Welcome to Issue 18 of SnackCast.

Next week The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will discuss their plan to streamline the permitting and regulation of open-ocean fish farming. Food & Water Watch, as well as other fishing and conservation groups, talk about how the Gulf Council's proposal could lead to environmental and economic disaster in the region.

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Three little news items from this week to inform and amuse:

1. That "offshore aquaculture in Gulf of Mexico 'may yield economic distress"'" won't surprise you if you've been following our work on the issue.

2. What might is that law enforcement has been enlisted to recapture escaped culinary (though not biological) relatives of farmed fish as we discovered in the same issue of FishUpdate.com where we found our news story above. Saucy crayfish.

3. A compromise on the before-mentioned controversy over allowing interstate shipment of state inspected meat has been announced and would be a victory for producers and consumers alike.  Read the coalition press statement and letter here.

At least that seems like the current situation in the Southeast, where states are facing one of the most severe droughts in history. Many government officials are declaring a state of emergency, and are encouraging residents to limit their water consumption - from taking shorter showers (Governor Sonny Perdue of Georgia has even declared October “Take a Shorter Shower Month”) to not watering their lawns.

Some mayors have even considered raising water rates to further reduce water usage. According to an Atlanta Business Chronicle article, Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin is currently deciding whether to raise rates on irrigation meters (meters that measure outdoor water use on homes) by as much as 100 percent. And some officials are talking about one option that would be would be economically and environmentally damaging: desalination.

Desalination is a process that converts seawater into distilled, drinkable water.  After all, water covers about 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, so we would never run out of water….right?

Although this may seem like a good solution, desalination comes at a high cost that outweighs its potential benefits––literally. It’s the most expensive form of “fresh” water––it costs anywhere from three to ten times more than freshwater sources due to the high price of construction and maintenance of the plants.

Desalination also harms marine ecosystems, promotes unsound coastal zone management, wastes energy, and impacts human health (check out Food & Water Watch’s “Top 10” list of why desalination is so bad).  For example, a number of proposed desalination plants are to be built in estuaries, which are sensitive breeding grounds for aquatic life and the nurseries for young fish. In addition, toxic discharges of highly concentrated brine (water highly concentrated with salt) into the ocean can destroy sensitive marine habitat.

Desalination is just a way to put a thumb in the dike with the growing water supply problem. Instead, officials should focus on better water management practices, such as water conservation and recycling, which get to the root of the problem.

If it’s yellow….well, you know the rest.

        - Erin Greenfield
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Welcome to Issue 17 of SnackCast.

The month of October is known around the world as Blue October –– an international month of action to protect water, a shared natural resource available to all. In this issue we discuss Blue October activities around the world, including a fight against privatization in El Salvador that has led to an international mobilization effort for human rights. Pedro Juan Hernandez, a leader for social justice in El Salvador, visited Food & Water Watch this week to discuss this issue. In the United States, Blue October has been a victorious month for clean and safe water, and we'll discuss some recent victories that happened this week across the country.

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Water News Wednesday
This week has been a very good week for water. Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution that recognizes clean water as a national priority, and today Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation that requires water bottlers to provide essential water quality information to consumers. Considering that the 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act is tomorrow, October 18th, it looks like we’re heading on the right path for clean and safe water for all.

The resolution passed last night celebrates the progress made since the passage of the Clean Water Act, yet acknowledges the funding crisis our clean water infrastructure is currently facing. We’re glad that Congress stepped up to the plate on this important issue, but as we highlighted in our recent report on clean water infrastructure, what Congress really needs to do is move funding for water out of the contentious appropriations cycle and ensure stable funding for future generations through a clean water trust fund. A clean water trust fund would provide a steady, reliable, and equitable source of funding for needed infrastructure investment across the country. (Find out if your Representative is a clean water leader and say thanks to those who are here!)

On the state level, it looks like California is cracking down on the bottled water industry. As mentioned in an article by Susan Wheeler at WaterTechOnline, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a state senate bill that requires the name and contact information for the bottler or brand owner, in addition to the source of the water, be printed on the bottle label. This will give consumers the opportunity to make informed decisions when purchasing bottled water (considering 40% of bottled water is really just tap water!) The bill will also increase the annual license fee for a water-vending machine from $10.25 to $40.

Although the bill won’t take effect until January 1, 2009, the timing couldn’t have been better. This month we should acknowledge the important steps taken since 1972, and focus on what our government officials need to do to ensure America has clean and safe water for the next thirty-five years and beyond.

- Erin Greenfield
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Drive a hundred miles away from Chicago, Illinois and you could easily find yourself in another state.  Conscientious supporters of local food trying to adhere to a 100 mile diet could easily find themselves buying from small farmers in Wisconsin, Ohio, or Michigan.  It seems crazy then that those farmers couldn't ship their meat into Chicago. But if the meat was processed by a plant that was inspected by state employees (instead of USDA inspectors) it cannot be sold across state lines.  And these frequently smaller state-inspected plans are often used by independent, small farmers.  Conundrum, no?

Enter Congress, the 2007 Farm Bill, and big, big controversy in the sustainable ag community.

Food & Water Watch has fought for years for stronger food safety standards, especially federal meat inspection.  We understand the obstacles that small livestock producers face in getting their animals to market and don’t want food safety rules to favor large companies over the little guy.  And like most people examining the current state of our food supply, we think it’s obvious that consumers would be better off if more sustainable, independent livestock producers could get their products into more markets.

BUT… we don’t support the measure in the farm bill to allow meat from plants that are inspected by state governments instead of the USDA to cross state lines.  Why?  Because as the language stands right now it would do far more damage than good.  There are several specific things in the bill that go way overboard and put consumer safety at risk:

•  The bill covers much more than “small” plants.  The bill would allow any meat plant with up to 50 employees under state inspection to ship its products across state lines.  This means that 80 percent of plants currently under USDA inspection could switch to state inspection.  Instead of creating a system for truly small producers and processors to have access to the marketplace, this proposal could radically change food safety requirements for 80 percent of the industry.
• The bill would let meat plants switch back and forth between state and federal inspection every 4 years.  Besides creating a logistical (and funding) nightmare for both the states and the feds, this opens the door for meat companies to “shop around” for more sympathetic regulators if they are having quality or safety problems.
• Not all state inspection programs are created equal – and not all of them are equal to USDA inspection.  Federal courts and investigators at the USDA have documented problems in several state programs that amount to their inspection being weaker than USDA's.  But rather than require each state to be evaluated individually to see if it is up to snuff, this bill would make all of them eligible for interstate shipment at the same time.

We need to find ways for small meat plants and the sustainable livestock producers they serve to get into more markets.  A great start would be by making sure that USDA had enough inspectors to get to every plant that needs inspection by filling vacant positions that have plagued the agency for years and possibly working cooperatively with states to use state employees to enforce federal standards (a wonky, but important, distinction from the farm bill proposal.)

The language in the farm bill might be well-intentioned, but it doesn’t get it right.  Tell them so here.

Welcome to Issue 16 of SnackCast.

Food recalls have been making headlines in the past two weeks –– specifically the ground beef recall from Topps Meat Company –– bringing into question the vulnerability of our food supply. This week we are joined by Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food & Water Watch, who will discuss our nation’s food safety and the weaknesses in our food system that led to the Topps Meat Company recall.

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Today is the day! The National Call-in Day for Clean Water. If you've already called your Member of Congress, thank you. If you haven't had a chance yet, please take one minute right now to help us flood Congress with calls demanding clean water for all. (No worries if you are reading this after the 11th; call anyway.)

Special interests have targeted water, our most precious resource, as a new profit center—the oil of the 21st century.  On the 35th anniversary of the historic Clean Water Act, it's time to stand up and make sure everyone has access to clean, safe and affordable water.

As early as next week, Congress will vote on whether to support clean, affordable water for future generations, and they need to hear from you.

What happens to a nation's farmers when the amount of imported food doubles within 10 years? In the United States, the value of agricultural products coming from overseas soared from $30 billion in 1995 to $60 billion last year.

Larry Thompson’s family has grown strawberries in Boring, Oregon since 1947, when “five acres was all you needed to make a living.”  Today, imports from Mexico and Chile make turning a profit more difficult.

Last year, $220 million worth of strawberries were imported into the United States, and only $1.5 million were grown domestically. The low wages paid to farm workers abroad make imported berries cheaper. Thompson used to sell his berries to processors, but now with prices so low, he only sells directly to the public.

To grow strawberries today, “you have to love it,” says Thompson, who now works seven days or 96 hours a week to keep up.  Many farmers have given up the crop all together. If this trend continues, Oregonians could lose all access to local berries.

Food & Water Watch regularly profiles crops in crisis on our website and in our Food Alert newsletter.  To find out what you can do to protect local food, sign up for our email lists and tell Congress to expand country-of-origin-labeling.

Welcome to Issue 15 of SnackCast.

Did you realize that America needs a clean water trust fund?

On October 2nd, Food & Water Watch released a new report – Clear Waters: Why America Needs a Clean Water Trust Fund – detailing the funding crisis states are facing in maintaining a clean water infrastructure. This week's podcast includes some of the report's findings, as well as highlights from a press conference for the report. Representative Blumenauer (D-OR) and Food & Water Watch Executive Director, Wenonah Hauter, are just a couple of the speakers featured from the event. Tune in to find out who else was there.

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Today, Food & Water Watch released our latest report in honor of the 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. A dozen adorable kids and their parents joined Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter, Peter Raabe of American Rivers, and Ken Kirk of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, on Capitol Hill today to release the new report. The children donned shirts that read, “I Wanna Be a Clean Water Trust Fund Baby!”

Clear Waters: Why America Needs a Clean Water Trust Fund, is one way we are raising the profile of our nation’s clean water infrastructure needs. The report documents the need for a federal trust fund in order to protect America’s water resources. You can download a free copy of the report, including a fact sheet on the state you live in.

Wastewater infrastructure is essential to keeping our communities livable, lifestyles possible, and industries viable. However, some of our sewer systems are more than 100 years old, and the pipes under our homes and streets are deteriorating at a rapid rate. States and communities rely on funding from the federal government to keep their systems working, but federal spending on clean water has shrunk by two-thirds since 1991.

Now facing substantial project backlogs, states and communities must struggle to make due as old pipes fail, releasing more than one trillion gallons of untreated sewage every year, polluting our environment, and closing record numbers of beaches. The report details this and other consequences of funding shortfalls for each state in the nation.

In order to meet the standards of the Clean Water Act and ensure the future of clean water in the United States, we need a clean water trust fund that safeguards federal funding for water infrastructure from the politicized appropriations process. A clean water trust fund would provide a steady, reliable, and equitable source of funding for needed projects across the country.

Read about this and more in the latest issue of Currents. And be sure to check out more photos from the event on flickr.