Entries For: December 2008

It's not easy to carol gaily on dark and rainy days… except when it’s for something meaningful: a demonstration to ban bottled water and the waste it creates.  Yes, the biting sting of that cold December day at Penn State University subsided long enough to allow us to sing until the school's administration heard us!

In a matter of weeks and with the generous cooperation of members of Penn State 3E-COE (Ecology, Environment and Education in the College of Education), Penn State Eco-Action, and the help of professors and Penn State staff, we were able to organize dozens of people who all had the same hope: a campus that would generate less needless waste.

Volunteers preparing for this demonstration strung together hundreds of plastic water bottles like a holiday garland.  We arranged them to form the word “NO” so that everyone passing through Old Main – the beautiful administration building that houses not only the university president’s office but also the dreams of students and administrators from the past – had the opportunity to appreciate our work of art.  

After reading a letter we wrote to Penn State President Graham Spanier asking him to cut the sale of bottled water, we sung three environmental songs written to the tune of holiday carols. One administrator joined us in singing:

“I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,

But global warming melts the snow.

And science is finding

The temperature’s climbing.

December's hotter than J. Lo!”

He joked that the president should ban water bottles, if only to keep us from singing outside.  Soon, we were welcomed into President Spanier’s office, where we left a letter urging him to ban the sale of water bottles. In case he wanted to recreate our cheer, we left a sheet with song lyrics behind as well.

It was amazing that so many people were willing to take a break during the last week of classes to support a cause larger than themselves. The energy has lasted beyond that day, however.  We are planning to meet with administrators next semester to discuss strategies to make Penn State more environmentally friendly.  Some seeds of hope have been planted, and we look forward to seeing the beautiful blossoms that hope can yield.

Alex D’Urso is a grad student in Education at Penn State University.  She is one of the co-founders of Penn State 3E-COE.

Since it’s that time of year to spread the holiday cheer,
What better way than to reproach FDA for having food safety regs disappear.
From melamine to mercury, consumers are kept on their toes,
About what next food will be contaminated with what? Who knows?!
Now is the time to give FDA a gift to remind them of what they let pass,
Through to the market, to grocery shelves, and onto consumers’ plates, alas!
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After a year of what could be described as one of the worst in terms of food safety debacles, we felt inspired to not only rhyme, but also think about what we would give to FDA as a holiday gift – if we could. A food gift basket would be appropriate, especially because of all the “goodies” we could choose from this year alone.  Cookies contaminated with melamine? Check. Jalapeños and peppers from Mexico? Check. And thanks to the latest news about fish with mercury, how about some canned tuna? Check!
Come to think of it, we could put together an entire holiday meal from all of the treats we could put in our basket. Now there’s a thought! Let’s take it from the top…

First off, we need hors d’ouevres. Listeria-style cheese and crackers should be a good way to kick off a meal. Once that’s been digested, then of course it’ll be time for a good salad… made with irradiated iceberg lettuce.
Now, on to the entrées! We could include in the basket some ground beef made from cloned cows, so that FDA can grill some burgers in their backyard. They could even sprinkle on some bacteriophages, just to spice things up a bit.

Make sure that beef has been treated with carbon monoxide! Otherwise people might actually begin to suspect that the meat is really twelve weeks old. If the burger seems a little bare, you can always include in the basket a jar of salmonella-laced jalapeños, for good measure.

For the seafood lovers out there, we can prepare a mercury-spiked tuna casserole from the canned tuna we mentioned earlier. And for anyone who’s still hungry after all that, then maybe we could add in some ready-made pork chops made from pigs treated with cephalosporin. After all, FDA seems to have forgotten that they themselves deemed such antibiotics a “public health risk” last July.

For dessert? Some melamine-enriched cookies should be easy to find – after all, they did find some on New York shelves just last week. And for the kids? Well, there are always bottles of baby formula, tainted with BPA. Voila! FDA, your meal is served. 

The list of FDA failings unfortunately goes on…
If you could add to our gift basket, what would you send?

- Erin Greenfield and Sofía Baliño

FLOW the Film and Water Action Workshop Celebrate Taking Back the Tap in Portland, Maine

A few Saturdays ago, water-conscious folks turned out to the movies for a world tour of our planet’s deepest crisis – water.  FLOW: For Love of Water has been screening in cities coast-to-coast, and this month Portland residents caught the eye-opening film at Movie at Exchange.  The evening showing was followed by a Q&A session with City Councilor Dave Marshall; Bowdoin Campus Coordinator Abriel Ferreira; SOH2O water activist Jamilla El Shafei; and local Take Back the Tap representative Amy Dowley. Moviegoers learned about local struggles over water and how to join a movement to protect our most essential resource and keep water clean and safe into the future.

This summer, the Portland City Council, Peace Action ME and local restaurants endorsed a resolution to take back the tap in support of funding for public water systems.  Communities across the state have been mobilizing to protect local groundwater supplies from water mining by the Swiss conglomerate Nestlé, with local bottling brand Poland Spring intent on expanding operations. Local grassroots battles erupting in Fryeburg, Shapleigh and Wells contextualize the global freshwater crisis for the people of Maine and are just the stuff Salina’s film, FLOW, unveils cinematically.

Adopt a Restaurant to Take Back the Tap and pledge to serve local Portland water.

Before the Saturday showing, we encouraged movie-goers to quench their thirst (and satisfy their appetites) at a favorite Take Back the Tap establishment before the flick and to show their support for clean, public drinking water. Participating establishments include Norm's East End Grill; Norm's Bar and Grill; Downtown Lounge; Local 188; North Star Café; and Ruski's.

Water enthusiasts ready to get their feet wet joined Food & Water Watch in a half-day workshop on Saturday in downtown Portland to adopt a restaurant and invite Portland eateries to Take Back the Tap. At this time of year as we celebrate giving to others, water activists are ramping up outreach to local businesses, urging them to join eateries coast-to-coast to champion the water movement – supporting local community water by pledging to eliminate bottled water from their menus.

After the training session, participants ventured into Portland proper to ask their favorite establishments to stop sales of non-carbonated bottled water and actively educate customers about the importance of sustaining healthy water supplies and supporting public water systems.

Three new restaurants happily signed on to support Portland city tap water: Bull Feeney's Irish Pub, Tandoor, and Shays Grill Pub.  We welcomed the new pledges and hope to see more restaurants leading the movement by the new year.

Every year, about two million tons worth of PET plastic water bottles get trashed, clogging up our national landfills.  Our restaurant outreach highlights that serving tap reduces needless garbage and aligns businesses with a new wave of "Go Local" socially and environmentally conscious products and services. From Ithaca's Moosewood to San Francisco's Incanto to Portland's very own North Star, serving tap has become a signature of good customer service and eco-friendly dining.

It seemed as if we had our hands full with the melamine scandal that dominated food safety headlines for the past several months. Now, just as feared, it turns out that melamine may just be the least of our worries, as China recently published a list of 17 acids, chemicals, and other substances that are now officially banned as food additives. Looking over the list, all that comes to mind is the question, “Really guys? It took you this long to get to this point?”

The list, just to give you an idea, includes formaldehyde (used often as a disinfectant), boric acid (used as an insecticide or flame retardant), and lye (found in drain cleaner). To clarify, some of the items on this list, which also included industrial dyes and colorings, had been banned before – but for the first time the Chinese government has actually compiled a list of illegal additives, that is probably not exhaustive. In addition, China recently announced that it is just beginning to investigate the practice of adding melamine in animal feed. To clarify, China did ban that practice in June 2007 – but clearly that wasn’t enough to get the job done. 

This is clearly just a feeble attempt by the Chinese authorities to try and undo the massive backlash they’ve been experiencing as a result of the melamine debacle. Again, this is too little, too late. Consider how, just a couple of weeks ago, it was made public that instead of 53,000 sick babies and four dead as a result of melamine-tainted infant formula, the numbers were closer to 294,000 ill – and possibly six babies dead. And yet China only began to take action as a result of the media storm that erupted around the melamine scandal. They should have been able to respond before this got so far.

In the meantime, the U.S. needs to step up its own efforts in terms of inspecting its imports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, is instituting spot checks on certain meat and poultry products, in response to the issue of melamine-tainted animal feed. That sort of action is just a fraction of the level of initiative that USDA, FDA and others need to start taking to actually tackle this issue head-on. We can’t just assume we have seen the worst of it, as every time we do we soon discover that the food production industry is in far more dire straits than had anticipated. 

- Sofía Baliño

I couldn't imagine DePauw University's first Water Week and H2O Conference having gone any better. 

The concept of this week was to introduce the campus and the surrounding Greencastle community to the world's water crisis, show how this issue relates to other issues that people are concerned about, and offer opportunities for individuals to take action.  DePauw Environmental Club took this to new heights when they arranged to have a ban placed on the sale of bottled water during Water Week! The ban elicited great debate around campus and sparked many questions from students who only thought of water from a consumer point of view.  

The set-up of the week was simple: each day, a different organization or group of people would set themselves up in the Student Union Building and promote awareness about a particular water-related issue.  For example, one team of students presented on water contamination and purification in Costa Rica, while another team pushed the Take Back the Tap campaign.  In addition to the daily tabling efforts, two films were shown during the week, Thirst and FLOW: For Love Of Water.  Both movies look at the dangers of privatizing water.  Several trivia questions could also be found chalked on the sidewalks across campus to get people thinking about their water: "Where does bottled water come from?" "Name 3 waterborne illnesses." "How much money does Coca Cola spend to pump water for its Dasani brand?"  By the second day of water week, the dialogue about water had spilled over from comment sheets left where the bottled water used to be and into the classrooms.

All of these efforts built up to the H2O Conference, which took place on the final day.  All of those who had participated in tabling during the week set up in a conference room with booths and activities.  In addition, two out-of-state speakers, Jorge Aguilar of Food & Water Watch and Kurtis Daniels of EDGE Outreach, offered insight to the water crisis at the national and international level.  Needless to say, we were prepared to inform.

And inform we did!  All who were present were impacted by their newly acquired knowledge.  Some made the personal commitment to discontinue the purchase of bottled water.  Others were excited about the possibility of installing water purifiers.  One young woman in particular was so excited about the Take Back the Tap campaign that she took plenty of information packets and began hassling her family and friends about the links between bottled water and our water availability.

Overall, the week was a success. How do I know?  Because at the end of the week, people felt inspired and empowered to take action.  And it is when people are empowered that some of the greatest changes occur.  I'm excited to see what changes these new participants in the global water movement will bring.

Cora Lyn Newman Lowe is a Field Coordinator for the Take Back the Tap Campaign at Depauw University in Greencastle, IN.  She is a senior who is working on reducing the sale of bottled water on her campus.

In the war against waste, the battle against plastic bottled water is on the frontline.

Nothing epitomizes unnecessary waste more than the plastic bottle that brings you the same liquid as your kitchen sink, for 10,000 times the price. However, it is heartening to know that bottled water sales are down in the US, attributable at least in part to increased consumer knowledge of the environmental impacts.

Some point to the economic downturn as the sole cause of decreased bottled water sales, but Nestlé—one of the largest bottled water producers—released a statement linking the sales slump to “perceived environmental issues” around bottled water. Additionally, PepsiCo and industry analysts acknowledged “consumers are increasingly choosing tap water over other beverages at restaurants and at home to help save money and the environment. Furthermore, research done by analysts at Morgan Stanley found that “23 percent [of consumers] say they are cutting back on bottled beverages in favor of tap water or beverages in containers that create less waste.”

In recent years, many consumer advocacy and nonprofit organizations have launched campaigns to educate consumers about the massive waste and environmental damage caused by plastic bottles. Production consumes energy and emits toxic chemicals, transportation requires oil, generating pollution, and finally disposal essentially amounts to littering, with 86% of all bottles put in the garbage instead of the recycling.

So it is encouraging to hear global bottled water corporations recognize that consumers are increasingly choosing to drink tap water over bottled. However, too often those realizations are followed by statements like the one made by Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo’s chief executive, declaring that “revitalizing this [bottled water] business is a huge priority for us.” Considering what is at stake – nothing less than the health of the global environment – it is imperative that we do not allow the bottled water corporations to achieve their goal.

As a member of the international team at Food & Water Watch, I am responsible for our work in Africa. I recently spent time at Lake Naivasha, Kenya with Josphat Ngonyo and Dr. Daniel Maingi of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare, who are working on a sustainability management plan for the lake. This region, 62 miles northwest of Nairobi, produces 70% of Kenya's horticultural revenue and is facing environmental problems of tragic proportion.

In the 1970s and '80s, due in part to neoliberal advice from international financial institutions like the World Bank, the Kenyan government began encouraging development of crops for export markets. As a result, the lakefront property surrounding Naivasha was turned into flower farms that have grown to be the largest supplier of flowers to the European market, and have left only a small sliver of access for local Maasai pastoralists to gather water for both their families and their herds. Scientists have concluded that the lake's level is now 10 feet below a healthy level. And while there was once an abundance of fish, lions, antelopes, leopards, giraffes, hippopotamuses and birds, the hippo population alone has decreased by more than 25 percent.

Local population swelled as workers were lured from around the country in spite of tough labor conditions. In 2006, workers rioted over low wages, poor working conditions and mass firings. Tragically, as the lake is being polluted by pesticide-laden farm runoff, farm owners are already relocating to healthier lakes in Ethiopia. To learn more about Lake Naivasha, check out our report, Lake Naivasha: Withering Under the Assault of International Flower Vendors.

Lake Naivasha's plight is soon set to gain international attention. In January 2006, Joan Root, a famed conservation filmmaker who lived on Lake Naivasha and dedicated her time and money to protecting the lake, was murdered at night in her home by those who wanted to stop her work. Joan, 69 at the time of her death, knew her conservation work put her life at risk; she had full-time security staff – though clearly it wasn't enough. Set to film on location at the end of 2008, Julia Roberts will produce and star in a movie about Joan Root's life, and Robert Redford will direct. While making movies is a great way to bring attention to important issues, celebrities have a great opportunity to do even more. I hope Julia Roberts takes every chance she gets to not only highlight the great works of a great woman, but to honor Joan Root's memory by talking about what's happening today at Lake Naivasha and working to advance her cause.

As you might have seen in our November 19 blog post, Food & Water Watch will be releasing our new recipe booklet, Fish & Tips, just in time for the New Year! And, as part of our lead-up to the book’s release, we’ve just posted on YouTube a video of our Octoberfish “Get Cookin’!” recipe contest.

The video features tips from our partner chef Joseph “Rocky” Barnette and from Food & Water Watch Fish Campaign Director Marianne Cufone. Learn about what makes a good recipe, what questions to ask when buying seafood, and more! And watch members of the Food & Water Watch team as we put some of these amazing recipes into practice, with excellent results. The video highlights some of our favorite submissions from cooks all over the country, including some of those chosen for publication in the booklet. Other sustainable seafood recipes included in Fish & Tips were shared with Food & Water Watch by some of our allied fishermen and chefs. To learn more about where to look for safe and sustainable seafood, please check out our Seafood Buying Guide.

Fish & Tips will be “served” this coming January 7th! 

- Sofía Baliño