and sewer utilities after five years of protests and legal battles. The $600 million, 20–year contract with OMI–Thames Water was one of the largest –– and most notorious –– water contracts in the United States. Soon after the company took over the water utility in 2003, numerous problems started occurring such as rate increases higher than promised, increased sewer overflows (major YUCK factor), and poor maintenance of infrastructure. No wonder a group of Stockton citizens got together to fight off this behemoth!

And Stockton isn’t the only city rejecting private control of their water. Recently, a number of cities have started to break ties with their private water provider and instead opt for public ownership of their water services. Places like Cave Creek and Scottsdale, Arizona, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Orcas Island communities in Washington have all found that privatization is not the solution to improving their water woes. Instead, many of them have experienced poor service and increased water rates –– something that is unfortunately common in private takeovers.

However, more and more communities are starting to take action against this consumer rip–off, and are aiming to join the ranks with the 86 percent of Americans who receive their water from public utilities. After all, we have an essential right to safe, affordable water –– a right that should never be subject to interference by private corporations.

Ever wonder how much of California's water is being bottled and sold by water corporations? Assembly Bill 2275, recently introduced in the California legislature, would require companies to disclose how much water they are taking for private profit and label where the water is coming from. If you are a California resident, you can help us pass the bill by contacting your assembly member.

In an era of climate change and increasing scarcity of clean water, Food & Water Watch is working to protect our water as a public trust. Shouldn't we be able to know from where and how much of it is being bottled by Nestle, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and others for the benefit of their shareholders?

More than 600 people have already told their Congress member to support the Water for the World resolution. If have not already added your voice please do so today. Help us break the 1000 mark!

On February 29, Food & Water Watch will sponsor a congressional briefing to get Congress to pay attention to the global water crisis. We are using this opportunity to highlight the Water for the World Resolution introduced by Rep. Schakowsky in December 2007.

No one can survive without water, but today as many as 1.4 billion people struggle daily without access to an adequate water supply and 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation.

The resolution addresses the global water crisis and prioritizes communities currently without reliable access to this vital resource. Water is a fundamental human right, and access to water can mean the difference between life and death, sickness and health, cyclical poverty and economic development.

This is your chance to make a difference.