Americans Encouraged to Keep a Blue Covenant

Americans Encouraged to Keep a Blue Covenant

Author of New Book and Consumer Group Encourage Citizens to Act Now to Protect America’s Water

San Diego, CA –– Maude Barlow, the author of a new book on the political struggle surrounding the world’s dwindling water supplies, kicked off a national speaking tour sponsored by Food & Water Watch, a national consumer group, to urge Americans to take action for water conservation, water justice, and water democracy. At the first event to discuss Barlow’s Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, Barlow and Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch urged residents of San Diego to break the bottled water habit, support a trust fund for public water, and support water conservation instead of misguided water technologies like desalination.

Barlow and Hauter make a persuasive case that the world is at a crossroads on an issue that is as much as a threat to our future as global warming. Choices made by the United States and other nations will have a profound impact on the world we and our children will live in.

“Desalination plants will ring the world’s oceans, many of them run by nuclear power; corporate nanotechnology will clean up sewage water and sell it to private utilities who will sell it back to us at a huge profit; the rich will drink only bottled water found in the few remote parts of the world left or sucked from the clouds by machines, while the poor die in increasing numbers. This is not science fiction. This is where the world is headed unless we change course,” explained Barlow.

Throughout the tour, Barlow will challenge people to take personal and political action to protect the world's water –– starting with breaking the bottled water habit. Last year, Food & Water Watch published a report charging that consumers waste billions of dollars a year on billions of gallons of bottled water in large part because advertising spin has led them to believe that water in a bottle is safer or better than tap water. But Hauter points out that no government agency is testing bottled water — less than a full time person at the Food & Drug Administration is devoted to overseeing the bottled water industry. "Bottled water can cost consumers 1000 times more than tap water and funnels the profits from the sale of water, a public resource, to private companies," said Hauter.

Food & Water Watch argues that what the United States needs is a dedicated source of funding for its aging and inadequate water pipes and treatment plants. The EPA recently estimated that the United States needs $202.5 billion to do the minimum level of maintenance for the infrastructure that supports our homes and businesses and keeps our water safe. As it stands, an astounding 1.26 trillion gallons of gallons of untreated water, filth, chemicals and bacteria end up in our rivers and other water bodies every year, threatening the environment and the public’s health. Unfortunately, the federal government is providing less support for clean water than ever.

"The growing funding gap is taking a serious toll on states and communities, many of which face sizable and growing backlogs of clean water projects," said Hauter. "Water is a public trust. It is time for a water trust fund, a long-term solution to provide all U.S. communities safe and affordable water for the future — not just those that can afford sharp rate increases.”

In the United States, 86 percent of people get their household drinking water from a public utility and 98 percent get wastewater services from a public utility. But public utilities are struggling financially to meet federal clean water standards and to maintain and modernize water systems. Water corporations, members of Congress, and some local politicians are promoting private companies as the answer.

"Communities that have experimented with privatization have not found that it solves their water woes," said Hauter. "They generally experience higher rates, water quality problems, poorer customer service, and a host of other problems."

Barlow is especially concerned about a costly and energy-intensive process that is being hailed as the solution to water supply problems –– ocean desalination. Proponents of desalination claim that, by converting seawater into drinking water, they create a reliable, long-term water supply and decrease pressure on other over-drawn water sources. "Any close examination of this technology reveals major environmental and human health hazards," declares Barlow. "Desalination provides a new opportunity for private corporations to own and sell water and has the potential to create more problems than it solves."

For a complete list of Blue Covenant tour events including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Washington DC, see: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/book-tour