Wow, it’s already Week 5 of Food & Water Watch’s Water Challenge! Searching for new ways to save water, I started taking inventory of the items in my house where I have already saved a substantial amount of water.

While most of the appliances in my home are water-efficient, one remains that is not—the toilet. Although I have been keeping a bucket of water in my shower and using that to flush, there are times that I have to resort to water from the 5-gallon tank. Since this isn’t terribly efficient, I decided to research some ways to make the act of flushing less wasteful.

I found that displacing water in my tank is a great way of reducing the amount of water that it takes to flush. I grabbed two plastic one-gallon milk jugs, filled them up with water, and slowly lowered them into my tank. Due to a lapse in judgment, the first attempt created a surge of water that swooshed out of the tank. Yeah, displacement—get it? You’d think that I would have known better. Anyway, I found that the trick was to keep the handle partially pressed down as I slowly put the jugs in the tank to equalize the water level. Once both of them were in place, I noticed two things. The first was that the tank fills much faster because there is less tank to actually fill. The second was a faster flush time, due once again to the fact that there’s less water to actually flush. Now instead of expending between four and five gallons of water per flush, I am down to about two-and-a-half to three gallons of water! Great yet another way that I am saving water in my household.

So lets recap: I wash my dishes by hand, rinse in a dishpan, and use the grey water on plants and my garden. I have replaced my showerhead with a low-flow option. I had all the leaky pipes in my house replaced. I filter my tap water, as opposed to buying bottled water from the store. I take shorter showers, and do not leave the sink running while I brush my teeth or shave. I use run-off from the shower to flush my toilet. I have displaced water in my toilet to save additional water on flushes, and I have helped raised awareness of water conservation through my contributions to this blog!

You see-- small changes really do add up. I would love to hear your comments or stories of how water conservation has changed your life.

-- Jon Brown

If you’re wondering how to use art to discuss water issues, look no further than the Minneapolis arts community. While in town last week for the opening of the film “No Impact Man,”  I spent a day meeting with local artists there to learn about their work to use the visual and aural arts as a means of illustrating the social and political issues surrounding water. ‘Turns out there’s a lot to see.

I kicked things off over breakfast with Liz Dodson and Marilyn Cuneo, organizers of "Women and Water Rights," which opens at the University of Minnesota’s Nash Gallery next spring. The month-long exhibit will feature American and international female artists whose work focuses water rights.

Afterward, I took a spin out to the charming Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to catch the tail end of “Waterosity,” a collection of 10 juried art installations exploring the “gifts of water.” There, landscape designers Debra Ensteness and Sheila Hawthonrne met me to discuss their instillation, “Take Back the Tap: Protect Our Environment”. The giant walk-through water bottle was constructed with 7,500 discarded bottles and incorporates facts about the detrimental effects of bottled water in order to illustrate its blight on the environment and your wallet. 

Next, I visited the Perpich School for Arts Education to learn about teacher and composer Janika Vandervelde’s work to help a dozen young composers create choral music exploring the importance of water.  I gave a talk on water privatization, and students discussed their compositions, which will be performed in a concert themed around water.

Finally, any account of the interplay of water and art in Minneapolis must not overlook the amazing “In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre”, which has been running water-themed programs for years. These folks continue to keep it real with edgy visuals and a great message.

Interested in using art to educate your community about water? Get started now by hosting a film screening.

Reading this article in the San Francisco Chronicle , I was reminded of my five year old twins. Sometimes when they get mad at each other, they stomp their feet and threaten to throw their toys. Its behavior that I’m sure they’ll grow out of…at least I hope.

But, those hopes were dampened a little when I read about the implicit threat coming from Governor Schwarzenegger to veto all 700 + bills sitting on his desk if the legislature does not reach an agreement with him on a water package by Friday. As we saw towards the end of the session, a package acceptable to the Governor must include more surface storage (or “dams” as you and I might call them), and the package discussed last month included legislation that would facilitate the construction of a costly and environmentally damaging peripheral canal.

The Governor made a similar threat last month, and then retaliated by vetoing a bill that would have honored Vietnam Veterans .

These are not trivial issues, and there are several important bills pending before the governor, including legislation that would establish a human right to water for all Californians.  AB 1242 (Ruskin) would establish clean, affordable water as a human right for all Californians. Agreement on this principle is critical to any comprehensive water solution as there are over 150,000 Californians who currently lack access to safe affordable water.

There are other bills pending that address a wide range of important issues from renewable energy to voting rights, education to health care. Rather than threatening to veto these bills, Governor Schwarzenegger should do what Governor’s are supposed to do: review the substance of the legislation and sign or veto based on their merits.

Our state water issues desperately need to be resolved, but not at the expense of the other issues facing our state. Californians can take action by urging their state legislators to not sign off on a bad water package just because the Governor is throwing a tantrum.

-Mark Schlosberg

As promised, I made a video blog for this week's entry.  Because I'm vain, I feel the need to make the following disclaimers:  My voice actually DOES match my lips in real life, but for some reason it didn't in the very beginning of this video.  Also, it was really hot in the bathroom when we were installing the new shower head.  So look for me to be glistening in that scene.  With that, please take a look at my video, and see how it incredibly easy (and cheap) it is to replace an aging, inefficient shower head!

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on the unfortunate story of a 22 year-old woman who became paralyzed due to a reaction to E.coli that she contracted from a hamburger.  Even though preventable food-borne illnesses like this one continue to occur, not enough is being done to ensure safe food for consumers.

In 2008, USDA tested ground beef at processing facilities it regulates and found deadly E. coli contamination 54 times.  USDA already found it 31 times this year. But what happened after that? You might assume that the agency tried to find all the product in those batches that were tested so that it could be removed from store shelves before it could harm the public. That’s where you’d be wrong.

We don’t know exactly what happens because USDA refuses to explain it to the public and has blocked our attempts to use the Freedom of Information Act to determine it by looking at their records.  Just last week, USDA officials reneged on their promise for a 2009 meeting to explain exactly what actions the government takes when it finds the deadly E. coli  O157:H7 pathogen in products that have left meat plants. 

What we do know is that most testing is done at the smallest plants, so positive tests often reveal only the tips of the iceberg of how much product might be involved, especially because these small plants often buy scraps of beef from other larger companies to process into ground beef.  After government health departments link illnesses to particular product, all efforts are made to identify the rest of the “iceberg” and recall as much contaminated product as possible.  But, until someone gets sick, even confirmed E. coli 0157:H7 tests in ground beef, lead to a much milder response by USDA. If there are no illnesses and USDA has only a test showing contamination, it will check company paperwork at the slaughterhouses that supplied the beef to the processor and will likely collect one or more samples of current production to see if it is contaminated.  This will indicate nothing about the specific production lot from which the positive test came and will do nothing to alert consumers to the potentially deadly beef that is still in the market, if not already in their freezers.

How many more lives have to be sacrificed before changes are made in the food safety system?  Real action must be taken to prevent more senseless tragedies like this one from occurring. USDA needs to update their E. coli testing and response policies. 

– Felicia Nestor

This Tuesday, Food & Water Watch applauded as two separate lawsuits where filed in Florida, challenging the legality of a recently finalized program known as catch shares that would privatize access to tilefish and grouper – public fish stocks – in the Gulf of Mexico.

One challenge came from the 90,000 member-strong Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishing group based in Texas. The other came from an independent small-scale commercial fisherman with a strong backbone named Brian Lewis, based in Clearwater, FL. Both legal complaints cite the unfair (and likely illegal) process used to develop and finalize the privatization plan, and the unfair intended outcome: creating a program that makes a "free market" tradeable commodity of the ability to catch fish – principally to enable a handful of businesses to control public fish resources.

Titled the Amendment 29 to the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan, the plan was approved by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) despite glaring problems – including the failure to conduct a social impact assessment; the awarding of the bulk of the catch shares to fishermen who use a gear type known as longlines, which might not even be allowed in the Gulf in the future due to the fact that they are suspected of killing ten times the number of sea turtles allowed; and a sham referendum that excluded 70 percent of commercial fishermen whose jobs were at stake if the plan passed.

In June 2009, Food & Water Watch provided NMFS with an 18-page comment letter outlining problems with the plan, including the privatization aspect and violation of the national and international laws.  Food & Water Watch also conducted its own re-referendum surveying the fishermen who were excluded from the initial vote and found that the nearly 90 percent of respondents opposed the privatization plan. Had these fishermen been included in the initial vote, it is questionable whether the plan would have passed the referendum hurdle. Still, NMFS proceeded to approve the plan seemingly without regard for this clear opposition and the risk of massive job loss.

The legal challenges by Brian Lewis and the CCA will hopefully result in an end to fishery privatization in the Gulf. Food & Water Watch is opposed to privatization of public resources and is calling for Congressional oversight hearings to raise the matter to a national level.

See our Fair Fish campaign and fact sheet for more information on the issue and on ways to help protect our oceans and give fish and fishermen a fair chance.

Over the past several weeks, water conservation has really taken on a new meaning for me. This past week I thought of ways to conserve water, but tried to look at the bigger picture as far as how water is being misused. The comment on my last blog entry, which I had originally taken as a sarcastic one, was really eye-opening when I discovered that it was a fairly accurate statement. 90 percent of water waste comes from large agriculture companies. Some five percent comes from municipal golf courses (really amazing, I feel a little disgusted now as an avid golf fan and golf course-frequenter). The remaining five percent is used by people like you and me.  How then, can we actually make a difference?

The difference is in the small things—the seemingly minor adjustments we can make actually do have an impact. As Alex mentioned on Wednesday, we went to a screening of "No Impact Man" last week, and after the movie we took questions. Following the question-and-answer period that followed the film, a nice lady approached me just to say, "thanks, for getting this message out there!" She also told me that I’m making a difference, which made me feel a little bit better about this whole experiment. So while it’s great that I am making a difference, I wonder what else I can do.

I find myself looking at the larger picture now like Schindler did at the end of the movie "Schindler's List.” Like, “if I had only done this, then that would have saved 50 gallons of water…” With that type of perspective, I decided to put some pressure on my landlord to actually replace the leaky pipe under my kitchen sink. This has been a constant problem-- a slow drip, which we have been capturing in a small bucket. Every year, billions of gallons of water are wasted in our national water infrastructure. And while towns and states often lack the funding to fix those leaks, the least I can do is repair similar problems in my own home. Why live with a leaky pipe? Isn’t that after all, part of the sleeping dogs mentality that got us to where we are in the first place?

We need to change our mindset from the consumption-oriented one engrained in us since birth, to one that takes the availability of future resources into account. Our new pipe was purchased and installed by the maintenance crew, it took a mere 15 minutes to setup, and wow, no more leak. The repair of that leak was the pinnacle of my realization that we need to change, and that real change starts with us. We each need to do what we can, and together all of those little tasks return big rewards in the future.

So what have I done this week to conserve water? I have continued to reuse my excess shower water to flush the toilet. I have washed my dishes without running the tap. I have reduced water consumption when washing my hands. I have completely stopped buying bottled water, and I have started using a water filter, and I have fixed a leaky pipe under my sink. Ultimately, It’s not that you have to do something new every week, it’s that you need to be consistent with the small changes you have already been committed to over a long period of time.

‘Time to hear from you: what else should I do to save water?

Happy Oktoberfish! Here at Food & Water Watch, we’ve declared October the official month to celebrate sustainable seafood as we work hard to protect our oceans and ensure that consumers have access to delicious, affordable seafood that’s healthy for them and the environment.  With that fall chill in the air, we’re all starting to get excited about festive, food-related occasions, so join Food & Water Watch this month to learn more and get involved in this crucial movement.

We’ve kicked off our month with our Frugal Fish contest, where we’re asking savvy cooks to whip up a sustainable seafood dinner using fish off our Smart Seafood Guide for under $25. We’ve already started receiving entries, and the contest runs until midnight EST on October 16, so if you haven’t already, check it out here!

Also, each week throughout the month we’ll feature the story of a fisherman or someone in the fishing industry who’s working hard to bring good seafood to consumers in a sustainable way. Check out our weekly profiles starting on October 2 and see how you can join crucial fights alongside them.

Stay tuned for more fish fun from Food & Water Watch throughout Oktoberfish, and feel free to post a comment letting us know how you are celebrating sustainable seafood this month!

 – Erica Schuetz

SeafoodSource recently reported that China will be hosting a forum on sustainable seafood production this November, co-sponsored by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Sea Fare Expositions of Seattle. While any attempt to “go green” and begin to reduce negative environmental impacts should be supported and lauded, the “Sustainable Seafood Forum” in China gives us significant pause. With so many companies now claiming their products are “ecofriendly,” it’s important to watch carefully for greenwashing, the practice of marketing things as being environmentally friendly when they are not.

It just isn’t likely that Chinese aquaculture will become what most of us could consider sustainable very soon, given the huge list of environmental and human health problems often associated with fish farming there. A complete lack of enforcement of food safety regulations and almost no oversight of farming methods, coupled with the farms’ locations in China’s highly polluted waterways, are just some of the problems with many of China’s aquaculture operations. That’s on top of the high usage of antibiotics and pesticides, which can decimate native species and further pollute waters, and the depletion of wild fish to create food for farmed fish.

It’s not just impacts on nature that make most Chinese fish farms troubling; fish from these operations have been associated with serious human health problems as well. There have been numerous food safety scandals both in China and internationally over the last few years involving Chinese seafood, including contamination with melamine, carcinogens, antibiotics and meningitis. In 2006 in Shanghai, Chinese turbot (a type of fish) were tested for the presence of carcinogens—and 100 percent tested positive. The U.S. government—which, as we’ve pointed out, only tests about 2% of imported seafood – is increasingly turning down shipments of seafood from China due to residues of veterinary drugs. In 2006, nearly 60 percent of the imports refused for veterinary drug residues were from China.

We strongly support efforts to make industry more sustainable. But people shouldn’t fall for—or stand for—slick PR campaigns that try to paint a greener picture of a troubled industry.

– Erica Schuetz

Last week, citizens in Florida got a strong commitment from Columbia county officials that no new water bottler on the Santa Fe River would be allowed.  The county’s statement is expected to carry serious weight in whether the Suwannee River Water Management District, which has final say on water permits, gives the bottling facility a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Part of the success is due to the work of Our Santa Fe River (OSFR), an organization of North Florida citizens working to protect the river.  The group, a strong ally of Food & Water Watch, continues to successfully lead the fight against several dangerous bottling proposals that could harm the river’s ecosystem and contribute to declining water levels in the region.

This latest in a line of zany schemes aims to build a pipeline from Santa Fe Springs to a facility about five miles away.  As always, bottling proponents tout the facility as a job creator.  But these bottling jobs have been found to be low-paying and dangerous.

The craziest part of all, however, is that this is the third bottling facility being sought in a three-mile stretch on the river.  Just a few months ago, the owners of a springhead called Lily Springs asked for a permit to transport water by tanker trucks to an as-yet-to-be-built bottling facility. 

Luckily, OSFR has defeated similar bottling plans in the past.  In February, OSFR won a huge victory against another proposed $25 million facility near Blue Springs.  The fierce public opposition to this plant, which may have had corporate backers, ultimately got the water management district to deny the permit.

 
The 75-mile Santa Fe River, a tributary to the fabled Suwannee River, is well known for its distinct cypress trees and freshwater turtles.  OSFR and citizens in the area plan to keep it that way.

Want to help?  While the Santa Fe Springs permit request is still being submitted, hundreds of letters in opposition to the Lily Springs permit have already reached the local water management district.  Do you live in Florida? You should write one too! 

– Jorge Aguilar

Halfway through Food & Water Watch’s own Water Challenge, Jon and I have finally seen the film that inspired the challenge- No Impact Man.  This past Friday night, the two of us attended the DC premier of the movie.  Actually, maybe “opening” is more accurate- “premier” makes it sound kind of glamorous, which it wasn’t.  While there were no celebrities or red carpets (although I did have my own entourage, consisting of my friends, my sister, my officemate, and girlfriend), it was a lot of fun.  I really enjoyed the movie, and seeing it has made me reconsider some of my feelings about this whole project. 

For one thing, what Colin Beavan and his family did for a whole year really makes our challenge feel a little absurd.  We’re changing our showerheads and not flushing as much; these guys stopped buying anything new and eventually had their power turned off.  Voluntarily.  On purpose.  While most people are clearly not going to go that far (even the No Impact family had their power turned back on at the end of the year), this movie makes you think about what you really do and do not need.  Do we have to use so much packaging?  Do we have to use so much water?  Do we really need to run our air conditioning all summer long? 

When the No Impact family gave up all of that stuff for a year, it helped them see what they really could do without, and they didn’t go back to everything when the year was up.  I’ve been approaching this project with the attitude that I can’t really make a huge difference with personal choices, so I need to work at making changes on a bigger level, like by asking my apartment building’s management to replace aging washing machines with more efficient models.  But now I find myself wondering if that’s enough.  Maybe I should be taking more personal responsibility, and maybe saying, “Well, I have an apartment, so there’s not much I can do” isn’t right. 

If it sounds like participating in this challenge has made me all philosophical about being an environmentalist, I guess it’s because it kind of has.  It’s so hard to know what to do. I think there are probably lots of people out there like me, who want to do more and make positive changes, but aren’t sure which are the best ways to go about that.  After we spoke after the movie Friday night, we took questions from the audience.  I had been feeling pretty good about my idea to replace the washers in my apartment building, but then a woman at the screening asked me if it wasn’t better to keep the old machines, because replacing them would require producing 10 new ones and disposing of 10 old ones. 

I tried to have the woman escorted from the theater, but apparently there was no security(?!), so I was forced to try to come up with an answer.  I realized I really didn’t know.  It’d be nice if there were a trustworthy, comprehensive guide on ways to create the smallest impact possible, but right now it seems as though there’s a ton of information out there, much of it conflicting and much of it (probably intentionally, on the part of greenwashing companies) bad. 

I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed after seeing the movie, now that I realize that there’s probably a lot more I could be doing, and that some of the things I have been doing probably aren’t as helpful as I thought.  So here’s what I’m going to continue to focus on, at least for the remainder of this challenge:  Still letting the yellow mellow (which really does add up), still drinking a lot less beer, eating a lot less meat, replacing my showerhead with a low-flow, and using fewer bags and avoiding packaging (the production of which must require plenty of water, and really, we just use a ridiculous amount of packaging for everything). 

I’m a little behind on replacing my showerhead, but I’m going to before next week and will have a special video blog displaying my ineptitude at installing things.  Sure to be entertaining!  

--Alex Patton

All school children should have access to free, clean water at school. Yet according to an Associated Press investigation released last week, the drinking water at thousands of schools across the country is unsafe to drink, containing “unsafe levels of lead, pesticides, and other toxins.” This situation is unacceptable and requires swift government action.

Much of our water infrastructure in the U.S. was built 100 years ago or more and is starting to break down. Without significant federal investment to upgrade our systems, reports like this will only become more common.

Lacking sufficient funds to improve situations such as this, local governments are turning to bottled water as the answer to their water woes. According to the AP, Baltimore spent some $2.5 million on bottled water over the past six years. Rather than subsidizing an environmentally harmful product , we should instead invest in our future public water resources.

 The AP article cites California’s Central Valley as one of the worst locations in the country for water in schools. This is no surprise to those who have been talking, advocating, and litigating for years about this issue. Right now, over 150,000 Californians lack access to clean, affordable water.

This year a bill, AB 1242 (Ruskin), would establish a state human right to water. It is co-sponsored by Food & Water Watch along with Alliance for Democracy, Community Water Center, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry Action Network - CA, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and Urban Semillas. The law would explicitly provide that every Californian has a right to clean affordable water for basic human needs. The bill passed the California legislature and is now with the Governor. California residents should call Governor Schwarzenegger and ask him to sign AB 1242.

These initiatives alone will not solve all the problems with water quality in schools, but they would be a good start. We also need to address the source of contamination of groundwater that so many of the schools with poor water quality rely on. We need to work towards comprehensive water solutions that address chemical contaminants, agricultural runoff, and private control of water. We need strong state and federal action and we need it soon. The health of our children depends on it.

Fresh on the heels of its defeat by activists in McCloud, Nestlé ramped up its efforts to appear a responsible corporate citizen this week by unveiling plans to use a new, “lightweight” plastic for its bottled water. According to the industry publication Food Production Daily, the new bottle will weigh 9.5 g, down from 12.5g. In the same article, Nestlé Waters North America CEO Kim Jeffries touted the “environmental impacts” of the new bottle: “Lightweighting our bottle is the single biggest impact we can have from an environmental standpoint on our carbon footprint,” said Jeffries.

While we are obviously all for being gentler on the environment, we have an even better idea for Nestlé: stop bottling water for profit altogether.

While plastic consumption is one way in which bottled water is bad for the environment, it is not the only way.

Plastic water bottles are recyclable, but about 86 percent of them end up in landfills, where they hang out indefinitely. Others are incinerated, a process which releases toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash laden with heavy metals into the environment. Bottled water is also shipped great distances in vessels that guzzle large amounts of oil. Much of the time, it is transported in trucks that spew tons of soot and unhealthy chemicals into the air. Finally, some bottled water (including many of Nestlé’s brands) uses water taken from the ground. This water, known as groundwater, makes up about 40 percent of our drinking and agricultural water supply. When groundwater levels run low, more energy is required to extract what remains. In cases of severe groundwater depletion, rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands dry up, and even the land itself can cave in.

Today, our groundwater resources are disappearing in many parts of the country. In some regions, underground water levels are falling because we are pumping water through wells faster than it is naturally replaced by rainfall. This may permanently damage our aquifers’ capacity to hold water, and can have broad consequences for our entire freshwater supply.

Like we’ve said before, there is no such thing as eco-friendly bottled water, and attempts to label it as such are done either out of greenwashing or ignorance. This particular stunt has “greenwashing” written all over it, especially due to the article’s revelation that the change in bottles will deliver “an annual saving of $62m based on market rates in July.” This figure should serve to remind us that, like any corporation, Nestlé is concerned with profits, not the planet.

 Since Nestlé is obviously looking for kudos for reducing the environmental impact of its bottled water, let us extend to them a hearty congratulations for making an unnecessary, wasteful, environmentally destructive product marginally less bad. Nice going, guys. 

Wow, this has been a long week--one that seems will never end. Due to various work-related demands, focusing my energies on the Water Challenge has been especially difficult. I am also discovering the limitations of my own abilities to reasonably cut my water use. Seeing that I rent an apartment and therefore have fewer wasteful habits to begin with, as well as less control over the changes I can enact, I’m finding more and more difficult to find ways to reduce my water use.

Of course, the new shower head is paying off. I am getting used to the lower water pressure, although I do find that I stay in the shower longer in order to compensate for that, so I’m not really sure if that measure is paying off or not.

My list of water conservation tips suggests that I " share water conservation tips with friends and neighbors." So, that is what I tried to do.

Since the best way to reach a large number of people is through email, I considered sending an email to everyone I know telling them how important it is to conserve water. Then I came to the conclusion that everyone already knows that wasting water is bad, and that in most cases water conservation is mostly a matter of taking knowledge and common sense and converting it into action.

Also, pestering your friends to turn off the faucet or not run the dishwasher can sound rather Stalin-esque. So instead of beating the proverbial a dead horse, I thought that instead of telling people about the best ways to conserve water, I would instead create a list of my own—of the worst ways to save water. Consider it my end of the week gift to you. I’ll try to present you with a more serious account of my water conservation adventures next week. 

10 Worst Ways to Conserve Water

1. Take a shower only when it is raining outside
2. Multi-task: take showers with your clothes on. Bring along soap, shampoo and a big bottle of detergent. Not only will this clean you, it will save you the hassle of doing your laundry.
3. Stop buying products that list water as an ingredient.
4. Don’t use your own water resources, borrow from a wealthy neighbor. Then you can run into a McDonalds bathroom with a glass, fill it up with water, run out of the bathroom with the glass held high and proclaim “Its Free,” “Its Free!!!”
5. Install a new low-flow fire sprinkler system in your workplace and then test it out!
6. Convince President Obama to outlaw children's wading pools, fish tanks and acquariums.
7. Speaking of which, you could also use vegetable oil on your Slip ‘n Slide.
8. Convince people that water just isn’t that healthy.
9. Replace your indoor plumbing system with an old-school outhouse.
10. Create new national holiday: Lick An Ice Sculpture Day

I don’t think any oil company deserves to have an environmental rating, but when I saw that Greenopia rates British Petroleum (BP) as #1, I was really outraged.

I guess a huge PR budget and pretending to be post-petroleum works.

As an oil company, BP comes close to being criminal. It has repeatedly skirted the law, most recently in developing the Atlantis project, which has the potential to cause a catastrophic accident that could shut down the oil, fishing and tourism industry in the Gulf of Mexico. The deepest moored semi-submersible oil and gas platform in the world is precariously positioned in “hurricane alley,” 150 miles of the coast of New Orleans. Under the management of Minerals Management Service, lapdog of the oil industry, BP has been allowed to get away with what may end up being murder. Not only is most of the required documentation proving the platform is safe to operate missing, there is evidence that if a hurricane hits the area, an accident bigger than the Exxon Valdez could be the result. But, it shouldn’t be a surprise that BP cuts corners.

BP’s crimes include 15 deaths and hundreds of injuries in the Texas City Oil Refinery explosion of 2005, for which the company paid a $50 million fine as part of a federal felony plea. In Alaska, BP had two major oil spills in 2006—including the largest spill ever to occur on the North Slope—a result of corroded, unmaintained pipelines. In 2002 and 2003, BP was also fined for safety violations and violations of leak detection standards in Alaska. In 2000, it paid $15 million for dumping hazardous materials on the North Slope. This year, BP entered a consent decree for $175 million for violating an earlier Clean Air Act consent decree. In 2007, BP paid $300 million in fines and penalties for its manipulation of the propane market and it was fined in Michigan for leaking underground storage tanks.

Greenopia had better reevaluate its oil page. But, more importantly, Congress needs to hold oversight hearings on how the Minerals Management Service allowed BP to drill for oil and natural gas from the Atlantis before BP submitted the necessary paperwork. This is just one of perhaps many accidents waiting to happen off our coasts. Before the administration approves any additional drilling projects, it must ensure that the existing ones are operating safely and were approved according to regulations.

Support hearings to protect the Gulf from another disaster: Sign the petition.

Wenonah Hauter
Executive Director
Food & Water Watch

With California experiencing a third dry year, we should be looking to conserve all the water we can. Yet every day, millions of us do our laundry or take a shower without recapturing that water and putting it to good use. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported last week, there is an easy, affordable, and now legal way to recapture that water and use it for landscape irrigation.

Landscape irrigation uses up to 40% of urban water use in some California communities. Installing graywater systems, made significantly easier by new regulation, will allow us to recapture water from washing machines and dishwashers and divert it through pipes to gardens for as little as $200, resulting in significant water savings.

The current dry period has sent some communities looking to large expensive projects like desalination to meet future water needs. In Marin, for example, the local water board is moving towards a plant that would cost up to $400 million over 25 years to convert water from the San Francisco Bay into drinking water.

Instead of pursuing large costly projects, consumers are better served by government incentives and regulations that encourage conservation. The new graywater regulations are a good example and a recent report by conservation expert James Fryer noted that if even ten percent of Marin residential consumers adopted graywater systems, they could save 680 acre-feet a year – about half of Marin’s current water supply deficit.

The new graywater standards are welcome news, but we need to do more. Instead of building new costly and energy intensive projects that won’t provide real long-term benefit for consumers, California needs to be doing more like this – encouraging conservation and smart water use. 

-Mark Schlosberg

In my last entry, I wrote about how, because of my current living situation, I’m somewhat limited in the ways in which I can cut back on my water usage.  Renting an apartment means I don’t own any of my own appliances or have a yard, so many of the methods I see on these “ways to save water” lists don’t really apply to me.  I wrote a letter imploring my property management company to replace its antiquated washing machines with new, efficient models, but I’ve yet to hear back from them. 

So this week I thought I’d talk about looking to the future, when I will hopefully own my own place and have a lot more personal choice in how much or how little water I use. This past Saturday afternoon, some friends and I checked out an eco-living tour in a DC neighborhood so we could learn about what some homeowners are doing to save water. As proof, here’s me posing in front of one of the houses we visited.  There were about a dozen open houses showing off solar panels, rain barrels, and other power and water saving devices. 

We visited three of the houses on the tour and chatted with the homeowners at each about how they were using green technology to make their homes more efficient.  At one house, the owner had installed evacuated-tube solar collectors, which absorb solar energy and heat the house’s water.  We got to go up on the roof and check out the tubes.  The tubes themselves weren’t all that exciting, since they were, after all, just a bunch of tubes.  But there was also a friendly lady up there (on a roof deck, not just perched precariously on the roof) making cakes in a solar oven, and she let us have a piece, which was delicious. 
The last house we visited was the coolest, though.  The owners (I’ll call them the Johnsons- I didn’t actually get their names, but repeatedly calling them “homeowners” sounds like I’m writing for a real estate brochure or something) had a beautiful, tiered garden, several soothing fountains, and lots of lovely shade trees in their relatively small backyard, creating a peaceful, idyllic oasis in a crowded urban area.  Best of all, they didn’t waste any water on all the plants, trees, and fountains.  Several large rain barrels, which were connected to the house’s downspouts, collected all the rain that hit the roof, which supplied more than enough water for the Johnsons’ backyard.  Mr. Johnson also told me about a device they hope to get at some point that collects moisture right out of the air and condenses it into high purity water.   

It was great to see people going to such lengths to save water, and touring these houses made me want to buy my own place so that not only will I be able to take more control over my environmental impact, but I’ll also get to create a really cool patio and garden. 

Stay tuned for next week, when I write about my sure-to-be-disastrous attempt to install a water-saving showerhead (which I’m buying with my own money, since my landlord isn’t as nice as Jon’s, apparently). 

--Alex Patton

Last week, the Miss America Organization announced it would embark on a well-intentioned mission to “preserve the planet.” Its chosen method of doing so? Switching to Nature’s Bottles, a so-called “environmentally friendly” brand of bottled water. Although we appreciate the intention, the fact is, there is no such thing as “environmentally friendly” bottled water.

While wasteful, polluting plastic bottles are one reason that bottled water is bad for the environment, they are not the only one. In fact, the recent trend towards packaging water in “environmentally friendly” or “green” bottles is really just a trick on the part of the bottled water industry to distract you from the fact that its product is a destructive waste of money.

What’s almost ironic about Nature’s Bottles is that its website clearly spells out that the water it uses is spring water. It even goes on to explain that:

“Spring water must be collected directly from the spring or from a bore-hole adjacent to the water's natural point of emergence.”

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Not quite. 

The fact is, spring water is actually very often, water that originates from the ground. The practice of extracting water from the ground is actually very controversial and can be bad for the environment. Groundwater accounts for 40 percent of our drinking and agricultural water. Yet due to a combination of factors, we do not know how much groundwater we actually have.

While some people think that rainfall recharges groundwater supplies, in many areas, this does not happen quickly enough. If water is pumped out of the ground (say, by water-bottling operations) faster than it can be replaced, groundwater suffers. Think of it like a bank account. If you spend more money than you make, the cash reserves in your bank account will eventually dwindle.

Like a shrinking bank account, depleted groundwater resources spell trouble on a number of levels. It takes more energy to get to the water that does remain; rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands dry up; the land caves in. Perhaps most importantly, the water that we need in order to live depletes too.

Doesn’t sound very “environmentally friendly,” does it?

The truth is, bottled water is never a pretty thing; and industry claims of environmental sustainability are really an attempt to mask an ugly reality: the exploitation of a vital natural resource for private profit.

So, it’s been a week since my adventure to Target to buy a dishpan.

How’s it working out, you ask?

Well, I have to tell you: I really, really, really wish that I had one of those fancy double-bin sinks. I am happy that my contribution to nature is saving water, but I find that using this dishpan extends my dishwashing time by about 15 minutes every time I wash dishes. Now, with getting the pan ready, washing it to make sure it’s clean, filling it with hot water, and then actually washing my dishes, I am beginning to suspect that this particular water conservation measure may be a waste of time. I think that many of us waste so much water because it’s the convenient thing to do. On the up side, I have saved over 170 gallons of water since my last post.

Since so far, the only change in my life has been the extra time and effort that I am putting into dishes, I referred back to my water conservation checklist  to find other ways to conserve water.

I decided to try #10: For cold drinks keep a pitcher of water in the refrigerator instead of running the tap. This way, every drop goes down you and not the drain.

Ok, so time to get a pitcher. Hmm…glass or plastic?  As I wanted one that will be good for the environment, and being as uneducated as I am in environmental ways I figured glass has got to be better. So I bought a nice big pitcher from my favorite department store. I have been drinking non-bottled water for some time, but I have relied solely on a Brita Tap Filter that works as you run the tap. Now, instead of running the tap each time I need water, I fill my pitcher and put it in the refrigerator.

It seems to be working.

I am reaching for the tap less often. However, when the pitcher is almost empty I find that the “near-empty-milk-carton-syndrome” kicks in, and I tend to leave it there almost empty not wanting to finish it. As a result, I habitually gravitate towards the tap as if it were beckoning me back. Other than that weirdness, which I cannot explain, it’s been a great experience. I figure that by not running the tap for drinking water, I save about 6 gallons a week.

Earlier this week, I noticed that whenever my upstairs neighbor takes a shower, water leaks around the doorframe in my apartment. While it’s not ever fun to see water leaking into your home, it is also a huge waste of water, not to mention a great way of damaging an otherwise good ceiling. I called my landlord, who was so devastated he immediately called a contractor, and as of now, I am staring at the inner-workings of the water pipe system in my unit.

Another new development is that my landlord bought everyone in the building a new showerhead. That also happens to be #16 on the water conservation checklist, which tells us that if your shower fills a one-gallon bucket in less than 20 seconds, you should replace the showerhead with a water-efficient model.

So I now have a new showerhead. The catch is that I had to install it myself. Yep, so without the proper tools I decided to give it a go. Getting the old showerhead off was easy, but the new one required this crazy adapter. With little knowledge of how these things work, it took about five hours of my time to get the showerhead on. Now that it’s installed, I miss the high-pressure showers afforded by the one. The new showerhead is certainly saving water, as evidenced by the trickle of water it creates. The difference is life changing. I’m just not sure if it’s a change for the better.

So over the past week, I have switched to pitchers of water instead of water from the tap, I have a new showerhead, and unfortunately, dishpan hands. I find myself becoming more aware that it’s very difficult to separate myself from my water-wasting ways. Please tell me what you’re doing to save water!

Mexico is a country facing staggering water problems. Pollution, scarcity, and lack of access to safe water throughout the country have united many Mexicans into a broad movement in recent years. Now, residents of Mexico City, such as myself, are seeing a new challenge to our already compromised access to a reliable supply of clean water.

Water scarcity has been in Mexico City’s headlines for several months. Since January of this year, there have been increasing scheduled cutoffs from the Cutzamala system, one of the most important supplies of drinking water for the city. The Cutzamala system is a huge complex of dams, pumps and pipelines that transports 16,000 liters of water per second 1,100 meters up and over the mountains and then 90 miles to the taps of Mexico City.

The main rationale for the scheduled cutoffs is extremely low rainfall in 2008 and now in 2009. In an attempt to raise awareness of the need for water rationing, the city government has launched an extensive campaign in the subway, radio and newspapers that announces: “February 2010: The city may be left without water. Mexico City is living its worst drought in its history. There is water left only for the next 6 months. It is not a warning, it is a reality.” This is, of course, a very serious statement. But the City’s response to date has merely served to increase inequities in water service without addressing the heart of the matter.

Since the alarm has been repeatedly sounded, the “progressive” government of Mexico City has proposed some solutions to manage this crisis, but most of the proposed solutions fail to address the larger problem -- massive mismanagement of the city’s water.

The first proposed solution is the water cutoffs. Many poor neighborhoods now receive water only at certain times of the day, some only every other day or even once a week. It is not only the poor who are affected; increasingly, the rationing is spreading to new areas, including middle class neighborhoods.

The second solution is a wide-spread campaign targeting citizens to “save water,” by practicing conservation in the home. Naturally, water should be used wisely; but if you consider that many people do not have enough water already, the demand to use even less adds insult to injury.

The third solution put forward by the local government is a proposed increase in water tariffs, which will soon come before the city’s legislature for approval.

On a positive note, there are some proposals around rainwater harvesting and repairing leaks. These would be crucial elements in any plan to manage the crisis, given that Mexico City’s pipes suffer a leakage rate between 35 and 40 percent, and the amount of rainwater that is currently collected is next to none.

However, the final proposal is the most disturbing: the recent announcement to increase private participation in the city’s water management.

Since 1993, four companies have held service contracts in water management in four sections of the Federal District. Each of these companies is made up of 51 percent Mexican companies and 49 percent multinationals, such as Veolia Water and Suez Environment. The contracts include responsibility for user registration, metering and billing. 

On August 20th, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard announced that there will be further private participation in water management. Although he didn’t provide details, we know that the proposal includes giving bulk water to private companies to distribute and that in addition to their previous responsibilities of metering and billing, the companies will now be responsible for repairing pipes and reducing leakage. However, not all the city’s delegaciones (regional areas that make up the city) will participate in this scheme. The five with the biggest technical and social challenges (most populated, with issues around quality and quantity, subsiding soil, etc.) will remain under the authority of the city government.

What worries water activists most is: 1) the lack of precise information about this proposal, and 2) the empirical experiences in Mexico and the rest of the world that prove that private water management does not bring the promised efficiency. In fact, these companies have been repeatedly incapable of complying with their contracts. Even when companies fail to meet contract obligations, examples from Buenos Aires to Paris to Dar es Salam, Tanzania show that remunicipalization is an incredibly difficult process.

The Coalition of Mexican Organizations for the Right to Water (COMDA) has expressed its concerns regarding this proposal. The many failures of private water management, both national and international, cannot be ignored. Every water struggle is unique, and the struggle here will be complicated by the city’s severe crisis of human-provoked scarcity; but residents of Mexico City need to learn from experiences elsewhere to demand that the local government take real responsibility for meeting the demands of its citizens.

–Claudia Campero

On September 8, a new seafood safety bill authored by Representative Fred Mills (D-46) was formally signed in the Louisiana State Legislature by Governor Jindal.   The bill comes at a time when nearly two-thirds of the shrimpers in the state have participated in a strike in the last month to protest the low prices they receive for their catch. (Read more about the strike and the shrimpers' position here.) The primary problem is the low prices of farmed imported shrimp, which domestic shrimpers can't compete with. It's the same problem that's undermined so many other U.S. industries: it's cheaper to produce things in other countries where there aren't strong labor and environmental standards. While purchasing less expensive products may seem to be a short term answer to difficult personal economic times, it can perpetuate domestic financial problems – by causing loss of U.S. jobs. In this case, there is a risk to consumer health as well.

Much imported seafood is raised in dirty, poorly cared-for fish farms. The top countries the U.S. imports seafood from are China and Thailand. Shrimp is shipped to the U.S. to be sold more cheaply than the local, fresher seafood coming right off the dock each day. Local shrimpers aren’t receiving enough money per pound for their catch to stay in business – simply to pay for a day's gas and ice to go out on the water costs more than they have been receiving. This is also bad for consumers, because many foreign shrimp farms use high amounts of chemicals and antibiotics in production, and lack enforcement of food safety standards.

Seafood safety and U.S. jobs go hand-in-hand. With imports squeezing out our shrimpers and other fishermen, consumers can only access seafood that's been produced under questionable conditions, and is not as fresh as it could be by the time it reaches their plates. 

The seafood safety bill, Louisiana House Bill 551/Act 330, aims to establish some standards to protect consumers from unhealthy imported seafood—simultaneously offering some protection for U.S. jobs. It’s supported by a council of shrimpers who have come together across racial and ethnic lines and overcome past disagreements to send a unified message that action is necessary.

However, the bill only applies to seafood from China, and only creates voluntary standards. The Louisiana shrimpers need more help to be able to stay in business.

The change needed could come with legislation that requires country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for all seafood. Wait a second—don’t we already have country-of-origin labeling standards in the U.S.?  Well, we do–but the existing COOL rules are full of loopholes, and it seems seafood has fallen through one of those. We need to close the loopholes in COOL and require mandatory labeling of all seafood, whether it's in the grocery store or on a menu.

For more information on how you can get involved in helping our U.S. shrimpers, sign up for our new Shrimp Updates list and stay tuned for coming actions.

– Erica Schuetz

I’m a few days into Food & Water Watch’s own Water Challenge, and I can report that my life isn’t really drastically different so far.  I haven’t been flushing my toilet as often, and I’ve had fewer beers at happy hours.  I already take pretty fast showers, so I’m not sure I could really reduce the time spent in the shower without offensive results.  I’ve been careful to really pack my dishwasher before running it, and I’ve been washing pots and pans by hand since they really take up a lot of space in the dishwasher. 

 So what does all of that really add up to?  The “If it’s yellow, let it mellow” plan, for example, probably averages out to about three fewer flushes per day (the restrooms in my office building have automatic-flushing toilets, so I can’t follow that rule when I’m at work).  Since each flush is 1.6 gallons of water, that means a savings of 4.8 gallons a day, which is 33.6 per week and 1752 gallons over the course of a year.  That sounds like a lot, and I suppose if everyone did this, it would add up to something significant. 

But that still doesn’t seem like a very big deal.  If at the end of this experiment my only real change was that I flushed less often, drank fewer beers, and was more careful about washing my dishes, have I accomplished anything important? 

In Jon’s first blog, he linked to this site, which lists 111 ways to save water.  I looked through these tips, and it seems like at least half them aren’t applicable to my current lifestyle.  I don’t have kids, a lawn, garden, swimming pool, patio, fountain, compost pile, a car to wash, or even houseplants to water.

 So what can I do to really make any difference?  I’ve decided that at least to start, I’m really going to work on getting my apartment building to replace its old, crummy clothes washers with modern, water-saving models.

  I had originally planned to speak to my building manager, but then I realized he’d probably just give me the brush off, since it’d just be an extra hassle for him with nothing to really gain.  So I wrote a letter to the property management company.  I told them about my participation in this challenge, and how it would be the right thing to do for the environment.  But I also told them it wouldn’t just be altruism - they’d save money over the years, and even better, they could tout the building as being greener than others.  That’s no small thing in D.C.  People like to feel like they’re making a difference, and many will choose to live in a building that has efficient appliances over one that does not.

I worry (and kind of expect, really) that the rental company will be myopic, and only consider the immediate cost of replacing the machines.  But if they surprise me and do make this change, it will save far more water than I ever could by any changes I make in my daily life.  According to the Multihousing Laundry Association (there really is an association for everything), an apartment building washer will be used an average of 950 times a year.  There are 10 washers in my building.  Older washing machines use 40 gallons of water per load; newer efficient models use about half that.

I know blogs containing multiplication are extra boring, but seriously, let’s do the math:  950 times 40 is 38,000.  Half of that is 19,000.  Ten washing machines means 380,000 versus 190,000 over the course of a year.  That means 190,000 gallons of water saved each year, which is a lot more than my several thousand gallons saved by reducing flushing. 

 I will keep you posted on what sort of response I get from the rental company, but in the meantime, if you live in an apartment building with older appliances, maybe you could write your own letters.  Imagine if thousands of other apartment buildings replaced old machines with efficient ones- then we’re looking at millions and millions of gallons of water saved each year.

When I was approached about participating in Food & Water Watch’s own Water Challenge, I accepted without hesitating.  I’d like to reduce my impact on the planet and become more aware of how my lifestyle choices affect the environment, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to become more educated.  Now that I’ve started looking into ways I can reduce my water usage, I must admit I’m not as enthusiastic.  I think this is one of the biggest challenges facing the environmental movement- most people are reluctant to make real sacrifices or endure any kind of actual suffering, especially when there’s no obvious, immediate reward for doing so.  It’s easy to recycle; it’s not so easy to give up your long, leisurely shower. 

I've been described as one of FWW’s “least green staff members,” which might make it sound like I leave my bathroom sink running all day just to save myself the effort of turning the faucet, or that upon returning from a trip to the grocery store, I burn all my plastic bags to dispose of them.  This is hardly the case.  I won’t quibble with the assertion that I’m one of the least green people at FWW, but that’s relative to some very environmentally conscious folks.  So I want people to know that going into this, I was already somewhat green.  I don’t own a car, I ride my bike or walk to work, I recycle, I don’t eat a ton of meat, and I try to remember to bring my own shopping bags to the store.  

Over the next four weeks or so, I must now figure out how to further reduce my water usage, and even more so than my competitor, Jon Brown. 

The website www.good.is has a page that shows the hidden water usage behind many activities and products.  For example, it takes 20 gallons of water to make one pint of beer.  If your power comes from a nuclear plant, it takes an average of 255 gallons of water per day to power your household, but if you’re one of the few people who gets power exclusively from solar panels, it only requires 24.5 gallons a day. 

So here’s my plan (which is highly subject to change).  OK, obviously unless I really want to take this contest super-seriously and move somewhere that uses only solar power, I have fairly limited control over that aspect of my water use.  But I can reduce the amount of beer and soda that I drink.  When I said I was no longer so enthusiastic, this is what I was talking about.  I rent an apartment, so I can’t replace the dishwasher with an energy-saving model, but I can eat meat only two days per week instead of the four or five that I’m accustomed to.  Because it takes 1500 gallons of water to create a single pound of beef, this will actually be a pretty big reduction. 

Someday, when I own my own place and buy my own appliances, I’ll be able to make a lot more changes that really reduce my water usage.  But for now, I’m going to have to focus on simple lifestyle changes to reduce my impact.  So less beer, less soda, less meat (I’m not quite willing to give any of these up entirely yet), and, much to my girlfriend’s chagrin, I’m going to practice the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” rule.  No flushing if it’s only pee.  And finally, though I’m not optimistic about my chances of success, I’m going to approach my landlord about replacing some of my building’s antiquated appliances with modern, energy and water saving units.  Our dishwashers and clothes washers and driers all look like they’re from the 1980s, and since the rental company pays for power and water, I’m going to try to persuade them that it’s in their best interest as well as the planet’s.  We’ll see what happens.  

–Alex Patton

Learn more about the challenge.

I consider myself to be fairly environmentally conscious. I care about the planet as a future home to millions, so I do my part to help aid larger organizations in their goal of educating average consumers like me in the ways of water conservation as well as water privatization organizations like Food & Water Watch and Environment Maryland, of which I am a member.

I was not really shocked when I was asked to join the Water Challenge project at Food & Water Watch since I think I'm fairly removed from the core issues that our organization is advocating. Well, not really shocked, but in a way, kind of scared. Would I have the patience to continue with the project over a long period of time? Would I be able to make a difference as just once person? What I did know, was that this experience would be fun!

So I started researching ways to save on water and found this site that lists over 100 water conservation tips. I have decided that my journey will be to walk through every applicable tip and report my progress. I encourage you also to follow along.

The site’s first method of saving water was this suggestion:

"When washing dishes by hand, don't let the water run while rinsing. Fill one sink with wash water and the other with rinse water."

Well, this is easier said then done. I only have a single sink, not one of those fancy double sinks, so when I fill it up with water and add soap the water is usually soapy and after some time, dirty. I therefore have to leave the water running so that I can wash and rinse them.

So last night at 8:45, I went to Target and bought a big gray square dishpan. Wow, that thing was ugly, and quite expensive for what is essentially a bucket. I got it home filled it up with clean, hot water, filled my sink with clean, soapy water, and proceeded to do the dishes.

“Ok, not too bad. This seems to be working,” I thought. Then, about half-way through the process, the soap residue from the first half of my dishes completely contaminated my bucket of clean rinse water leaving a soapy layer of scum on my would-be clean dishes. Ok, so what to do now? I didn't really want to waste the water in the rinse dishpan and I didn't want to run any more water. 

Sadly, I disposed of the soapy rinse water and filled the dishpan once again. By then, I had used two dishpans of water to finish my dishes. Since the dishpan holds about one gallon of water, I had expended two gallons of water. But since I usually run the tap for a good eight minutes or so while I am doing the dishes, which I have heard uses approximately 17 gallons of water, I figure I actually saved about 15 gallons of water!

So: not bad for week one. We will see how many other ways I can conserve water over the next few days, and I will report back on how I do!

–Jon Brown

Learn more about the challenge.

How far will Colin Beavan, aka "No Impact Man," go to reduce the effect his lifestyle choices have on the environment? So far, his quest to shrink his carbon footprint has catapulted him from the blogosphere to a book deal and up onto the silver screen.

Now, Food & Water Watch is joining Colin on the next leg of his eco-friendly adventure as he prepares to share the details of his experience with readers and moviegoers around the U.S.

Writer Colin Beavan began the No Impact Project when as a newly self-proclaimed environmentalist he could no longer avoid pointing the finger at himself. He began an adventure (and what turned out to be a popular and controversial blog) when he took a vow to make as little environmental impact as possible for one year.

Can you imagine living without automated transportation, electricity, imported foods, minimal consumption of any kind? Colin did and now there's a movie and a book along with Colin's blog telling the story of the fascinating year in the lives of Colin, Michelle his wife and their daughter.

No Impact Man will be premiering Sept. 11 and Colin will be touring the country with the movie and his book simultaneously.Food & Water Watch will also be joining in at screenings and events because if there is one thing No Impact Man learned it is having a big political impact is critical. (Which reminds us, if you haven't signed or shared the petition to protect public water, please act now! )

In support of Colin's efforts, we've set up an experiment of our own here at Food & Water Watch. Two of our employees, both self-described "regular guys and consumers, not typical activists or green types" are embarking on an adventure of their own to see which of them can learn to make smarter, better-informed water use choices in their personal lives. Will learning how to reduce their water footprints inspire them to become activists? You won't want to miss their experiences as they attempt to find out. Beginning on September 11, you can follow their progress here. Join in and share your stories of impact, low or high. You'll even get to choose whose efforts you think made the biggest difference.

In addition, the No Impact Project is challenging you to try and live "no impact" for one week. You'll be put on a team and guided through the steps day-by-day. You'll discover for yourself that less IS more. Learn more.

Is there a dangerous pesticide, lurking in your child’s insulated lunch bag?

Microban is touting its products as great back-to-school-buys. But Microban is just one trade name for triclosan, a pesticide with serious human and environmental health effects. A known endocrine disruptor, triclosan accumulates in our bodies, disrupting hormone functions. When washed down the drain, it persists in our waterways and is toxic to aquatic life. What's more, triclosan isn't even proven to prevent illness!

Make sure you know the facts about triclosan before sending your kids back to school.

Manufacturers use triclosan in lunch bags and other school supplies as an antimicrobial agent to prevent the growth of bacteria. Check the label to see if your child’s lunch bags, scissors, rulers, sharpeners, protractors, erasers, pencils, highlighters, and permanent markers contain Microban. Depending on the company that sells the chemical, it also appears in products as Microban, Irgasan, Biofresh, Lexol-300, Ster-Zac or Cloxifenolum. 

It’s easy to avoid triclosan and Microban. Read the label!

You can also check out our resources on triclosan and our new guide for parents to learn more.

For those of us who’ve devoted a lot of time and thought to battling the absurdly wasteful and disastrously destructive bottled water industry, last week’s news brought glad tidings.
 
Firstly, sales of bottled water are down. (Not surprising, given that sales of everything are down, but still, as Wenonah Hauter pointed out in the Washington Post, it’s great news, and some credit should go where it’s due.) Second, an independent journalist writing for Mother Jones was arrested and threatened with some less-than-pleasant personal consequences for digging up dirt on Fiji Water. That's not the good news; the good news is, she got away, and her article brings some shocking revelations about the world’s most glamorous bottled water brand.
 
While the former bit of news – the expected long-term crash of the bottled water market – is probably the more important bit, the latter – an exposé of exactly why the spendy artesian eco-water in the square bottle is so insidiously damaging – offers an intriguing look at the evils lurking behind the bottle and the brand.
 
In digging up the dirt on Fiji, the article’s author, Anna Lenzer, shows us an extreme example of what’s wrong with bottled water in general – the plastic, the transportation costs, the grandiose and misguided health claims, the derision of public water (which happens to be not only vastly cheaper and better regulated, but the very basis of public health in the industrialized world). These are all problems that Food & Water Watch has focused on relentlessly in our Take Back the Tap Campaign.
 
But more than this, we see exposed the insidious power of branding itself. As another investigative journalist, Naomi Klein, pointed out in her book No Logo, the 1990s ushered in a trend in corporate marketing where the brand doesn’t sell the product, but the product sells the brand. Fiji water exemplifies this approach, where the combined mass hallucination of star-power and eco-bling have made a particular brand of water – water, mind you, the very basis of life, of which we are each and all composed – a commercial sensation. Not just a commodity, but a must-have, one of the "Top 10 Things Young Hollywood Can't Get Through the Day Without." Come on, people.
 
When FWW and other consumer and environmental groups deride the practices that we call greenwashing, it is not only because we can’t stand hypocrisy; it is because there are real issues at stake. When a corporation like Fiji pretends toward an environmental ethic while shipping bottles of water across the ocean and failing even to pay taxes to the impoverished country whose resources they are selling off – and when this pretense wins them ever-increasing cultural caché and market-share – they must be called out.
 
The truth is that while Fiji water has apparently engaged in some very unsavory activity, such is the way of the bottled water and beverage industry in general. Whether it’s Nestlé in Cascade Locks, Coca-Cola in Chiapas, Mexico or Plachimada, India, or Fiji in the South Seas, bottled water is an extractive industry, by nature taking more than it gives back. There is nothing green about it – except, as we say, the profits.

Here in DC, we’ve had some pretty hot days lately. Seems as summer wraps up, we’re not going to get away without having some good old-fashioned dog days. Whether you’re having a hot sticky mid-Atlantic summer or a dry southwestern one, though—or anything in between—we all know the one important rule: drink lots of water!

Food & Water Watch has had a summer full of fun, from our rBGH-free road trip, to our summer cooking school with Chef Rocky, to our sustainable seafood rally with local chefs. Now, to wrap it all up, we want YOU to bring the fun with our Take Back the Tap photo contest on Facebook.

So we want to see your pictures of your well-hydrated summer fun (or even those times in the office when you're just dreaming of summer fun!).  Or your artsy depictions of the true beauty of water that flows practically free from the tap. Or… anything else! Show us how you support your local tap water, wash your hands of bottled water, and take back the tap!

How it works:
It’s pretty simple. You take a picture of yourself (and/or your family, friends and pets) showing how you take back the tap. Then go to our Facebook fanpage, and upload your photo into the “Fan Photos” section, along with a caption letting us know it’s your entry into the contest.  You can submit as many photos as you like. Get creative—do you share your tap water with your pet stickbug? Drink it out of a cool hand-decorated bottle? Have parties and talk to your friends about taking back the tap? We’re sure you’ll have many cooler ideas than we can even think of.  So go out there and show us your stuff!

You choose the winner, too. Vote by clicking the “Like” button. The photo with the most “likes” wins! 

The contest runs till midnight EST on Tuesday, August 25. A winner will be announced Wednesday, August 26 and featured on our fanpage!

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) recently launched HowMuchFish.com, an online seafood calculator that claims to quantify the benefits and risks of some of America’s favorite seafood, showing “how much fish you can safely eat.” While CCF is promoting its calculator as a tool to help consumers make healthy seafood choices, further inspection reveals some fishy calculations and misleading recommendations.

According to the Center for Media and Democracy, CCF, branding themselves as a consumer-rights group, is actually a “front group for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries…” In fact, the organization, formerly known as Guest Choice Network (GCN), was started in 1995 with a $600,000 donation from Phillip Morris. Since then, Phillip Morris has donated nearly $3 million dollars to GCN. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, a whistleblower revealed that past contributors to CCF include Coca Cola, Monsanto, Cargill, and seafood companies such as Coldwater Seafood, King and Prince Seafood and Save-On Seafood. In addition to CCF, Executive Director, Richard Berman, heads several other pro-industry non-profits as well as a for-profit lobbying and PR firm in Washington, DC.

In 2004, Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed an IRS complaint, alleging that CCF had violated their non-profit status. Since filing the 2004 IRS complaint, CREW launched the website BermanExposed.org, “dedicated to exposing lobbyist Richard Berman’s activities, his myriad front groups and projects, his employees’ work, and his firm’s tactics in acting in the interest of the tobacco, alcohol, chain restaurant, and tanning industries.”

Howmuchfish.com touts the benefits of consuming seafood while discrediting concerns about the negative consequences of seafood consumption, distorting EPA calculations and ignoring other potential hazards of consuming certain seafood products. Howmuchfish.com users are not asked to specify if they are a child, male, female, a pregnant female or a female planning to become pregnant. This is particularly alarming because there are various warnings regarding the possible effects of mercury on developing fetuses, infants and young children, including development of brain damage and learning disabilities, as a result of low level mercury exposure. Mercury, highly poisonous metal, poses the greatest risk to this sensitive subset of the population because their brains and nervous systems are still developing.

The calculator lists the “hypothetical health risks” associated with twelve seafood varieties, but only accounts for risks associated with mercury contamination. This narrow focus ignores all other seafood contaminants such as PCBs, dioxins, antibiotic residues and pesticides, which can seriously harm consumer health and safety.  For example, by CCF’s standards, consumers are exposed to the same “hypothetical health risks” from both farmed and wild salmon. However, while these fish might contain similar levels of mercury contamination farmed salmon can actually contain higher concentrations of PCBs, antibiotics, pesticides, and other toxins than wild salmon.

Although Howmuchfish.com cites the EPA determination for safe levels of mercury exposure, they warp these calculations by multiplying them by a factor of 10. The EPA and FDA seafood advisories are based upon a reference dose (RfD) for mercury exposure, which includes an  “Uncertainty Factor” (UF) of 10 to account for variability in mercury sensitivity within the human population. Use of an UF is standard practice in the scientific community and a detailed description of EPA’s justification for mercury RfD calculations can be found here. Although Howmuchfish.com cites the EPA calculations, they distort EPA data by excluding the UF, therefore eliminating the margin of safety and overestimating the safety of mercury contamination in seafood.

Fortunately, consumers do have clean, green, safe and sustainable seafood options. In fact, there are plenty of fish that are low in mercury and other seafood contaminants, which have significant health benefits without the risks. Check out Food & Water Watch’s Smart Seafood Guide for a list of sustainable fish!

You might not expect a municipal water utility to run an ad campaign touting its water as “natural, pure, cool, clean, clear.” But that is exactly what the Miami Dade Water and Sewer Department (MDWSD), one of the largest public utilities in the nation, is doing in its countywide campaign aimed at restoring people’s faith in their tap water.  The department, which serves over 416,000 homes and businesses, hopes to save citizens money, help the environment, and most importantly create a sense of public awareness about water use and management. 

An earlier series of radio ads, intended to convince the public that tap water is better than bottled water, got the MDWSD into hot water with Nestlé corporation, which was trying to bottle water near Miami at the time.  After Nestlé threatened to sue, Miami Dade Water and Sewer simply focused its ads on boasting the tap water’s quality and cleanliness.  What the MDWSD seems to have understood in putting together its “Only Tap Water Delivers” campaign is that the marketing myths of the bottled water industry undermine public confidence in tap water. 

With help from the American Water Works Association (AWWA), Miami Dade has been able to produce an entire campaign to promote the spigot.  Along with NPR radio ads, the campaign has been utilizing bus-stop benches, Metrorail cars, billboards, and even movie theatres to carry the message near and far that in Miami Dade County, only tap delivers.  They even take the steamy sexual overtones of the South Beach image, a staple in Miami, to its comical conclusion: flyers sporting the question “How often have you turned me on?” in the shadow of a running faucet.

This campaign couldn’t have been timed any better, considering what’s at stake for Florida.  The Southwest Florida Water Management District has stated that within the next 15 to 20 years, southern areas of the state will need new sources of water. Recently, the MDWSD has been combating drought by running a Use Less campaign and website,  which encourages using water wisely and efficiently.  But the lingering question is if water conservation will be enough for South Florida and the rest of the state to address its water needs.

Many argue that the contentious Everglades Land Purchase, aimed at protecting and restoring the wetlands around Lake Okeechobee, is a simply a measure to ensure water resources for Miami Dade County in the near future.   Right now, the lake is a backup water source that has been hit hard by major droughts in the area.  Many are still wary of how the purchase will turn out.   

Floridians have many reasons to question how their water resources are being managed.  Case in point: the Tampa bay area.  After a disappointing desalination plant and the failing C.W. Young Reservoir, water management in this large city on the coast has raised a small army of skeptics. Miami Dade County is hoping to build a good reputation as it moves into a period that will have many water challenges.  Let’s hope that MDWSD continues to deliver on its advertisement promises.

Investors are snapping up fields and forests in some of the poorest developing countries. Governments, sovereign wealth funds and companies from rapidly industrializing or oil-rich developing nations have sought or secured between 37 million and 49 million acres of farmland in the developing world between 2006 and mid 2009. These investments in some of the most productive agricultural land threaten to further undermine food security and sustainable rural economic development in the developing world.

Some wealthy countries that depend on imported food, including Japan and South Korea, are securing farmland beyond their borders. China is expanding its global reach to maximize its food security and fuel economic growth. Arid, oil-rich countries are seeking cheap water in the form of cultivated crops to be shipped back home.

The new land purchases could further destabilize the food security of some developing countries since land shifted to foreign investors cannot be used to produce food for local communities. The lure of new investment dollars can overwhelm local efforts to manage their own land. These financial pressures contribute to the global drive for large-scale industrialized agricultural production – dislocating smallholder farmers in the developing world, exacerbating rural poverty and food insecurity.

Many of these land deals are for farms that are tens of thousands of acres that investors are converting to single-crop farms, which dwarf the small-scale farms that are most common in the developing world. Nearly nine out of ten farms in the developing world (85 percent) are smaller than 5 acres.

Subsistence farmers and pastoralists often lack western-style titles to the land they use under customary tenure arrangements and can easily risk losing access to land targeted by investors. This can be especially dire for women who are 70 percent of farmers in the developing world and who often cannot protect their own land tenure claims in court. Foreign investors demand the best land, typically with access to irrigation, so disempowered rural communities can lose their most productive farmland.

Grabbing Water with the Land

Many of the land buyers, especially from arid and import dependent countries, are essentially seeking access to water as much as they are land. Buying or leasing land with more plentiful water allows arid countries to shift domestic irrigation water to municipal water supplies.

The African and Asian countries targeted for land investment have accessible water available for agricultural production. For example, most of Central Africa primarily relies on rain fed agriculture, with only two percent of its land using available irrigation water. This makes the region attractive to foreign investors looking for agricultural land and water. At the June 2009 global agriculture investment conference, the CEO of the Emergent Asset Management’s African Agricultural Land Fund predicted: “Water is going to be a fantastically scarce asset.”

For more information on this land grabbing run amok, check out our new fact sheet.

We might meet you at a rally, at a meeting in your hometown, or even at our own office here in D.C. You show up at our office to volunteer after working a full day at your own jobs.  You’re often eager to share your own stories of how you became interested in food safety, or maybe water rights.  You ask us how you can help, and offer any connections you might have.

It’s YOU all who make us feel great about what we do, and you’re a big reason why we are able to succeed in so many of our campaigns!

Volunteers  come young and old, and each has a different reason for joining with us.  We love to hear it when you share your experiences with us.  Volunteer Rick Claypool, whose main concern is corporate accountability in the food system, recently said to us:

“Just writing to let you know I had a great time volunteering yesterday. I'd been burned by a not-so-friendly volunteering experience recently, so yesterday was particularly reinvigorating. And hopefully I'll see you next month.
Cheers,
 Rick”

Rick was just one of many volunteers this summer – one of the busiest summers yet, chock full of volunteer opportunities. Activists brought the enthusiasm at California events like San Diego Pride, Venice Eco-Fest, Maker Faire, and the Sunset Community Festival.  The Marin campaign to fight desalination plants in California owes a big thanks to Joanie Levinsohn for all of her wonderful contributions and commitment to conservation and smart usage of our water resources. 

We’ve also got a fantastic and dedicated bunch in D.C., like volunteers Malcolm Brown and Patricia Welty.  They and others most recently helped stuff envelopes, ate tasty snacks from Whole Foods, and made chefs' hats and signs for the fish team’s Chefs' Rally.

As all of you know, there’s always more fighting to be done to see our goals for our food, fish and water realized. 

And that’s why we want you with us, wherever you are!  No matter where you live, if you want to help, you can.  Become a liaison, an ambassador, a community organizer, even a blogger.  There are always events to go to, and if you’re in D.C., keep listening because every third Thursday of the month we plan a night just for you.  This month: Aug. 25th join us from 10 am – 12 pm to help with mailings, snack on coffee, bagels and fruit, and listen to Royelen Boykie, our Chief Digital Strategist speak about how to make the most out of online social media.  To get more involved sign up today to be informed of upcoming events, or call (202) 683 - 2500 or e-mail Caitlin at clevesque@fwwatch.org. 

Again, thanks for all you do!

                                                                       -  Becca Londner

The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749) passed last week in the U.S. House of Representatives  by a vote of 283-142. 

The bill gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration new mandates and authority to regulate food safety of the 80% of the food supply that falls under its jurisdiction.  It addresses some of the gaping loopholes in the food safety program at FDA that were tragically exposed by a series of food borne illness outbreaks in recent years that sickened and even killed U.S. consumers.  On balance, the bill is a positive first step to correcting the deficiencies at FDA, but there are still some issues that need to be addressed as the debate moves over to the Senate. Read more about the bill.

If you happened to be driving past the Pershing Park area in Washington, D.C. the other day and noticed a group of noisy people in aprons and chef hats - no, we were not baking the world’s largest pie – you caught a glimpse of Food & Water Watch’s Chefs’ Rally for sustainable seafood. 

Wednesday at noon we congregated across from the U.S. Department of Commerce – the department that is now considering the controversial Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council ocean fish farming plan – to say loudly and clearly that chefs and consumers alike are saying “NO” to industrially farmed fish. 

Donning chef apparel and carrying big signs with phrases like “OOA = Fishy Business” and “Say NO to industrial fish farming,” we were joined by local chefs from such great restaurants as Central Michel Richard, Patowmack Farm, The Reef, and Majestic. And of course, our wonderful FWW liaison chef Rocky Barnette was there to speak to the energetic crowd.

After some inspiring words from Chef Rocky we grabbed our loudspeaker and marched the perimeter of the building, chanting until lots of faces appeared in windows. 

Chefs, FWW staff, and activists communicated clearly to them, calling “Whose oceans?  OUR oceans!” 
Again, thank you to all who turned out!  We couldn’t do this without you. 

Learn why open ocean aquaculture is the wrong choice for the environment, human health, and sustainability, and then take action by signing our petition to end industrial fish farming.

- Becca Londner

Earlier this week, BusinessWeek alerted its readership to the increasing profitability of water. According to reporter David Bogoslaw, we should expect a “surge in water investments to begin over the next one to three years.” In other words, investors who have no doubt been taking a beating due to the instability of the stock market are starting to view water as the potential key to salvaging their flailing portfolios.

While some may see this as a good thing, there is plenty of cause for alarm in Bogoslaw’s prediction. Because many water funds include private utility companies, investing in these funds channels more money to private utilities, thereby granting them the capital to gobble up more local water utilities where they will continue to do what they have already gained notoriety for: raising rates while offering subpar service and neglecting basic infrastructure upkeep.

Putting aside ideological arguments against privatization, investing in water funds is simply an impractical move. Around the country, communities that have had their public water utilities bought by private entities have experienced a litany of problems with their water service. From Lexington, Kentucky to Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, a movement is afoot to buy water systems back from bumbling corporations. With momentum for public control building, it makes one wonder why anyone would knowingly pin his or her financial future on such an obviously flawed investment.

Private water companies know it too. Minutes leaked from a Supervisory Board meeting of RWE, a multinational private water corporation, cited “considerable resistance to privatization of the water sector” as impetus for the company’s desire to pull out of U.S. markets. So while large water corporations may welcome money from investors, even they know that their product isn’t exactly a fail-safe financial venture.

When it comes to investing in water, the best bet will always be government funding for public water utilities. That’s why Representative Earl Blumenauer’s (D-Ore.) Water Protection and Reinvestment Act (H.R.3202) is a welcome addition to the escalating dialogue about our collective water woes. If passed, the bill will create a dedicated source of federal funding to repair our nation’s ailing water infrastructure, and to keep it in top condition for many years to come.  That way, communities won’t need to sell their water utilities to private companies in a desperate attempt to keep water flowing to their residents.

Potential investors looking for a safe place to stash a few dollars might instead consider investing in municipal bonds – which are less risky and tax-exempt to boot.  Rather than feeding the privatization beast, they’ll be granting much-needed help to public utilities, while experiencing a far safer default rate. Need further evidence? Between the years 1970 to 2000, the default rate on municipal bonds issued for water projects was…zero.
 

Last weekend, I traveled to Burlington, Vermont, along with my three colleagues Denise, Rachael and Zach, to participate in the Vermont Brewers’ Festival. As representatives of Food & Water Watch, we were at the festival helping distribute Burlington tap water to all the attendees. Check out my earlier blog post describing the partnership. By now we’ve all flown, trained and driven back to our respective homes, waving goodbye to beautiful Lake Champlain. We definitely had a blast!

The festival, with an attendance of 10,000-plus, was the first large event to go bottled water-free in the state of Vermont. The environmentally conscious brewers that make up the Vermont Brewers’ Association got in touch with us and also sponsored the cost of bringing a water truck to the festival grounds. And a team of amazing volunteers made it possible for us to work easily and efficiently to run our water station! A local water-hauling company, Fresh Water Haulers, even created a special six-tap filling station on the re-purposed dairy truck for the occasion!

Attendees could stop by for a free fillup (and another, and another, and another) of their glass, canteen, or any other vessel of their choice. We even had several thirsty puppies come by and lap some tasty tap water out of their dogbowls. Visitors to our booth could also purchase our stainless steel Take Back the Tap water bottles or Take Back the Tap teeshirts. We had a fantastic time talking to all the friendly Vermonters (and visitors to Vermont, like ourselves)!

By going bottled water-free, the Festival saved an estimated 30,000 plastic bottles. That’s a lot of bottles! The festival’s organizers told us that in previous years, the grounds were littered with plastic bottles when the event closed. With no bottled water on the site, we were marveling at how little trash was left behind!  And don’t forget the money that festival attendees saved, to spend on some of the delicious festival food or extra beer-tasting tickets!

Thanks again to the festival organizers, the brewers and vendors, our great volunteers, and all the festival-goers who stopped by and chatted with us and helped make the event a success!

Even if you couldn’t make the festival, you can check out some of our photos here. And if you’re looking into planning your own bottle-free event, drop us a line—we’ll be glad to help.

Though we awoke to a dark, stormy sky on our last day in Minnesota, we were not discouraged. We had encountered overwhelming support over the last week, and we were enthusiastic about meeting with Senator Klobuchar’s staff to discuss getting better milk in schools.

The Senator’s staff was unwilling to commit to anything immediately. However, as we had hoped, they suggested that given the work Senator Klobuchar has done on pro-kids and pro-consumer legislation in the past, she would potentially support the inclusion of language in the Child Nutrition Act clarifying that schools may purchase rBGH-free milk.

Upon leaving our final meeting, we began our long journey home, and after two tremendous weeks on the road, we arrived back in Washington safe and sound. The cow costumes need some time to recuperate; we, on the other hand, are excited to keep mooving forward, encouraged by the progress that we’ve made.

The last couple of weeks were fun-filled and inspiring. However, the road trip involved more than merely fun and games. On the road working diligently for better school milk, we accomplished a great deal.

Our road trip by the numbers…

•    We focused our efforts in 6 states (PA, OH, MI, IL, IA, MN)
•    In less than 2 weeks, we met over 1,200 people who joined our movement for better school milk
•    5 local media sources covered the Healthy School Milk or Bust Tour
•    1,086 people signed postcards to be delivered to their senators
•    175 people called and asked Senator Casey, Stabenow, Harkin, or Klobuchar to support our proposed provision within the Child Nutrition Act

Whew. What a phenomenal experience. We achieved a great deal over the last two weeks, but this tour was just the beginning. We appreciate the support you provided as we wound our way through the Midwest, and we hope that you will continue to support us on our campaign for better school milk. Take the lead to ensure that schools can buy milk without artificial hormones.

How many rBGH-free milk cartons does it take to make a boat? This may seem like a strange question, but yesterday in Minneapolis dozens of teams floated their milk carton boats out onto Lake Calhoun, while thousands of people looked on to see if they would sink or float. Joe, Bethany and I arrived at this annual event dressed in our cow suits and were quickly greeted by swarms of people. It was like a dairy lovers family reunion, with people dressed in all sorts of cow-themed outfits, free samples of organic milk and some of the most creative uses for milk cartons you’ve ever seen. Regardless to say, we were right at home.

The idea of building a boat out of milk cartons was new to me, but apparently people in Minnesota have been doing it for over 30 years. The boats were all shapes and sizes and had names like Bovine Vikings, Splattered Polka-Dotted Cow and Squid Attack. You can check out our photos to see a few examples. This year it seemed like most of the contestants had made the transition to organic milk cartons, which made our job of getting people to take action on the School Milk Campaign super easy. We collected over 200 postcards to Senator Klobuchar from supporters at the event!

Today we followed up our success at the Milk Carton Boat Races with a call-in day to Senator Klobuchar at the Seward Coop. People were really receptive and before long, we had jammed all of the phone lines at the Senator’s DC office. These calls will set the stage for our petition delivery to Senator Klobuchar’s office tomorrow morning. This will be the culmination of all our work here in Minnesota, and will hopefully bring Senator Klobuchar closer to becoming a champion for clarifying that schools can purchase rBGH-free and organic milk.

Successful Morning in Des Moines!

 This morning the rBGH-free cows headed to the farmer's market in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Despite being in the heart of industrial farm country, we were able to get a glimpse of an alternative to the factory farm model that dominates the state and the region. The Des Moines farmer’s market offered a beautiful array of locally produced foods – showing everyone that the status-quo can, and will be, changed!

The Food & Water Watch team received a tremendous welcoming to Des Moines!  In less than an hour and half, we collected nearly 200 signed postcards to be delivered to Senator Harkin. People in Des Moines are serious about their milk – and they don’t want any artificial hormones corrupting it! 

After a successful morning at the farmer’s market, we stopped by the state convention of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. There we were able to see our food program director, Patty, who was invited to give a presentation on factory farming to Iowa CCI members. During our stop at the convention, we were able to listen to several Iowa CCI members and organizers talk about the organization’s campaigns and victories. The speakers at the convention were truly inspirational, and Iowa CCI has been doing amazing work in Iowa for over 30 years!

This afternoon we are headed to Minneapolis for the last leg of our journey.  As I am writing this, we are driving past hog factory farms on Interstate 35.  The sight of these operations is astounding, the smell is enough to make our eyes water. With the help of our activists, hopefully one day factory farms like these will be history.

– Sarah Alexander, on the Healthy School Milk or Bust Tour

As we started off on the second half of our tour this morning, we feel like we have big hooves to fill. Alex, Becca and Meredith made the cows proud by getting lots of support for our campaign, and earning lots of great media coverage along the way. The first group of roadies shared their wisdom about arriving on time, leaving extra time for parking and how to be a cow, but some things you just have to learn for yourself. Today our drive was long, but we arrived in Iowa City right on time, and were greeted with a warm welcome when we arrived at the Red Avocado Café for our activist meet-up. Two supporters were already waiting for us, and a third joined us to talk about the campaign and how they could get involved. We ate some delicious food and our new friends left with lots of blank postcards in hand, eager to get help out on the campaign.

Next we headed downtown to the pedestrian mall to get people to call Senator Harkin and ask for better milk in schools. The weather in Iowa City was unseasonably cool - perfect for dressing up as a cow! We’d heard lots about the cow suits, and there was even a previous blog post, but it’s such a new and delightful experience it’s worth another mention. It’s the best of times, and the worst of times, but mostly the best of times.  Wearing a cow suit unlocks people’s inner child. People can’t stop themselves from seeing you and smiling, gravitating toward you and asking what you’re up to. Sarah was told she made someone’s day, and someone else laughed and said they’d never seen a cow with a purse before. 

It also seems to be an open invitation for people to make funny, often bordering on inappropriate, comments. We won’t go into them here, but you can use your imagination.  At first a couple of us were a little hesitant to wear the suit, worried that people wouldn’t take us seriously. This doesn’t turn out to be the case. As one passerby in Chicago put it, “whatever you’re sellin’, I’m buyin!” Because really, who can say no to a cow asking for safer milk for children?

The Healthy School Milk or Bust Tour took over the city of Chicago yesterday! We've been on tour since last Friday, gathering support for better school milk and filling senator's voicemail boxes. We're at the halfway point in our trip, if you've missed any updates so far, check out our webpage to see photos, the map of our journey and read our blogs.

Alex, Becca and Meredith started the tour in DC, and have visited Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Yesterday Sarah, Bethany and Joe met up with the Tour in Chicago to collect over 300 petition signatures from Chicago area residents! This is the largest number of petitions we've collected on any day so far, doubling our total number of postcards gathered on the tour.
 
At this point we've delivered our national petition to Senators Casey, Brown and Stabenow, collected over 600 postcards, gotten in over 125 calls and have received some great media coverage of the tour.

We're currently on the road today headed to Iowa City to meet with activists and get in calls to Senator Harkin's office. Why are we doing this road trip you ask? Well, we're working to make sure kids get the healthiest milk possible as part of the National School Lunch Program. We're asking senators to take a stand for kids by passing legislation that would clarify schools can purchase organic milk or milk that has been produced without artificial hormones.

Over a thousand people are following our road trip by getting daily updates. If you'd like to join them, and hear about our work for the last half of the trip, sign up!

Otherwise, check out all the great work we've been doing on our tour page.

We'll be in touch soon!

Each morning we awake and move to our feet slowly, but after a good cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast, we are on the move again. This morning began like any other, but proved to be one of the more event-filled days on our voyage. 

We were treated to a breakfast purchased from the famous Zingerman’s Deli, said goodbye to our lovely host, Sarah, and headed back into downtown Ann Arbor.  This time we hit the Farmer’s Market (all of us cow-clad) for a Call-In Day to Senator Stabenow’s offices. Well luck was smiling, and we got 53 calls in to Stabenow in just two hours! 

Feeling great, we jumped in the van and headed to Lansing for our meeting with Stabenow’s staff, who we’d already been keeping busy with calls. Two TV networks sent camera crews, and both Alex and Meredith were interviewed on camera about the campaign. Naturally, the cow got some airtime too. The meeting itself went really well. The staff graciously thanked us for the information we provided for the Senator, who has championed many children’s health issues in the past. We hope that she will build upon her past experiences by leading the movement to get rBGH
out of schools too.

After all that excitement, the long drive to Chicago chilled us out. It was so nice to arrive at the gorgeous lakefront and see Bethany and Sarah’s familiar faces. We all enjoyed a late dinner where we caught them up, told stories, and shared some hard-learned tips (like always plan for parking time!).

We have been on the road for nearly a week now. This is hard to believe. It feels like only yesterday we were throwing our bags into the back of the van, wondering how we could pack our things most efficiently (young and so naïve we were - did we really believe that the car would maintain its order along the way?). That morning, as we wound our way through the streets of DC, we took the first of many wrong turns (missing our turn proved to be a theme of this leg of the trip).  However, despite our inability to keep the car organized and our tendency to lose our way, we feel that we have accomplished a great deal. Furthermore, we have met incredible people, learned a lot, and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Now it’s time for us to go home, and we turn our responsibilities over to Bethany, Sarah, Joe, and Erin. We wish them the best of luck on their continuation of the “Healthy School Milk or Bust” tour, and hope you will continue to follow them as they make their way through Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. Thank you for your support folks- keep reading as they moove along!

- Becca, Meredith, & Alex

“A home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
-Robert Frost

When we arrived on Joan Knoertzer doorstep last night, she welcomed us into her library-themed B&B with open arms.  Upon entering we discovered a wonderland brimming with laughter, stories, nibbles (her word for candy), and more books than you could possibly imagine.  Sometimes being on the road gets tiring, but great Bed and Breakfasts give the impression that you are at a place where they would always take you in.

We fell asleep enveloped in the softest sheets we had ever felt and awoke to an elaborate breakfast. As we prepared for another full day of petitioning, Joan set us up for success.

Enjoying a cooler day in Ann Arbor, Becca, Alex and I hit the ground running. We donned the fashionable heifer suits, and over the course of the day, we collected nearly 150 postcards. As the sky darkened at the late hour of 10 pm, we treated ourselves to ice cream from the local parlor and reflected upon the day. It seemed appropriate that we would share some of our musings below.

We are thankful for kind and hospitable hosts, for receptive ears, for new coalition partners, for enthusiastic supporters, for artificial hormone-free ice cream, and for the breathability of two of the three cow suits.

                                                                            -Meredith, Becca, and Alex

Yesterday Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced H.R.3203, the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act. We know this as the Clean Water Trust Fund!

Here’s how the Fund would work: The Water Protection and Reinvestment Trust Fund would be established in the U.S. Treasury. Money from the Trust Fund would be distributed to the states for loans and grants to localities that need to make repairs, improvements, or build new infrastructure. At the same time, the bill allocates funding for green infrastructure and prohibits the funds being spent on sprawl.

The Fund would receive a yearly appropriation from four dedicated taxes. Those taxes would be: a 4-cent-per-container wholesale tax on “water-based beverages;” a product disposal fee of 3% of the wholesale price of “flushable” products including toilet paper, soap, detergents, water softeners, and cooking oils; a 0.5% tax on the wholesale price of pharmaceuticals; and a 0.15% corporate income tax on companies whose alternative minimum tax income exceeds $4 million. Taken together these taxes and fees should generate between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for the fund.

To put those figures in perspective, consider that the water infrastructure appropriations passed by the House just last month equals $3.9 billion. That $3.9 billion represents a roughly 157% increase over funding in 2009 but is only one third of what the Trust Fund would provide.

With a $22 billion a year funding gap for water infrastructure, we can’t wait any longer. We need this trust fund now! See our statement from Executive Director Wenonah Hauter.

"A home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." -Robert Frost

When we arrived on Joan Knoertzer's doorstep last night, she welcomed us into her library-themed B&B with open arms. Upon entering we discovered a wonderland brimming with laughter, stories, nibbles (her word for candy), and more books than you could possibly imagine. Sometimes being on the road gets tiring, but great Bed and Breakfasts give the impression that you are at a place where they would always take you in.

We fell asleep enveloped in the softest sheets we had ever felt and awoke to an elaborate breakfast. As we prepared for another full day of petitioning, Joan set us up for success.

Enjoying a cooler day in Ann Arbor, Becca, Alex and I hit the ground running. We donned the fashionable heifer suits, and over the course of the day, we collected nearly 150 postcards. As the sky darkened at the late hour of 10 pm, we treated ourselves to ice cream from the local parlor and reflected upon the day. It seemed appropriate that we would share some of our musings below.

We are thankful for kind and hospitable hosts, for receptive ears, for new coalition partners, for enthusiastic supporters, for artificial hormone-free ice cream, and for the breathability of two of the three cow suits.

When we embarked on this road trip several days ago, we expected to meet great people along the way. However, we had no idea what was in store. On every corner and sidewalk, while petitioning and asking folks to call their Senators, we continually meet fantastic people. Each time we stop into a restaurant, hotel, and B&B, we encounter friendly faces.

Over the last two days, we have been aided and inspired by our coalition partners. Karen Hansen from the Ohio Conference on Fair Trade was a lifesaver at the North Market Food and Wine Festival. We met over a cup of coffee, and before we could say “Healthy School Milk or Bust,” she was up and running, asking the folks at the next table to sign a postcard.

Then today she joined us again for a meeting with Senator Brown’s staff, along with Ellen Mee and Joe Logan from the Ohio Environmental Council. It was phenomenal to have Ellen and Joe in the meeting, as they’ve worked on rBGH and agricultural issues in the state for years.

The meeting was a great success, and we were thrilled to have media cover the event. Prior to entering Senator Brown’s office, local NPR affiliate WOSU interviewed Alex and Joe. Check the clip out here.

Tomorrow, we head north to Ann Arbor. There, we look forward to spreading the word on school milk. You know what they say, “what’s good for the goose, is good for the Michigander.”

- Becca, Meredith, and Alex

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation scored a big victory last Monday, and the support of Food & Water Watch members played a part!

MCWC went to court on Monday, July 6 and prevented Nestlé Waters North America from pumping even more water from an already depleted stream in Mecosta County to bottle for its Ice Mountain brand bottled water. 

After nine years of legal battles with corporate giant Nestlé and all its resources, MCWC’s situation was looking grim.  With its mounting legal costs, the group was facing the very real possibility of having to give up.  But several hundred Food & Water Watch members pitched in, donating over $7500 in just a few days.

On Monday, MCWC reached a settlement with Nestlé.  "Under this modified injunction order, Nestlé cannot pump more water from Dead Stream or Thompson Lake," Terry Swier, MCWC President, said.  "This new order completes one of MCWC’s goals.  Nestle must reduce its pumping earlier in the spring and continue its low pumping rates during the summer months. This will leave more water in the system and should eliminate the more serious impacts to the stream that occur in drier years and summers."

The money donated by Food & Water Watch members will really help MCWC with the legal fees it racked up during this lengthy fight.  We received word from MCWC's president, emphasizing how important the assistance of our supporters was to their victory and expressing sincere gratitude. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed!

To read more, check out the press release on MCWC’s site.

Today we hit the North Market Food and Wine Festival in downtown Columbus, Ohio, where I transformed myself into a cow in order to grab some extra attention.  In case anyone ever had questions regarding the experience of a cow at a Food and Wine Fest, I picked up a bit of wisdom along the way that I can share with you.

•    Several good-intentioned humans are likely to inform you that your “udders are exposed.”

•    In congested crossways of pedestrians, calls of “mooo” aptly direct foot traffic.

•    If someone tells you that they were out with someone who looked just like you last night, you must compliment that person for having such fantastic taste in company.

•    You will win instant favor when it is 80 degrees F. and above.

•    YOU MAY COLLECT OVER 160 PETITION SIGNATURES AND NEW ACTIVISTS, LIKE WE DID!

 -Becca and the "Healthy School Milk or Bust" trippers

Meredith, Becca, and I paused in front of funnel cake stands and a ferris wheel. We had arrived at Big Butler Fair moments earlier and now looked at each other, trying to determine our goal for the day. How many folks could we get to call Senator Casey’s office in support of rBGH-free milk? How many would be enough? We threw out some numbers: 50? 100? No figure satisfied our ambition. Finally, Meredith suggested a goal we could agree upon - "let's keep calling until his mailbox is full!"

Never have we been so excited to hear the words, “the mailbox is full.” After dozens of folks from the fair left messages for Senator Casey, demanding that he "expel the hormones" from our school’s milk, no space remained in his DC mailbox. With so many concerned parents at the event, it wasn’t surprising that we overwhelmed his voicemail.
But we didn't stop there. After we filled his DC mailbox, we started piling the calls in elsewhere (fortunately, the Senator has offices
across the state).

Now it’s off to Columbus, Ohio! Tomorrow we will hold an activist meet-up and then head on over to the North Market Food and Wine Festival to get postcards signed asking Senator Brown to protect children's health. Stay tuned for an update from the Buckeye State!

- Alex, Meredith, Becca

Greetings from the road!  We made our way to the Festival of the Arts in State College, where we had some petitioning fun.  Alex was a fantastic cow and had his tail pulled several times by some enthusiastic dairy fans. 

Next we made our way to Bellefonte to visit Senator Casey’s district office.  We met with his staff, who told us Casey has received pressure from his constituents to “expel the hormones” and that he is reviewing the issue.  This underscores why you need to take action now for better school milk, and make our voice even louder to influence the Child Nutrition Act.

We settled in for the night at a lovely B&B on a farm in Punxsutawney, PA (remember, the Groundhog Day town?)  Maybe Phil will sign before we leave for the Big Butler Fair.  Hopefully we’ll meet lots of candy apple chewin’, demolition derby viewin’ rBGH-free milk lovers!

-Becca, Alex, and Meredith

Some of you may have caught Dana Milbank’s column in yesterday’s Washington Post about this week’s congressional hearing on bottled water regulations, A Congressman With a Thirst for Truth. What you may not have realized was how it misrepresented some of what went on in that hearing, while also glossing over many important facets of the broader bottled water debate. As a researcher and analyst for Food & Water Watch’s water policy team, I was at that hearing, and I want to share with you some of my impressions of Milbank’s column and the events that it covered.

First, Milbank wrongly states that “bottled water has not killed anyone and it’s not even clear that it has made anybody sick.” But in April of this year, 12 students in southern California complained of nausea, headaches and dizziness after drinking Aquafina from a high school vending machine. The water reportedly had a foul odor and cloudy appearance, and the subsequent FBI investigation found no signs of tampering. This is not an isolated incident, as bottled water has been recalled for containing high levels of bacteria, algae, mold, arsenic and bromate.

More importantly, Milbank misses the major shortcomings in FDA’s regulation of bottled water, revealed at the hearing. Democratic Delegate Christian E. Christiansen, a physician by training, pointedly highlighted that FDA does not have the statutory authority to require bottling companies to use certified laboratories or to report test results to FDA, even if test results could endanger health.  As we learned earlier this year from the Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter that killed 9 people and sickened over 700, it is possible for companies to conceal positive bacteria findings from the FDA. Only after FDA officials went into the Peanut Corporation of America’s plant did they discover that in fact the company had been testing its product and had found tests that contained high levels of the bacteria. What’s to stop that same regulatory failure from occurring within the bottled water industry?

Though FDA may apply standards similar to the ones EPA uses for contaminants in municipal drinking water, the reporting protocols are very different, and that is what ultimately protects public health. Food safety legislation currently moving through Congress could give FDA the authority to make bottled water companies report test results, allow more FDA inspections and require that those inspections take place in a certified lab—all much-needed consumer protections.

The great irony is that while Congress has failed to grant FDA the authority needed to ensure that bottled water is safe for consumers, they have simultaneously cut back federal funding for municipal drinking water systems. Today, federal funding provides less than 5 percent of what’s needed to ensure that our drinking water systems are maintained and updated. Instead of caring for the pipes and treatments systems we have invested in for over a century, Representative Burgess and other members of Congress, reluctant to trust tap water, now pay 1900 times more for water served in a plastic bottle. Instead, they should support Blumenauer’s upcoming Clean Water Trust Fund legislation that would provide a dedicated source of funding for our water and sewer systems to ensure our drinking water is safe and affordable.

Food & Water Watch and our supporters across the country commend Stupak for holding this important hearing. Stay tuned for ways you can help ensure that the new food safety legislation and the Clean Water Trust Fund are passed by Congress and enacted into law.

Some folks are just lucky, I guess. As part of my job this summer, I get to attend the Vermont Brewers’ Festival, on the shore of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont along with fellow FWW staff members Denise, Zach and Rachael. How is THAT related to food and water?? Well, as part of our work to promote tap water, Food & Water Watch is dedicated to helping event planners go bottled water-free—and in this case, we partnered with the Vermont Brewers’ Association, a group of 18 artisan brewers up in the Green Mountain state who are concerned with reducing their environmental footprint. The festival, now in its 17th year, features 30 artisan brewers and annually welcomes about 12,000 people to three tasting sessions. It promises to be a great time with its lovely lake backdrop and wide variety of craft brews.

So, if you’re in the region and you have a chance to stop by the festival, come check us out. We’ll be helping hand out local Vermont tap water to all the festival’s attendees, making sure everyone stays hydrated while they sample some of Vermont’s finest brews. We’ll also be available to talk to you about our Take Back the Tap campaign, and you can even buy a stainless steel Take Back the Tap canteen to sip your tasty tap water out of. We’d love to meet and talk with you! 

If you’re in another part of the country, don’t worry: we have organizers all over the U.S., and we’d love to help you take your event bottle-free, too. Let us know if you’d like our help, or just check out our guide, and just in case you can’t be there, we’ll try not to have too much fun without you.

It’s time for the government to take action to prevent one of the world’s largest oil and gas platforms from causing a catastrophic accident in the Gulf of Mexico. Atlantis, owned by British Petroleum (BP), lacks many required certification documents and poses a dire threat to the Gulf’s communities.

Located about 150 miles off the coast of New Orleans, Atlantis runs 7000 feet deep and produces 8.4 million gallons of oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas every day. Without engineer-approved documentation for 85% of its piping, instrument and safety shutdown systems, there is concern that Atlantis may have serious design problems. These deficiencies could increase the risk of devastating operator errors and would cause harm to platform workers, the marine environment, and local fishing communities.

Atlantis is dangerously positioned in “hurricane alley” where ocean and weather experts predict a 70% chance of nine to 14 tropical storms this year. These storms, with potential to turn into hurricanes, can wreak havoc on energy platforms in the Gulf. Sixty platforms were destroyed in 2008 alone as a result of two hurricanes. The resulting oil spills harm the plants and animals at the base of the marine food chain, affecting everything that relies on them, including the $32 billion commercial fishing and $60 billion coastal tourism and recreation industries.

The Department of Interior’s Mineral Management Services (MMS) is responsible for regulating offshore drilling but has not responded to concerns about Atlantis as we continue further into hurricane season. Atlantis began operating in October 2007 during the Bush Administration, and Food & Water Watch urges the MMS to suspend production in order to investigate the reasoning behind the platform’s operation without proper safety documentation.

Fear of an unprecedented disaster due to incomplete documentation arose last fall during the near sinking of BP’s Thunder Horse Platform. The repercussions of damage to Atlantis would be too great to risk letting BP continually evade the law. Food & Water Watch, along with its activists, is calling on the government to take action while there is still time to prevent a terrible disaster.

We’re almost ready to hit the road for the “Healthy School Milk or Bust” Tour. Food & Water Watch staff and activists will be taking an exciting road trip through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota to ask senators to put kids' nutrition first by clarifying that schools can purchase organic milk or milk that has been produced without artificial hormones.  The tour will stop at various county fairs, arts festivals and farmers' markets to collect petition signatures and urge people to call their members of congress, and then we'll deliver those petition signatures to Senator’s district offices. 

We encourage you to meet up with us on the road at one of our stops.  Please see the schedule and join us on the “Healthy School Milk or Bust” Tour!

–Sarah Alexander

Who ever said you have to give up quality of life to eat sustainably?  In fact, it’s the opposite—and Food & Water Watch’s partner chef, Chef Rocky, can prove it. Whether you’re just venturing into the world of healthy, sustainable cooking or have been home-canning since before it was cool, our new Edible EcoUnderground site is full of recipes, advice and fun tidbits to help turn your summer meals into fun and delicious experiences.

The Edible EcoUnderground starts off with a 10-week sustainable summer cooking school. Each week, Chef Rocky will pick a fresh, seasonal ingredient and share recipes of his own creation—and then we hope you’ll share your experiences with trying them out!  The cooking school is divided into three levels of expertise: “cooking for nourishment” is for those who are curious but not very experienced in the kitchen; “cooking for pleasure” will be fun for intermediate cooks; and “cooking for transcendence” will challenge and satisfy kitchen pros. You’ll also be able to write in to Chef Rocky’s cooking advice column and check out charts and guides to get you started with cooking basics and seasonal ABCs.

Finally, the summer will end up with a contest to Take Chef Rocky Home for a Day! You just have to tell us why you are the best candidate, and, if you’re chosen as the winner, Chef Rocky will come to you and help you plan and throw your own Edible EcoUnderground dinner party!  Check here for more info on the contest.

We hope you’ll join us in the Edible EcoUnderground, try out the fun ideas, and let us know what you think!  Happy cooking!

Imagine it’s late January, and your neighbor has finally put his Christmas tree out on the curb.  Next, some birds and a squirrel decide to move into it.  Seeing this, your neighbor decides it’s okay to leave it there, despite the fact that it’s rotting on your grass.  “Why should I get rid of it?” he says.  “It can be their new habitat.”

Some companies are now following similar logic with old, out-of-use offshore oil and gas platforms. Normally, when oil or gas companies shut down drill sites, they must remove their platforms within one year of the platform’s retirement.  But some states in the Gulf region have “rig-to-reefs” programs that allow platforms to be abandoned by either removing their above-water parts or by partially sinking them to the ocean floor.  This frees companies of all responsibility for future damage or liability regarding the new “reef”. 

In fact, recently there was a study funded by the government and CARE, an organization funded by the fuel company, Chevron, that confirmed that the safe removal of rigs is completely possible, though too expensive for fuel companies to want to do it. How much? It can cost up to $5 million to remove an oil platform, but only costs about $800,000 to convert the platform into an “artificial reef.”

One of the big problems with this situation is that fish caught near these artificial reefs have been shown to contain higher levels of toxins than fish living in natural ocean environments.  Mercury and ciguatoxin, both noxious to humans, can be found around these platforms and affect the fish that make these sites their home.  Since the fish congregate around the rigs, many small-scale and recreational fishermen favor these spots, which means these toxins can end up on our dinner tables.

Further, as the rate of tropical storms intensifies, why leave the industrial junk out there where it might cause more trouble down the road? Metal structures the size of hotels being dragged through the sea are clearly potential dangers to humans and marine life alike, especially when they end up like this.

Another potential issue with not removing decommissioned rigs is that they could be transitioned to other uses, in particular open-ocean fish farms.  Contrary to some proponents’ claims, open water fish farming is not a sustainable alternative to wild fishing. Rather, using old platforms for ocean fish farming may worsen the state of the environment, the quality of the seafood we consume, and jeopardize the livelihoods of coastal communities across the nation. 

Concentrated amounts of fish food, wastes, diseases, and any chemicals or antibiotics used in farms could pollute the environment and other surrounding wildlife as, the cages are fully open to the ocean. With the coming of farms to platforms, likely fishermen will be excluded from these areas, formerly favorite fishing spots. Additionally, U.S. ocean fish farms are likely to outcompete and ultimately replace traditional fishing, causing widespread job losses. As the number of fishermen dwindles, support businesses, like marine supply stores and dock facilities, will also suffer, risking more job loss and hurting economies of coastal communities.

Fish farms can actually deplete wild fish populations.  Smaller fish are caught to feed the larger, farmed ones, leaving less food in the wild for already stressed and depleted larger predatory fish and birds and marine mammals. Or, the farmed fish are fed cheaper feeds that aren’t naturally found in the ocean, like soy, consequences from which are not yet known. Other chemicals fish farms employ include anti-fungals, pesticides, and toxic paint, and these can contaminate the fish and the marine environment.  Sometimes the cages are damaged and fish escape, causing hoards of farmed fish to alter the natural balance of the ecosystem. 

If artificial reefs are to go into the oceans at all, shouldn’t they at least be designed sustainably and with consideration for marine and human health and safety? 

We know “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” and all, but the oceans are our global Commons, and we shouldn’t have to put up with corporations leaving their trash in them for the benefit of eking out some extra profit.  Instead, energy companies should be called on to fulfill their responsibilities and safely remove retired rigs with utmost care to not harm local marine life.  California – keep your policies on rigs the way they are unless you’ve got the energy to deal with the problems they’ll create.

                                                                               –Becca Londner

Those of us who grew up in the 1950’s fondly remember the Nestle’s television and radio commercials featuring the wooden puppets Danny O’Day and his trusty basset hound sidekick Farfel extolling the virtues of the company’s cocoa powder for milk.  For those who were not yet born to experience such great culture, Danny O’Day would sing: “N-E-S-T-L-E-S. Nestle’s makes the very best”… and Farfel would chime in “Cha-a-aw-klit.” (If you want to see what I am talking about, there are various renditions of the commercial on the Internet). Back then, Nestle’s had a wholesome image among U.S. consumers.

Fast-forward to 2009. Nestle’s now finds itself in an epidemiological investigation involving its Toll-House raw cookie dough that may be contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7 which has sickened at least 71 consumers in 30 states according to the Centers for Disease Control. The company has also recalled various products made with the cookie dough. The focus of the investigation has been the Nestle’s plant in Danville, Virginia.

Last weekend, a couple of news reports surfaced that revealed that inspectors for both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Commonwealth of Virginia (that was contracted by FDA to do inspections) were denied access to Nestle’s production records at the Danville plant going back to at least 2004. Nestle’s did not do anything illegal since under current law a company does not have to turn over its records to FDA unless there is a public health emergency, such as a food recall.  Nestle’s is claiming that it is co-operating with the FDA in the current investigation, but if the company were so confident of its food safety procedures in the past, why did it not simply turn over its production records when asked by inspectors? Had they had access to those records, the inspectors might have spotted something that could have exposed a weakness in the production process and they could have advised the company to take remedial action to correct those deficiencies BEFORE the company put adulterated product into commerce and people got sick.

The press revelations prove that that the FDA needs new statutory authority to prevent food borne illness outbreaks from occurring. They also show that FDA needs a strong and robust inspection program to make sure that the spirit and the letter of the law are being followed.

It would ruin my childhood memories if I saw an updated version of the Nestle’s commercial from the 1950’s that went something like this:
“N-E-S-T-L-E-S.  Nestle’s tries its very best...to hide."

– Tony Corbo

If Aesop ever wrote a fable about water, he would surely write a story about the Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico and its continuing struggle to resolve its water crisis.

The metro Tampa Bay area, which includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, among others, continues growing at an accelerating pace. Estimates say 4 million residents will be living in the area within the next 20 years.  Today, 2.8 million straws in the area continue consuming precious water, water that seems to be running out.

Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, the regional water authorities in the area prepared for just this ominous scenario by buying new well fields in neighboring counties.  Little did they know that this would instigate what is now popularly known as the ‘Tampa Water Wars.’

During these water clashes, lawsuits were more common than the Florida sunshine.   The water management officials, elected leaders, and even ordinary citizens filed suit against each other after the new wells in Pasco and Hillsborough County caused serious problems.  Aquifers began running desperately low.   Wetlands disappeared.  Lakes dried up.  So bad were the circumstances that even the earth retaliated, opening up sinkholes that sucked down entire homes.

Finally, in 1998, after years of litigation, it seemed the worst was over.  Six local commissions decided to establish a new Tampa water authority that would coordinate the area’s water efforts.

Could the magical creatures in Aesop’s story ever relay what happened next to Tampa Bay Water, the freshly minted authority that would provide for the water aspirations of millions?   Well, soon enough, these new water officials were visited by strange but not uncommon creatures too, beings from private industries who touted a novel idea that would save Tampa Bay: ocean desalination.
 
In its first major decision, Tampa Bay Water decided in 1999 to allow several private firms to build, own and operate a 25-million-gallon-per-day plant that would supply up to 15% of the area’s water needs.   So far, it has been a disastrous venture.

The plant went online in 2008 – six years later than scheduled and $40 million over budget.  It has rarely run at full capacity to this day.  In fact, Tampa Bay took ownership of the plant after two of the firms in charge of completing the plant went bankrupt.  In March of 2009, the desalination plant, now operated by a subsidiary of the German multinational RWE, had to be shut down again after yet another malfunction.

But that isn’t all.

Tampa Bay area residents, in the midst of a major five-year drought, recently found out that Tampa Bay Water’s other major project, the four year old C.W. Bill Young Reservoir – designed specifically to safeguard for droughts – has major cracks that may take two years to fix and cost over $125 million to repair.

Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease, Aesop once wrote.   Citizens all over Florida should be looking at the wasted money, time, and effort that the Tampa area has invested and press local officials to seek well-thought-out solutions that will serve the public good. 

Aggressive conservation measures like those proposed by the state’s Water Conservation Initiative or Tampa Bay’s proposed water reclamation project would be a step in the right direction.   But ill-conceived measures like the proposed five-county “bigger-is-better” desalination plant off the Atlantic coast should be reconsidered before it's too late.

– Jorge Aguilar

As if lifted directly from the lines of Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm, in November of 2007 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and a gathering of Georgia citizens woke up in the morning, folded their hands, and in fact, prayed for rain. The calling on God to perform a miracle came in the midst of Georgia’s 20 month long drought. Rainfall that was 16 inches below average had brought low levels to Georgia’s lakes and rivers. In fact, the water level at the popular Lake Lanier became so low during this time that its bottom was revealed. At one point 74 of Georgia’s counties were labeled under extreme drought status and Georgia’s agricultural industry, which includes cotton, peanuts, corn, and hay, lost a staggering 787.2 million dollars.

But nowhere has the water crisis been as distressing as in metro Atlanta, home to over 5 million residents who depend on the rains and the rivers that feed the Lake Lanier reservoir. Atlanta has been ground zero in Georgia’s battle against the water Gods. And no, I do not mean the higher powers above us that have been known to incite the downpour of the basic droplets we need to exist.

A few years ago, Atlanta’s initial prayers were answered by the water Gods of corporate interest and privatization. But the prophets they had hoped for were actually run-of-the-mill profiteers. Atlanta’s stint in water privatization with a subsidiary of the Parisian multinational named Suez ended in January of 2003 after five miserable years. The city decided to terminate the contract after a series of incidents involving brown water running from faucets, major delays in fixing water main lines, and an overall mismanagement of billing services that cost the city millions.  Atlanta is again publicly operating their water system but still facing major water challenges.

As Atlanta continues to increase in size and population, its gargantuan and often wasteful water needs require sound water management policies. Early this decade, a coalition of over 160 different organizations formed the Georgia Water Coalition and demanded that their elected officials think of a more proactive approach to water management. The state drafted several ways of trying to conserve their precious and dwindling supply of water and in May 2009, released Georgia’s Water Conservation Implementation Plan (WCIP), all 179 pages of it. By addressing issues with irrigation, energy generation, and even golf courses, Georgia is attempting to tackle their water shortage head on.

Meanwhile, Atlanta is also in the middle of a $4 billion project, started by Mayor Shirley Franklin, that aims to reduce the sewage overflows that have been spilling into water bodies and neighborhoods around the city. To their credit, the city has reducing inefficiencies such as leaky pipes and sources of pollution like combined sewer overflows. A report by American Rivers has found that these efforts in Atlanta have reduced its water loss rates from 20% to 14% since 2003, saving 7 million gallons per day. Both projects are requiring massive amounts of funding in a time when Atlanta, like cities around the country, is facing severe budget deficits. Just last year, Mayor Franklin went to Congress to ask for more federal funding to help fund projects such as Atlanta’s.

Georgia has looked to the heavens, the corporate water Gods, and even the halls of Washington seeking help for their water problems. But despite the fact that Perdue had called upon God “to meet their need” for water in Georgia and made strides in areas of water conservation, on June 10th the Environmental Protection Department of Georgia decided that a little rain was enough to abandon water restrictions. I guess two steps forward and one step back is still forward progress and therefore better than no progress at all. Ultimately, the residents of the state must continue pressing their officials to employ aggressive conservation measures over the long haul and not just quick fix solutions. Amen.

Food & Water Watch is diving into #waterwednesday on Twitter by hosting a summer-long series of tweet chats.

Join us there @foodandwater every Wednesday from 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT for a dynamic conversation on the current water crisis and what you can do about it.

Our first #waterwednesday chat is June 24 with guest water campaign organizer Renee Vogelsang.

On July 8, our special guest host will be Food and Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter.

Please suggest topics you would like covered either in the comments below or by writing to @foodandwater on Twitter. Here’s our schedule so far:

6/24     Bottled Water: “Taking Back the Tap” (Hosted by Renee)

7/1       Everyone’s Right to Water: An International Perspective (Hosted by Darcey)

*7/8    Discussion on Water Privatization w/ Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

7/15      Desalination is Not the Answer (Hosted by Adam)

7/22      America's Groundwater Crisis (Hosted by Sarah)

7/29      A Water System You Can Count On  (Hosted by Mark)

Here’s how to participate in the chat:

• If you’re not on Twitter, you can just follow the conversation without an account by going here. 

• If you have a Twitter account, put #fww in your page’s search bar and hit enter. Then type your question or comment in your update box and add the #waterwednesday #fww tag. The tweet will then stay on this thread. (Don’t forget to introduce yourself when you first join the conversation.)

We look forward to chatting with you!

Now, it’s E. coli contamination of all things Toll-House cookie dough.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, 65 people in 29 states have become ill from either eating raw cookie dough or consuming another food item that became contaminated from coming into contact with raw cookie dough. Eating raw cookie dough is never a smart thing to do because there is always a chance that the dough is contaminated with a food-borne pathogen, but the usual culprit is salmonella from unpasteurized eggs – not E. coli which is more commonly associated with beef products.

Again, as was the case with the recent food-borne illness outbreaks associated with peanuts, peanut butter, spinach, and alfalfa sprouts, the Food and Drug Administration did not know there was a problem with the cookie dough until people started to get sick. We found out with the Peanut Corporation of America outbreak that FDA inspectors had not been in the Georgia plant that was the center of the outbreak for eight years. Had inspectors been there on a regular basis, they would have seen that the plant was manufacturing food under unsanitary conditions.  Information on the last FDA inspection of the Nestle’s plant involved in the cookie dough outbreak still has not been released, but we would not be surprised to learn if FDA has not been in there for years.

That is why we were dismayed to hear of comments attributed to the new FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg last week who stated that more frequent inspections of food establishments are not the answer to preventing food-borne illness, but more “smart” inspections were.  We have heard that line before from past FDA commissioners and that thinking has gotten us to where we are today. “Smart” inspections has been code in the past to fewer inspections, not more. It seems that she is being advised by some of the same people who have fought for decades transforming the FDA into an inspection agency. This is very troubling.

 
FDA publicly says that it wants to prevent food-borne illnesses. But it seems that the agency still wants to rely on the honor system and let industry police itself. You need “cops-on-the-beat” to prevent problems from happening. Otherwise, FDA will continue to be the fire department that puts out the fire after people have already been injured. The recent food-borne illness outbreaks prove that a paradigm shift is needed at FDA, but as long as there is resistance by key leaders within that agency to commit to a rigorous food inspection program, more consumers will get sick and even die.

We’ve got some disturbing news. Researchers have reported that triclosan was found in the blood of bottlenose dolphins.  This goes to show that the consequences of overusing a pesticide like triclosan are incredibly far-reaching and dangerous.

It is well known that marine mammals, forced to swim in polluted waters, become contaminated with persistent organic pollutants. Triclosan, commonly used in personal care products including hand soaps and dish detergent, has made its way down drain and into dolphins living in US coastal waters.  The study, which appears in this month’s Environmental Pollution, examined dolphins from rivers, an estuary, a harbor and a lagoon in South Carolina and Florida. Blood samples from wild bottlenose dolphins found within an estuary in Charleston, South Carolina and in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida in 2005 were analyzed for triclosan. Triclosan was detected in 31 and 23 percent of the animals from the two sites.

As we wash our hands (or dishes, or clothing, etc.) with soaps containing triclosan, it eventually enters wastewater. While most harmful residue is removed during the treatment process, triclosan persists in waterways and is one of the most commonly found contaminants in river and estuary sediment downstream of treated water outfalls.

Next time you’re shopping, keep in mind the possible effects your choices have on the world. If we continue on the same irresponsible path, who knows what the effects of triclosan in our environment will be 10 or 20 years from now? And take a minute to educate your friends and family about this issue. Take the triclosan pledge and help protect dolphins and the rest of the planet!

Several months ago, in response to our inquiry about social networking sites,
you recommended online communities that we should join. We've taken your advice
and created fledgling pages on Facebook, Twitter, Care2, Change.org, and Gather.

We want to thank you for the warm welcome we've received. We are touched by the enthusiasm and deeply inspired by the stories of political activism and personal actions. We are so excited to connect with you in this way!

Our exponentially growing online movement with so many committed activists, like yourself, is becoming a political force to reckon with and is going to have an incredible impact on our collective efforts to create a better world.

With your help, we are working to engage individual activists, the blogosphere, the media, and policymakers on our essential issues with a cutting-edge, fearless, independent voice.

Together we can become a dynamic, well-informed and highly effective community
that supports the human right to clean, safe, affordable food and water and takes back our commons from the corporate profiteers.

Thank you for the privilege of engaging with you. I look forward to enjoying your
comments, your advice, and your wisdom as we communicate online, and, most of all, working together to create a better world.

It seems like year after year the same ol’ battle wages on about whether or not the U.S. should keep a ban on importing chicken from China.  And the same players are behind the effort this year (who else but Big Ag?), working hard to pressure the Obama administration and Congress to lift the ban.

While visiting Chinese facilities a few years ago, U.S. inspectors found defective equipment, lack of employee hygiene, unsanitary conditions, and an absence of regulations requiring pre-shipment testing for Salmonella, E. coli and other contaminants. And don’t forget about the hundreds of other products from China, ranging from seafood to cosmetics, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked at the border in recent years because they contained dangerous substances or violated other rules. 

At least we have U.S. chicken to fall back on, right?  But there’s still work to be done in this country to make sure we have safe chicken to eat.   A new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention cites poultry as the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the U.S. in 2006. And that’s with a food safety net.

So, why would we bring in product from somewhere like China, where food safety problems are widespread and even the government admits it doesn’t have control?  The truth behind the push to “ban the ban” is coming from the meat industry because they want to get China to open its markets to U.S. beef and pork.  

Later this week, the House appropriations committee will decide whether or not to keep a provision in the USDA budget that prohibits the agency from allowing processed poultry products from China to enter the United States. 

We’ll keep you posted on what they decide. But in the meantime, what do you think? Should we keep the ban on Chinese chicken or “ban the ban”?

LEED, an initiative from the U.S. Green Building’s Council, has recently certified a Nestlé bottled water factory for excellence in sustainability. 

Certification by LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - is gained by, among other things, employing green building principles such as water efficiency and  smart energy use. Too bad the designation is applicable to the building itself, not the practices of the business that occupies it.

So, what’s the harm in a prominent enviro organization handing out gold, - no wait, green – stars to bottled water companies? 

Though perhaps it is always better that a product, whatever it is, is made in an environmentally friendly building than in one that is not, this particular example sounds to us like an attempt by Nestlé to divert public attention from the negatives of their products.  Bottled water is the antithesis of good water and energy usage, and if the factory managers are so well-versed in environmentalism, why are they working for Nestlé - a company that ruthlessly mines and depletes natural water sources and is responsible for 8 billion+ plastic water bottles landing in U.S. landfills every year. 

We think despite this recent effort to “greenwash” their image, Nestlé’s products have a much greater impact than the buildings they come from, and tap water will always take the lead over bottled water in the environment and energy categories.

If LEED certification is going to keep its credit, it should not be handing it out to the likes of companies such as Nestlé. 

I’ve never been much of a milk drinker. Born with extremely picky taste buds, I would only pour it into my cereal or use it in some pancake mix. Taste wasn’t too much of an issue for me, so frankly, the amount of fat was all I considered when purchasing milk. Of course everything is way more complicated than that, and growing up I learned about organic milk, but I’ve found even that discussion has its problems. As a new Food & Water Watch (FWW) intern, I’ve learned that there are a large number of factors to bear in mind when buying milk. It’s not only about personal health but also treatment of cattle and environmental impact.

So what are my options? It can get incredibly confusing for consumers, as seen in a recent Baltimore Sun article that quotes our very own FWW assistant director, Patty Lovera. Patty was kind enough to break it down for me. So here’s a list of “milk hierarchy” you can use when trying to decide what to put in your fridge:

1) Buy from a local organic farmer. The more local the milk and the smaller the farm, the better! This enables transparency so you know the source and that the farmer has organically-produced milk, not to mention happier cows that are grazing in fields rather than vying for room to breathe in large-scale factories. To find local markets and farms near you, go to eatwellguide.org.

2) If you must rely on labels at the supermarket, look for the green and white USDA organic label. That says a lot by itself. Organic milk implies that the dairy cows were not given hormones, antibiotics, or feed that wasn’t organically raised. This label does not, however, reveal the living environment of the cattle. Claims of "access to pasture" remain vaguely defined. For more information on organic milk, check out The Milk Tip.

3) If you can’t afford to go all-organic, the next level down is rBGH-free milk. It doesn’t have the organic label (which automatically means it’s rBGH-free), but there might be a rBGH-free or rBST-free label on the container. Unfortunately, due to some shenanigans by agribusiness, some companies that are actually rBGH-free are hesitant to label their products as such. Read an earlier press statement and blog post that can shed more light on this ongoing battle. Please also check out our Artificial Hormone-free Dairy Guide to see what rBGH-free dairy products are sold in your area.

Beyond these two labels, you’re kind of on your own. Some other milk comes from non-organic factory farms, where cows are lined up side-by-side and pumped with hormones to produce more milk. Other milk might come from family farms that are doing it right but don’t have a way to differentiate themselves in the market because their milk is pooled with other farms. All milk is labeled in some manner but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything significant. Decoding Food Labels can help you sort through the information you see in the meat and dairy cases.

Learning so much about milk after not being much of a fan has changed my perspective completely. I can feel my palate expanding already, and it’s ironic how I’ve now become the milk expert for my friends and family. When you know how your food reaches your lips, your appreciation can grow immensely. I recommend learning where your food comes from and getting involved to improve our milk options!

Ever since I learned about the dangers of triclosan, I’ve started looking, really looking, before I buy. Triclosan is a pesticide that’s often used in personal care products like toothpaste, face-wash, hand and dish soap and laundry detergent.  Manufacturers add triclosan to these products in order to make the claim that their product is antibacterial and protects against disease.

But the reality is that triclosan is no more effective than plain soap and water in preventing illness. In 2000, the American Medical Association (AMA) said “there is little evidence to support the use of antimicrobials in consumer products.” Similarly, in 2005, an FDA panel of experts voted 11 to 1 that antibacterial soaps were no more effective than regular soap and water in fighting infections. So really, the manufacturers of these products are just fear mongering and trying to convince consumers that bacteria are enemy number one.

As a pesticide, triclosan can kill both good and bad bacteria. The good bacteria that live on our skin keep us healthy. So not only does triclosan remove good bacteria, it may allow for the strongest bad bacteria to survive. Research suggests that the overuse of antimicrobial products could lead to antibiotic resistance.

Triclosan has been linked to even more human health effects like endocrine and thyroid disruption. Triclosan also builds up in our bodies over time. Researchers have found triclosan in urine, breast milk and blood samples. 

Why would we continue to use products that are not effective and may in fact be doing more harm than good? I encourage you to start looking at ingredient labels. Really look.  Let us know where you find triclosan lurking in your house! 

Use our new triclosan tool to report where you spy triclosan. We’ll post your entries. Then, send the link to your friends and family too. Maybe you’re ready to take the anti-triclosan pledge!

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000.”
…Narrates Michael Pollan at the beginning of a new movie entitled Food, Inc., hitting select theaters this Friday.

Joining the ranks of food documentaries – there are so many recently, there should be a new genre of film, foodiementaries anyone?  - Food, Inc. goes behind the scenes of our nation’s supermarkets and behind the machines of agribusiness. Many of the issues they tackle are right up our alley, including the numerous problems that put consumer safety, the livelihood of the American farmers, and the health of our environment at risk.

Food, Inc. also mentions one of our key issues, rBGH aka recombinant bovine growth hormone. There’s just one part in the script, however, that needs some clarification. The film states that Wal-Mart’s decision to go rBGH-free “put the nail in the coffin of rBGH.”  Too bad this is wishful thinking. While Wal-Mart did begin to sell rBGH-free milk for its generic brand, it does not label the product as such. Why? During the last past two years, state-by-state labeling battles popped up around the country that threatened to limit hormone-free milk labels. For example, Ohio’s labeling rule requires the prohibitive use of a misleading disclaimer that states "no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows”, and bans accurate claims such as “rBGH-free” and “artificial growth hormone-free.” Wal-Mart decided not to label their milk pending the outcome of the state-by-state battles.

While we're glad that big retailers like Wal-Mart are bowing to consumer pressure and turning away from artificial hormones, we know that Big Ag will continue to look for new markets for rBGH milk.  That's why we're working to have Congress allow schools to purchase milk produced without artificial hormones. You can sign our School Milk Campaign petition and even see a nifty web application on Food, Inc.’s website that mentions our campaign ---Just click on the milk carton!
And, make sure you make your way to the theater this weekend to see Food, Inc. and snack on some rBGH-free candy.

When facing institutions such as the World Bank and the other development banks, which insist -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that the ‘free market’ is the best mechanism for ensuring efficient use of the world’s water, it can only help to have a strongly united network of organizations from both the ‘developed’ and the ‘developing’ world that can, with complete authority, prove them wrong.

That's why an important part of Food & Water Watch’s international work is its role in la Red de Vigilancia Interamericana para la Defensa y Derecho al Agua (the Inter-American Network for the Defense of the Right to Water), or Red VIDA in its Spanish acronym. Formed 6 years ago when 54 organizations from 16 countries gathered in El Salvador to build a hemispheric campaign to defend water as a human right and a common good, the network has grown steadily in size, scope and influence. It is now composed of grassroots groups, trade unions, community water operators, environmental organizations, and other non-governmental groups from North, Central, and South America, all working in support of the human right to water. (To read interviews with Red VIDA members, see our recently published booklet, Changing the Flow.)

FWW Plays Key Role in Colombia Gathering

The Red VIDA holds a strategy and planning meeting every two years, and this May, as in the past, Food & Water Watch played a key role in organizing and attending the Red VIDA Assembly held in Cali, Colombia. Of the many exciting advances made in the Red VIDA over the years, a notable one is that the network is making a strong move from acting as a coalition that simply supports its member groups, to acting as a unified force that takes on campaigns and projects in its own right.

Decision-making in the Red VIDA is done in a way that is, to the extent possible, transparent (meaning everyone knows what’s being decided, and by whom), horizontal (meaning no one person or faction has power over the others), and democratic (meaning, essentially, one person, one vote). Food & Water Watch, besides helping to support the network economically and through public advocacy, is a member, and participates in decision making along these lines.

Critical Support Given to Colombian Water Movement

It is typical of movements in Latin America that, at the end of any gathering or assembly, a declaration is drafted, agreed to, and shared with the greater world. We’ve just rendered the most recent declaration in English; the language is quite formal, but we think it might be interesting to share with you a few snippets:

"At the Third Hemispheric Assembly of Red VIDA that took place at the Instituto Mayor Campesino in the municipality of Guadalajara de Buga, Colombia, from the 17th to 19th of May 2009, the Network ratified its principles and approved its plan of action for the coming two years.

"Through a wide array of struggles in the Americas for the defense of public water management, in resistance to the privatization of this common good and the social fragmentation and appropriation by the corporate model of development, and consequently, for the defense of territory, our organizations and social movements are advancing alternative models of social and public water management, with participation and social control, within the framework of defense of the common good and the fundamental human right to water.

"Currently, the Red VIDA supports the struggles of Colombians in building a water movement and in defense of public utilities and forms of community management. The National Committee for the Defense of Water and Life in Colombia is right now promoting a constitutional referendum in the defense of water, with the backing of more than 2 million people, establishing an historic milestone in the world struggle for the defense of water.

Why Did We Choose to Meet in Colombia?

Now, if you want to know what this last bit refers to, we mentioned the Colombian constitutional referendum in last fall’s issue of Defend the Global Commons. But there are some exciting recent developments, which we’ll share with you very soon in an upcoming blog!

Are you really passionate about food and water issues? Are you already active online? You can combine your interests and existing online habits by contributing to Food & Water Watch campaign outreach.

There are many ways you can help:

• comment on blogs about our issues

• write about FWW issues on your own blog
  

• share our alerts, reports, and news on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

If you are interested, please join our Special Blog Outreach Unit!

– Food & Water Watch

This week in the Huffington Post, Governors Paterson, Schwarzenegger and Rendell called for more public-private partnerships to help improve our crumbling roads, water systems, schools and other public works projects.

Public-private partnership – What’s that? Basically, it’s when the public pays a high price for a corporation to do something that local governments should be doing. 

For example, if your city needs a new water treatment plant, it could contract with a corporation to design, build and run the plant. Governors Paterson, Schwarzenegger and Rendell want cities and towns to cut more of these deals and make the private partner finance the project.

Sound good? Local governments are struggling because of the economic meltdown, and they need assistance to build important improvement projects and protect public health. These Governors think they’ve found a simple solution: privatization.

But not so fast. It’s not free and easy money. These private players are businesses, and like any business, their ultimate goal is to make money for their owners. They’re not going to donate any money. In fact, they’re going to charge the public a steep premium for it. In many ways, these public-private partnerships are expensive loans that you will have to pay back through user fees like water bills.  

Public operation is a much better deal for taxpayers. It’s cheaper and easier. And it doesn’t require you to give a private entity control over one of your valuable public resources. 

It’s true that many government coffers have gone empty in the fallout of the housing bust, but a better solution is a Clean Water Trust Fund, which would help local governments pay for needed water projects and provide safe, clean and affordable water.

Act now and tell Congress that we need a Clean Water Trust Fund.

More information about how privatization can cost you money, see Food & Water Watch’s report Money Down the Drain: How Private Control of Water Wastes Public Resources.

A Hawaiian water bottle company recently announced it is hitting the mainland at – where else – health food stores. Hawaiian Springs LLC Bottles will be available on the shelves of Whole Foods, Mother’s Market and other grocery stores frequented by health-conscious consumers. 

But just hear these guys.  They tout that their water is both “young” and “naturally healthy”.  As if any water has an age other than “always been here”.  Or maybe, some water is healthy unnaturally? 

Good thing they’ve been recognized by Dr. Michael Mascha, a so-called “water sommelier” and author of Fine Waters, A Connoisseur’s Guide to the World’s Most Distinctive Bottled Water.  We wonder what does he clear his palate with?
The truth is that ‘luxury water’ is just another sales gimmick.  Companies like Hawaiian Springs capitalize off healthy lifestyle trends while their product does nothing for your health that water from the tap can’t do.

So don’t be fooled by the lovely hibiscus-sporting bottles – does this remind you of Fiji water?  Not to mention that single-use water bottles are expensive, waste huge amounts of fuel and create trash that will end up in landfills, potentially seeping into aquifers in – guess where – not Hawaii.

When it comes to water, skip the trip to the store.  Your wallet and the environment will thank you.  

The Obama Administration is considering nominating Dr. Michael Doyle, a proponent of food irradiation, for Under Secretary of Food Safety. If this sounds familiar, it's because the Administration was recently forced to stop the consideration of another irradiation supporter, Michael Osterholm, for the same position after thousands of folks like you spoke up.

What's so bad about irradiation?  Some research suggests that irradiated food promotes tumor growth and may cause genetic damage. It's also ineffective, as it fails to kill all bacteria and may undermine food safety efforts by masking filthy conditions in slaughterhouses.  On top of all this, the technology is expensive, meaning we will all pay more to treat our food with something that may harm our health.

Dr. Doyle has been a zealot in promoting this technology as the panacea to contaminated food. He has been quoted in the media numerous times supporting irradiation as a quick fix to our food safety problems.  What's more, Dr. Doyle would also bring serious conflicts of interest to the position. He's served as a consultant for big agriculture for companies like ConAgra and the American Peanut Council.  He has also raised funds from Cargill, Coca-Cola, Hormel, and McDonald's as part of his job as Director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.  What are the chances that Dr. Doyle could effectively regulate the same companies that so recently funded his work at the University of Georgia?

We've already had a a food irradiation advocate who cared more about corporate interests than public safety as Undersecretary for Food Safety - under President Bush.  Help stop us from going down that road again.

Calling all readers and water warriors in the DC area! Come spend an evening with us to learn about the water crisis in the United States and abroad. We'll be co-sponsoring a debate between F&WW Research Director, Patrick Woodall and author Robert Glennon at Busboys & Poets (5th & K location) on Tuesday, May 26th at 6:30PM.

Mr. Glennon's new book, Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It , discusses the crisis we face and suggests that water pricing and market forces will play a central role in saving us from running out. Our research suggests that pricing may not be the solution to ensure that all people have access to clean drinking water.

We'll also be watching an excerpt from the award-winning film, Blue Gold, and engaging in discussion on solving the crisis.  You will also have the opportunity to ask questions and comment. If you can make it, be sure to stop by our table and find out how you can get involved.

– Renee Vogelsang

Learn more.

This past week marked two major victories in the fight against bottled water – one for the entire state of New York and the other for the city of Chicago. In the case of New York, Governor David Patterson recently signed an executive order banning the purchase of bottled water by state agencies – making it the second state to have done so (the first being Illinois). In addition, New York City is ending purchases for bottled water at city office and city-sponsored events – an example we hope other metropolitan areas follow. 

Chicago has taken a different approach, and one we hope they expand upon. The City Council voted on Wednesday to ban the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups that are made with bisphenol-A, or BPA, plastic. The reason? Concern over the fact that BPA may, over time, leach into the contents of plastic containers – the same concern that prompted Nalgene, the makers of the well-known plastic reusable water bottles – to stop using the chemical a year ago. Non-reusable plastic water bottles have a similar problem, in this case with the polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, used to make them.

Let’s keep the momentum going…

- Sofía Baliño

Recent water main breaks all over the country (including one that shut down the train I ride to work) remind us that under our feet are miles and miles of decaying pipes. The main reason?  Lack of funding. Federal funding for drinking water infrastructure has decreased by 50% since 1997; while federal funding accounted for 78% of overall wastewater infrastructure spending in 1978, it accounts for only 3% today.

President Obama has introduced a budget that would begin to restore funding for water infrastructure, but it isn’t enough.  As long as water infrastructure funding is decided year-by-year, it remains at risk of being reduced in the face of other congressional priorities. That’s why we need a Clean Water Trust Fund.

This summer Congress will be considering a bill to create Trust Fund.  A Trust Fund will set up a way to protect our water infrastructure funding from the whims of Congress and the change of administrations.

To learn more about why we need a Clean Water Trust fund, read our report. 

In an economic catastrophe like the one the world is undergoing, the news that a federal government would spend millions of taxpayer dollars on bottled water may come as a bit of a shock. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening in Canada, despite the various efforts by multiple cities to ban the sales of bottled water in municipal-run buildings. Specifically, the federal government has spent more than $10 million in the last three years, and over $15 million in the last five years. All while First Nations and other areas in Canada do not receive appropriate funding for tap water treatment.

The situation Canada faces is not unlike the bottled water problem in the United States. Both nations have flawed water infrastructure and spend millions of taxpayer dollars on bottled water instead – which is an exorbitantly expensive, and unnecessary, solution. The misconception that bottled water is, by default, safer than tap water, seems to justify paying such absurd prices. The money could be far better spent improving our crumbling water infrastructure – such as through a Clean Water Trust Fund, or its Canadian equivalent in the case of our neighbor – than by funneling that money into bottled water companies.

- Sofía Baliño

Swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, has dominated every major news outlet for the past couple of weeks – and justly so. It has sickened over a thousand people, killed almost thirty, and created widespread panic that has crippled the travel industry and damaged the already floundering world economy.

Much of the chatter revolving around swine flu is whether or not it was a result of the conditions at a factory farm in Mexico owned in part by Smithfield. While there has been no definitive link established to the factory farm, this flu strain did have its genetic root in flu strains present on hog farms in the 1990s, according to virologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

If anything positive has come out of this mess, it’s that some long-overdue attention is being paid to the potential public health impacts of industrialized livestock production. Before swine flu became a household word communities all over this country, and increasingly around the world, have been burdened with health problems caused by these polluting facilities. 

Recently, an antibiotic-resistant strain of staphylococcus aureus  - more commonly known as MRSA – was found in U.S. pigs. This strain was originally only seen in the Netherlands – where it already proved itself capable of transferring from pigs to humans. Being resistant to antibiotics makes infections caused by these bacteria much more difficult to treat – and is the result of pumping antibiotics into animal feed, a common factory farm practice.

Factory farms have gone unchecked for far too long, with potentially disastrous consequences. Hopefully swine flu is the wake up call that lawmakers need to rein in this dangerous practice. To learn more about factory farms, please check out our website.

- Sofía Baliño

The bottled water fight is getting some new supporters. 12 Episcopal bishops from six Western states have recently joined together to fight bottled water and other environmental ills. Specifically, they signed a letter encouraging delegates coming to the Church’s upcoming General Convention to not buy bottled water and choose tap instead. They also asked their Church’s followers to vote for political candidates that support environmentally sound policies. 

The Episcopal Church is not the only religious group appealing to its followers – this past Lent, some Italian dioceses of the Catholic Church also urged people to give up bottled water during the 40-day period. The initiative of these Churches is admirable and should be taken on by other communities to correct the various misconceptions associated with bottled water.

Why are religious groups taking a stand? For the same reasons all other activists are – to protect the environment around them, and for the sake of worker and consumer safety – reasons that are justified by more than just one’s faith. We can only hope that more will follow.

- Sofía Baliño

Last week, Food & Water Watch launched a new online interactive tool for you to learn more about where your produce is coming from. The tool is called the "Global Grocer," and it was inspired by a recent Food & Water Watch report entitled The Poisoned Fruit of American Trade Policy.

Why is it so important to know where your produce is coming from? It’s because, as discussed in the report, Americans are now buying more imported produce than ever before. The concern with that comes from some countries not having equivalent food safety standards, combined with the Food & Drug Administration inspecting less than one percent of food shipments coming into the country. In addition, country-of-origin labeling rules have enough loopholes in them that much of this produce goes unlabeled.

So what exactly is the "Global Grocer"? It is a virtual supermarket, in which you can fill your shopping cart with a variety of fruits and vegetables, and then learn the probabilities of those products being imported and where from. In other words – it is a fun and informative way to learn about food safety, and find out which are the smart decisions to make while shopping for produce.

To give the "Global Grocer" a test drive, you can check it out here. We would also like to thank Poccuo, a local Washington, DC company, for helping us put this project together. Enjoy! 

- Food & Water Watch

We are proud to announce the release of Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America.

Food & Water Watch has been working with allies in Latin America since our founding, primarily through our membership in and support of the Red VIDA (la Red de Vigilancia Interamericana por el Derecho y Defensa del Agua, often translated as the InterAmerican Network for the Defense of the Right to Water). Red VIDA has over 60 member groups from Canada to Colombia and from Uruguay to the United States, and represents many facets of the water movement: labor unions, consumer rights groups, social movements, environmental human rights organizations, water service providers, and more.

While advocacy efforts by Food & Water Watch and other groups have made available a good deal of factual, well-researched information about the what, where, why, and how of the global failures of water privatization, and while there are a number of profoundly informative books and documentary films on the subject, it is rare for most of us to have access to the unvarnished thoughts of the activists struggling on the front lines of water democracy, such as those who form the Red VIDA.

So, at a Red VIDA meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia last August, when our friends at Other Worlds and the Transnational Institute asked us to help conduct some interviews and get the views and visions of Latin American water activists down on paper for the public, we jumped in with both feet. We took the interviews, conducted over just a few days, transcribed, translated, and edited them down to make them more accessible, added some photos, and assembled them into a booklet. We added some original documents and analysis from that Red VIDA meeting to offer an inside view of the organizing process, and titled the booklet Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America.

An initial printing of Changing the Flow was launched in Istanbul, Turkey, at the People’s Water Forum where Red VIDA members and water justice advocates from dozens of countries eagerly took them home to share. We are proud to announce that Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America, is now available.

Latin AmericaWe think Changing the Flow will be useful for water advocates, students of Latin America, solidarity activists, and anyone who wants to know what makes those brave and visionary Latin American water warriors tick. 

We hope to see the Spanish-language version published in time for the next Red VIDA meeting, coming up in Colombia to support that country’s constitutional reform (you can find a brief article about it in our last issue of Defend the Global Commons).  As you’ll see when you read Changing the Flow, Colombia’s constitutional reform – echoing similar efforts in Uruguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador – is one of the many avenues being taken throughout the Americas in favor the human right to water. ¡Que viva el Agua!

– Jeff Conant

H.R. 875, Representative Rosa DeLauro's bill for reforming the Food and Drug Administration – also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act – has been the victim of misguided accusations and allegations over the past several weeks. The bill is designed to improve our food safety system, which has proven itself to be full of holes – especially in recent months, with salmonella recalls and melamine scares becoming the rule rather than the exception. 

A lot of the concern revolving around the bill involves its potential implications for organic agriculture, home gardens, and farmers markets. We have created this game show widget, so those concerned can learn more about the bill, and clear up any misconceptions that have been dominating the food safety conversation. We hope you enjoy it– and feel free to share it with your friends!

 - Food & Water Watch

From the university level to entire metropolitan areas to Major League Baseball, the past couple of weeks have shown a couple of major victories on the bottled water front.

On the smaller end of the scale, Belmont University recently chose to ban bottled water sales on campus, effective May 16th. While the loss of bottled water sales may decrease campus revenue, it will ultimately save students money, considering that bottled water can cost hundreds to thousands more times than tap water. Belmont is also setting the example by setting up water refill stations in the commissaries and installing water filters in fountains, helping ease the transition back to tap water. Well done, Belmont!   

Taking it to another level, the city council of Vancouver, Canada, recently voted to eliminate bottled water for staff and council functions and, in the near future, to remove it from city concession stands. Similar decisions have been passed in the other parts of Canada, including the town of Georgina - along with several other municipalities in Ontario. We can only hope that this trend begins to establish itself within the U.S.

Joining in the bottled water fight are Cincinnati Reds' Chris Dickerson and Cleveland Indians' Jack Cassel, whose website weplaygreen.org encourages pro athletes to cut down on plastics consumption and choose reusable containers, rather than buying bottled water and other beverages in plastic containers. Their work has already led to SIGG Company, a Swiss manufacturer of aluminum water bottles, to supply the Cincinnati Reds team with 50 bottles for the upcoming season – and that’s only the beginning. Hopefully the actions of these two baseball stars will not only make an impact within professional sports, but also inspire their fans to do the same.

A 100% biodegradable water bottle? Brilliant. But marketing that as the cure for all bottled water woes? Misleading. AQUAMANTRA recently came out with such a bottle in honor of Earth Day, claiming that with this new biodegradable bottle, "everyone can feel good about drinking bottled water again." Not so fast!
While it is a step in the right direction, it only deals with one of the many problems that revolve around bottled water.

The bottled water issue involves far more than just recycling, or the lack thereof. It’s primarily an issue about consumer safety and about how its producers charge exorbitant amounts for something that you could just as easily get by turning on your tap – at a small fraction of the price.

AQUAMANTRA argues that their water is safer now, since these new bottles presumably do not leach plastic. What about the water itself, regardless of the bottle? Considering that bottled water is subject to far less stringent testing standards than tap, with less than one full-time FDA employee dedicated to bottled water oversight, it is clear that any claims of bottled water being safer than tap are currently unfounded.

The company also fails to go into the costs of producing these biodegradable bottles. They argue that they are working to reduce their carbon footprint – but the entire production process could very well undo a lot of the good work they are aiming to accomplish. Currently the production of plastic bottles in the US requires the equivalent of 17.6 million barrels of oil, not including the oil needed for transporting the bottles throughout the country. AQUAMANTRA has yet to address that issue.

While the initiative that this company has taken with regards to creating a biodegradable bottle is definitely a good thing – they, or anyone else for that matter, have a long way to go before they can declare that bottled water is either safe or environmentally friendly. To claim otherwise would put this bottle of theirs onto the ever-growing list of "greenwashing" attempts by the corporate world.

According to reports, 1,500 farmers in India have committed suicide after drought and crop failures made it impossible to repay loans for agrochemicals and seeds.  The high cost of industrial farm inputs often puts small farmers in the developing world on a treadmill of mounting debt – one crop failure away from losing their family’s land.  These pressures can be higher for farmers in India that have adopted even more expensive genetically modified seeds for crops like cotton. 

The New York Times reported in 2006 that genetically modified cotton seeds can cost farmers twice as much, doubling the household debt and making a successful crop that much more urgent.  When these crops fail, indebted farmers can take their own lives and strand their families.  The United Kingdom’s Prince Charles has championed the plight of farmers driven to debt and despair by high-cost genetically modified seeds. 

Now Congress is considering tying international development and food aid to the acceptance of genetically engineered crops even though crops using biotechnology are not more productive than conventional crops, according to a recent Union of Concerned Scientists study.

These are the tragic, real-life consequences of the global takeover of smallholder farming by giant American agribusiness interests. More than our hearts need to go out to these farmers and their families – we all need to press our governments to put the interests of small farmers first.

Take action to keep GMOs out of food aid legislation here.

–Patrick Woodall

Earlier this week, Kenyan activist Josphat Ngonyo spoke to our staff and members of the public in DC about the dangers of GE crops for African countries. If you weren’t able to attend, you can listen to Josphat's interview on WBAI (Pacifica New York).

The companies that sell GE crops like to present them as the magic bullet, the cure for famine and poverty. One of their major arguments was that crop yields would supposedly be higher. Sounds fantastic – until you look at the actual data. A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, entitled "Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops" shows that this argument may not be valid after all. Considering the massive crop failures in South Africa came after the use of GE crops, it is clear that their use is not  justified by the science or by reality.

When you add to this "failure to yield" to the fact that GE crops have yet to be proven safe to eat, it becomes clear that GE crops are just another way to throw money down the drain (and into the pockets of agribusiness giants) without fixing the problem of hunger.  In fact, that traditional breeding of local crop varieties is likely to be far more effective than GE crops, without causing the environmental problems of increased herbicide use and potential cross-pollination with related crops.

The European Union has taken a strong stance against genetically engineered crops, setting an example for the rest of the world to follow. Germany, for instance, recently instituted a ban on Monsanto's GM maize – the same maize that was involved in the crop failure in South Africa. France, Greece, Austria and Hungary have also imposed "safeguard bans" on the maize – which is the only GE crop currently grown in Europe – over potential safety concerns.

But rather than follow that lead, it seems like some well-intentioned efforts to provide food aid to hungry people could get hijacked by corporate pushers of GE crops.  Check out our petition to Congress urging them to keep genetic engineering out of any food aid and agricultural research legislation.  

-Sofía Baliño

It's that time of year again! Wednesday April 22nd is Earth Day, with this year marking the event’s 39th anniversary. In this spirit, Food & Water Watch is attending a series of events throughout the country for current and new activists, and we would love to see you there!

Even if you can't make it to an event, there are a variety of ways to get involved. You could take action on any number of issues, such as fish farming, strengthening our food safety laws, improving our water infrastructure, fighting bottled water, and more. You can also host a film screening in your area – just contact us to find out how! 

Thanks for all of the great work, and have a happy Earth Day!

- Food & Water Watch

Who doesn't love a talking fish? Better yet, a singing one? That’s been the winning concept behind McDonald’s popular Filet-O-Fish commercial. It's even become a YouTube smash hit, having been viewed over a million times.

While there's nothing wrong with a piece of good advertising, it's a shame that the actual sandwich McDonald’s is promoting is made with fish that are unsustainable – specifically, hoki and/or Pollock. Sorry, McDonald's – we’re not "lovin' it."

The New Zealand hoki and Alaskan Pollock fisheries are both certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, or MSC, as sustainable – a certification that has been found to hold limited merit. Not only does MSC have a history of certifying fisheries accused of employing unsustainable practices, but also the fisheries that are worthy of an eco-label – such as Alaskan salmon – can easily lose their MSC label purely out of an inability to pay.

New Zealand hoki has been a subject of contention over the past several years, as the stocks are overfished and the trawls used in catching have been linked to causing the deaths of fur seals and seabirds that can become entangled in them. The New Zealand Royal Fish and Bird Protection Society has been one of several organizations that has strongly opposed MSC's certification of hoki, especially since the panel reviewing the fishery for recertification barely gave the go-ahead for the MSC label. There is also concern over whether the catch limits imposed to help fish stocks even do enough to help rebuild this fishery – and yet the MSC label will remain valid until 2012.

The other fish used in the Filet-O-Fish sandwiches is hardly any better. Alaskan Pollock stocks are declining with little signs of improvement. And, it is also caught by massive factory trawls that, according to the nonprofit Alaskan Ocean program, can cause both habitat damage and bycatch.

In all fairness to McDonald's, their use of Alaskan Pollock and New Zealand hoki was actually an effort to use more sustainable seafood, as they previously were using Russian Pollock. They, like others, were duped by MSC's questionable label. We urge McDonald's to switch to a legitimately sustainable seafood source, and we hope that MSC improves its certification process.

Maybe someone should actually listen to that singing fish for a change…
 "If it were you in that sandwich, you wouldn't be laughing at all!"

-Sofía Baliño

This Friday, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM, Food & Water Watch is proud to host Josphat Ngonyo at our San Francisco office for a talk entitled "Africa Bullied into Submission by Multinational Corporations; Kenyan perspective on GE Technology, GMOs and Bio-safety Legislation." He will be joined by Helge Helberg, Executive Director of Marin Organic, whose focus will be on local fights against GE crops. The San Francisco office is located at 25 Stillman Street, Suite 200. Mr. Ngonyo’s talk is part of his ongoing U.S. tour, which includes three academic presentations.

Mr. Ngonyo will also be in Washington, DC next Tuesday, April 21, speaking at the new Busboys and Poets location at 5th Street and K Street, NW from 6:30 to 7:30 PM.

Mr. Ngonyo is a Kenyan activist and founder/director of the Africa Network for Animal Welfare, as well as the founder of Youth for Conservation, and has dedicated his career towards wildlife protection. His conservation work has included the air-rescues of elephant orphans, de-snaring anti-poaching work – in which he led teams that removed over 6,000 snares – community education, and increasing the involvement of youth in conservation and animal welfare activities. He has received a variety of accolades for his achievements, including the Middle East Animal Welfare Award in 2007 and the Eastern Africa Environmental Leadership Award in 2003.

We hope to see you at one of these events!. For the San Francisco event, please RSVP to mschlosberg(at)fwwatch.org. The event is free and open to the public. If you have any questions regarding the San Francisco event, please contact Noelle Ferdon (nferdon(at)fwwatch.org) or Mark Schlosberg (mschlosberg(at)fwwatch.org), or call the office at 415-293-9900. For questions regarding the DC event, please contact Sarah Alexander (salexander(at)fwwatch.org), or call the DC office at 202-683-2500.

Last week, “conventional” agriculture advocates at the Mid America CropLife Association took umbrage at Michelle Obama’s organic garden on the White House lawn. After a couple of MACA staff members shuddered at the thought, they sent her a courteous and outrageously absurd email that starts out by congratulating her on having a garden, then spends the next several paragraphs explaining to her just why she shouldn’t have a garden, or for HEAVEN’S SAKE at LEAST not an organic one.

The email denies that how food is grown could be related to its quality: “Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown.” (Don’t worry, Mom—I’m sure MACA didn’t mean to call you a bad cook.) At this point, it seems like we should be past that debate.

And as Mary Ann Lien points out in her article in the Examiner, the use of the word “conventional” to describe pesticide-based agriculture (and the practice itself) has only developed in the past century or so, while the methods humans have known for thousands of years have somehow morphed into being seen as elitist and fancy. It’s actually a pretty amazing marketing trick when you think about it: it’s now elitist not to buy some extra chemicals to put on your crops, and to do things the way our great-great grandparents did.

The email goes on to explain carefully (and with maximum possible evocations of American-ness): "Many people, especially children, don't realize the extent to which their daily lives depend on America's agricultural industry. For instance, children are unaware the jeans they put on in the morning, the three meals eaten daily, the baseball with which they play and even the biofuels that power the school bus are available because of America's farmers and ranchers." It’s a cool sentiment, I think: let’s think about how everything we do is connected with the land and the people who work it. But wouldn’t growing a garden be a good thing for all those kids, so they can learn firsthand about the labor involved, and better appreciate the work of farmers? Also, as Mrs. Obama is not a child, I’m not exactly sure of the reason for that emphasis.

Obviously the establishment here is feeling a little threatened. And Mrs. Obama’s steps to plant an organic garden at the White House definitely carry significant symbolic value. But how could NOT using toxic pesticides—oh sorry, crop protection technologies—hurt anyone? Oh. Right. It could hurt someone’s profits. Sorry, agribusiness! Looks like the First Lady ain’t afraid a’ you!

–Erica Schuetz

UPDATE: Stephen Colbert's segment on the MACA email – watch it here.

So it’s April Fool’s Day. And it looks like Ben & Jerry’s pulled off quite the virtual April Fool’s Day joke.

From Ben & Jerry’s:

“The truth is that Cyclone Dairy is a project of Ben & Jerry's…We wanted to find a way to increase Americans' awareness that the FDA has cleared the way for cloned foods to enter the food supply… Cyclone Dairy seemed to be the perfect vehicle. It could be real!” 

While CyClone Dairy is a fictional creation, the potential for a company like this to emerge is dangerously real. The only thing that stands in the way of the livestock industry putting meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring into the food supply is a voluntary moratorium. In other words, a supplier could easily go against the moratorium and put these products out into the marketplace – and FDA would not even require it to be labeled.

Just last week Members of the European Parliament voted against authorizing the sale of food from cloned products and their offspring, calling instead on regulators to ban these products.  Why? Because of ethical concerns, lack of scientific information regarding the safety of these products and the negative effects on animal welfare.

The amount of discussion generated by our original CyClone Dairy blog showed that we’re not the only ones worried about cloned meat and milk reaching store shelves.

So keep talking!  You can also take action to tell Congress that we need a system in place to track clones and their offspring – and it needs to track the DNA of clones, so meat and milk can be tested to see if they came from cloned animals.   Without such a system in place, companies will be hard-pressed to guarantee that their products –even the organic ones – are clone-free.

A small group of U.S. restaurants are hoping to lure consumers back to eating bluefin tuna now that stock depletion has made it a socially unacceptable choice. The path to putting bluefin back on a menu? A new product, called Kindai. This particular brand of tuna was created by a lab at a Japanese university, from hatched eggs farmed in captivity.

It almost sounds like a good idea, with wild stocks being so precariously low – until you consider the facts. Kindai tuna still has many of the disadvantages of other farmed fish. Tuna are carnivorous – they eat other smaller fish. The need for using fish in the feed for farmed tuna could contribute to depletion of various small wild food fish stocks, as it can take between 10 to 13 pounds of wild fish to produce just one pound of bluefin tuna. Though Kindai are being raised from egg to adult, rather than catching juveniles from the wild and growing them for market as has been done in the past, the scientists still must catch a few dozen wild bluefin each year to ensure the population has enough genetic variability.

The Kindai are kept in open ocean pens for growout. Problems associated with open ocean aquaculture are well known: release of waste and feces into the ocean; high incidence of diseases and parasites that can be spread to wild fish; and high potential for escaped fish to interbreed with and outcompete native fish. In addition, various chemicals that may be used to keep both fish and pens clean can cause human health and environmental concerns.

Also worth noting is that the product could undermine years of public outreach about bluefin tuna. There has been much education done, both by environmentalists and by restaurateurs who have taken bluefin off the menu, for the sake of reversing the damage to bluefin stocks and increasing awareness about the issue. Re-introducing bluefin and making it seem sustainable and socially acceptable will therefore be very confusing for consumers.

The state of bluefin tuna stocks is so serious that last week the European Parliament approved a bluefin recovery plan to lower catch levels and permit member states to suspend fishing authorizations of vessels that have exhausted their quota. Those wanting to bring bluefin tuna back to restaurant menus at this time are out of tune with real world happenings. Encouraging a continued market for these fish at this time is irresponsible.

We urge consumers to avoid Kindai and other forms of bluefin tuna for now until ecological concerns due to overfishing and farm production are resolved.

To learn more about where to look for cleaner, greener, safer seafood options, be sure to check out our Smart Seafood Guide. 

- Sofía Baliño

How would you feel if you knew that you were unintentionally ingesting medications with your seafood? What about your drinking water? Well according to investigations being conducted by the Associated Press and the Environmental Protection Agency, that is exactly what is happening in various parts of the United States, including major metropolitan areas. 

The seafood study focused on fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Orlando. Researchers found that these fish had residues of a variety of medicines in them, including those to treat allergies, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and bipolar disorder and depression. Not something you’d like to worry about when you’re ordering your next fish platter! Meanwhile, the water study showed that 41 million Americans are ingesting water with medication residues in them, with little known about the potential long-term effects.

Early research has shown that a person would need to eat hundreds of thousands of seafood dinners to get a single therapeutic dose of the pharmaceuticals found in fish tissue. However, research has yet to rule out whether the long-term consumption of diluted pharmaceuticals could be dangerous. In addition, there are substantial possible environmental implications for fish stocks – some previous research has shown, for instance, that fish whose systems collect too much antidepressant residue will experience behavioral effects that could impact their own survival, especially with regards to mating and fighting. Considering that this is only the first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue, there is still much to be learned.

It is inexcusable that in this day and age we have allowed something so vital as our access to clean, safe water to fall by the wayside. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to undo the damage to our water infrastructure. While some have pushed for privatizing our water system in the hopes that this will fix the problem, doing this will only give the private water companies the opportunity to make decisions that focus on short-term profits rather than community needs.

The solution, however, is not to switch to bottled water. Last October, Food & Water Watch collaborated on a report with the Environmental Working Group that showed how ten popular U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals. Definitely not an indication of bottled water being safer than tap. This, among other reasons is why we instead need to push Congress and the Obama Administration toward establishing a Clean Water Trust Fund, and far stricter testing standards for drinking water.

You have the opportunity to get involved and tell Congress that the state of our water infrastructure, and the fact that contaminated drinking water and seafood is becoming the norm, is unacceptable. Click here to sign the petition for Congress to establish a Clean Water Trust Fund and take action towards improving the safety of our drinking water and our seafood.

-Sofía Baliño

The renewed congressional effort to reform America’s broken food safety system has brought a flurry of food safety bills on Capitol Hill.  Strangely, the strongest bill for consumers has received a lot of unfounded negative attention lately. Representative Rosa DeLauro’s Food Safety Modernization Act – H.R. 875 – will go a long way in modernizing and overhauling the Food and Drug Administration and give consumers the food protection they deserve.

Unfortunately, the rumor mill has misled the public about the legislation. FactCheck.org – a reputable group known for its objective and unbiased look into TV ads, debates, speeches and interviews – sifted through the misinformation to assess what is H.R. 875 fact and what is fiction.

FactCheck.org debunks the hysteria of much of the e-mail circulating about the DeLauro bill like this one that began “BEWARE THE FOOD POLICE! HR 875/S425 IT WOULD NATIONALIZE FARMING- DESTROY ORGANICS- EVEN ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE GARDEN!” All caps and scare-tactic lingo aside, the common e-mail alert is not even remotely grounded in fact, according to FactCheck.org.

Organic home-gardener Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org uncovers the misconceptions about H.R. 875 floating in cyberspace, including the supposed threat to private gardens: “It seems quite a stretch to think that anyone's personal vegetable patch would be considered a ‘farm, ranch or orchard.’ First Lady Michelle Obama showed no signs of concern last week as she broke ground on a sizable 1,100-foot garden plot on the White House lawn. Organic, of course.”

That’s just one myth-buster mentioned in her posting. We highly recommended you read it to educate yourself about the issue and for some entertaining futuristic scenarios generated when thinking of a world in which some of these bloggers were right.  People “surreptitiously cultivating tomato plants in a closet with a sunlamp, lest they get busted by the cops”? Definitely worth the read.

- Food & Water Watch

Can you imagine a food processing company that is given a Certificate of Achievement despite having dry-roasted rodents and salmonella-tainted products at their facilities? It’s one of the crazy things about the world we live in. Nine deaths and almost 700 illnesses have been counted since the peanut scandal began a few months ago. All because the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) decided to take a few shortcuts and withhold the fact that they had discovered salmonella in some of their production plants. Responsibility for this does not just fall upon PCA, however. The Food & Drug Administration’s lax oversight, coupled with the sporadic and ineffective use of state inspectors and third party auditors, allowed for this situation to unfold.

Third party audits of food production companies have become a common – and sloppy – way for the food safety system to conduct its operations. The case of PCA is no exception. PCA hired the American Institute of Baking International (AIB), the largest private food-inspection firm in the country – to inspect their facilities. However, not only did AIB notify PCA in advance about dates of upcoming inspections and tell them to get ready, but they then gave them excellent reviews that did not at all match the shoddy conditions state inspectors found this January. AIB even revealed, in a recent statement, that they did not test for food contamination – which seems nonsensical, considering recent events.

Nestle USA sent in its own inspectors to the South Georgia and Texas and found the plant conditions so poor that Nestle chose to buy its supplies elsewhere. Other companies like Kellogg were not so lucky, as they chose to rely on AIB’s audits only to lose millions of dollars from the recall. 

There is something good that can be drawn from this whole incident, which is that Congress has finally taken it upon themselves to overhaul the Food & Drug Administration, along with the food safety system as a whole. We only wish this had happened sooner. Food & Water Watch supports a bill by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) that will help fix many of these problems.

The bill, known as HR 875, would fix FDA’s main flaw by splitting it into two separate agencies (one for food safety, one for drugs and medical devices).  HR 875 is one of several on the House floor that is hoping to address the food safety issue – but of these this bill clearly holds the most promise. Considering the variety of food safety debacles we have seen over the past year – melamine in Chinese imports, salmonella-tainted jalapeño peppers, and listeria-tainted cheese to name a few, we cannot afford to put off these reforms any longer.

- Sofía Baliño

This week, Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter, along with Food & Water Watch Board Chair Maude Barlow, who serves as special advisor to the United Nations on Water, were featured on Democracy Now! discussing the World Water Forum and the counter events, the People's Water Forum. Watch the interviews here.

Why pay for a service that might not have real value? That is the question that Alaskan salmon fisheries are facing now that the state has decided not to cover the costs for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label. Alaskan salmon fishermen have been given two choices: find another entity to cover the costs, now that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) will no longer pay, or go without the label.

ADFG is not out of the picture completely. It is willing to be involved in the certifying, but only if the salmon industry in its state is treated as one fishery, as opposed to several, and if someone else will cover the actual cost. However, Alaska's sustainable fisheries have good reason not to want to incur the costs of the MSC label. Annual sustainability audits run $75,000, and recertification every five years is approximately $150,000, according to the Alaska Journal of Commerce. It seems ludicrous that Alaskan salmon fisheries might lose the MSC "sustainability" label purely for financial reasons.

Are Alaskan salmon fishermen terribly concerned by all this? Probably not that much. MSC has certified a number of fisheries with questionable sustainability – such as New Zealand Hoki and South Georgian Toothfish. This reduces the value of the MSC label and is confusing to consumers: what does an MSC label actually mean if questionable fisheries can simply pay to get one, while a well-managed fishery like Alaskan salmon can go unlabeled because they aren't willing or able to pay?

While Alaskan salmon's future with an MSC label is up in the air, MSC is making a very strong effort to persuade Alaskan salmon fishermen to continue using their label. Specifically, they have been sending out form letters for buyers to use when corresponding with salmon suppliers, in which buyers urge suppliers to continue paying for MSC certification or risk losing their clientele.

Other fisheries are still buying into the MSC game, with swordfish and Pacific Northwest tuna both fighting hard to receive a label with questionable meaning. We encourage them to spend their money elsewhere, perhaps to fund and implement truly sustainable practices, rather than paying for a label with little substance supporting it.

In the meantime, consumers should avoid shopping only according to labels. Be sure to check out our Smart Seafood Guide and stay informed by asking questions as to where your seafood is coming from. 

- Sofía Baliño

You've got to hand it to the CyClone Dairy people. They've decided that, rather than hide the fact that they use milk from cloned animals and their offspring, they'll brag about it instead and hope that people assume that their positive attitude comes from a product that’s been proven "safe." Unfortunately, the reality is quite the opposite of the website's cheerful photos and catchy slogans.

The data on the safety of cloned products for human consumption is limited, while ethical concerns and negative animal health effects are extensive. However, the Food and Drug Administration, in keeping with their bad track record of approving questionable technologies with few questions asked, announced little over a year ago that they believed meat and milk from cloned animals safe to eat.  The agency managed to ignore the litany of problems that have yet to be solved with the entire cloning process. They also ignored over 30,000 comments opposing their stance on cloning.

To make matters worse, FDA does not require labeling on products from cloned animals or their offspring. And the only thing stopping the sale of meat and milk from cloned cows is a voluntary moratorium, making it very possible for this trend to spread – with no tracking system to figure out where clones and their offspring end up. Even industry trade associations have concerns over cloning, asking FDA to hold off on permitting cloned milk to enter the food supply until more research can be done – yet FDA refuses to respond.

A variety of food companies have already made it known that they will not be using products from cloned animals, including Kraft Foods Inc., Smithfield Inc. (a surprisingly good action on their part), Ben & Jerry's, and more. Not to mention that recent polling has shown a majority of consumers are wary of cloned products. The International Dairy Foods Association predicted in 2007 that the $20 billion dairy industry could fall by 15% should cloned milk be introduced into the market.

With dairy farmers already suffering an economic backlash due to falling milk prices not yielding enough revenue to cover costs, they cannot afford further losses from selling products that consumers do not trust. CyClone Dairy should take the hint. Putting a good face on an unnecessary and potentially unsafe product isn't slick marketing – it's bad business. 

Behind the World Water Forum’s public posture as a trade expo and an educational exchange among water advocates lies a labyrinth of political intrigue and corporate cronyism. Corporate interests that make up the World Water Council are in constant contact with the World Bank and other financial institutions; each Forum pretends to be a quasi-United Nations event, to the extent of issuing a Ministerial Statement at the Forum’s close promoting global policy approaches to water and sanitation.

This year, Miguel D’escoto Brockman, President of the UN General Assembly, requested to be given an opportunity to publicly address the World Water Forum, but received no response from the Forum’s organizers. Concerning D’escoto’s effective exclusion, Maude Barlow, his Senior Advisor on Water, said, “The Forum portrays itself as a UN event. But the President of the UN General Assembly was denied the opportunity to speak. We could hardly have a more clear message about the Forum’s priorities.”

At each Forum, a series of roundtable discussions between government ministers, corporate lobbyists and NGOs leads to a final Ministerial Statement which, while it has no teeth in international law, plays a significant symbolic role in projecting policies on the ground. This process, which is coming to light as we reach the end of the Forum’s third day, has reached a frenetic level of intrigue.

Juan Carlos Alurralde, advisor to the Ministry of Environment and Water of Bolivia, has reported that the words “human right to water” have been excluded from the Ministerial Statement, replaced by the recognition “that access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a basic human need.” In the minutiae of political verbiage, this apparently slight difference in terminology can have a profound significance. If water is "a human need," it implies no obligation on the part of governments to ensure access to it. If it is "a human right," on the other hand, a series of policy procedures follow suit to make compliance obligatory.

“Many countries tried to introduce the right to water into the Ministerial Declaration,” said Alurralde, “however, there’s been a strong opposition to this from the Ministers of Brazil, Egypt, and the United States.”

According to Alurralde, when challenged by the his government to append annexes to the statement that would strengthen the right to water, the Turkish Ambassador chairing of the roundtable discussion said she could not make a decision without consulting the governors of the World Water Council.”

“This process is clearly accountable only to the governors of the World Water Council, which reveals its illegitimate nature,” says Anil Naidoo of the Council of Canadians, who is following the process closely.

As I write, a block of Latin American governments is beginning to draft an alternative declaration in protest of the official statement, to demonstrate their opposition to the World Water Forum process, and to demand an alternative, UN-led framework to guide global water policy.

While this process happens entirely behind the scenes and is obscure to nearly all the Forum’s participants, it is perhaps the most influential aspect of the event. Over the next two days, we expect to see the intrigue come to a head.

-Jeff Conant, from Istanbul

Before coming to the World Water Forum, we knew that it was an elite event, both hosted and attended by corporate interests – while welcoming under its umbrella a wide range of laudable and effective public-sector and development organizations. But by the second day of the forum, the exclusivity and elitism that marks the event, the panel discussions, and the massive trade expo that accompanies the forum is truly shocking.

From the entrance price (about $129 US per day) to the overwhelming security presence both outside and in, the clearest message to come forth is the divide between those who make decisions about water policy and those who live (and, in most of the world, die) with those decisions.

Perfectly symbolic of this divide, in a way almost laughable, but not, is what we might call the “VIP toilet problem.” That is, within the forum there are bathrooms for the elites where ordinary conference-goers are not allowed to, er, go, and toilets for the common folk, which are overcrowded, under-supplied, and in some cases, out of water.

What better metaphor for the divides this forum claims to be concerned about, between those with access to water and sanitation around the world, and those without?

But accompanying the relatively benign problem of elite bathrooms, other signs of elitism – as in the world at large – take more violent form: Our two colleagues from International Rivers who were arrested and deported for unfurling a banner condemning large dams; the 26 Turks arrested for protesting the forum; several colleagues barred from sessions where they
raised dissenting voices; concerns about freedom of expression even with the media present.

The water justice movement, of which Food & Water Watch is a full-fledged member, is seen as edgy and even "radical" by many in the mainstream of corporate-driven international development. But what is so radical about a dream of equal access to resources for all? Or about criticizing policies that coerce the poor into paying more than the wealthy for the right to water (yes, Virginia, the poor pay more)? Or about demanding the right to maintain a dissenting voice and a watchful eye?

It is these concerns that have prompted Food & Water Watch to engage with a broad coalition of international organizations, movements, and government representatives to build an alternative forum, and to seek sweeping reform of the forum as it currently exists. Which, from the aggressive suppression of dissent within this week’s events here in Istanbul, is clearly unwelcome.

-Jeff Conant, from Istanbul

Now into its third day, the World Water Forum has an incredible police presence, and the security is downright oppressive. So much so that there are special VIP entrances and areas – including the restrooms. Yet despite the painstaking attention afforded to security, the forum is lax on certain other logistical details. Last night, one of the buildings that housed panel discussions and workshops did not have water for flushing the toilets or washing hands—a sad but fitting metaphor for the inefficiencies of privatized water systems that the World Water Forum promotes.

Indeed, it is security, not access to water, that reigns as the top concern here. Forum attendees must have their access badges scanned at multiple security checkpoints. Our whereabouts are tracked throughout the forum, following which building we are in and what workshops we are going to. Security intervenes if we try to ask questions at panels or ask to present information that is contrary to what is being promoted.  Even the bathrooms have security. What, do you suppose, are they so afraid of?

Earlier today, Maude Barlow and I were walking with two journalists when some VIPs were coming in the door from a fancy car and a woman shoved us aside, almost knocking Maude over. Being here gives one a sense of what its like to live in a police state where there is no freedom of speech.

Security is especially tight at the finance sessions. This is where the forum lays out its plans for profiting from water. Once we managed to get in, the corporate water barons enlightened us on the solutions to delivering water to the world’s poorest populations — which apparently is to get them to pay for the service. It’s unbelievable to think that over 20,000 people traveled thousands of miles to hear such shortsighted corporate spin.

We did manage to voice our side of the debate at the Sustainable Financing panel, where I challenged a panel of speakers, including Jim Winpenny from the OECD Global Forum on Sustainable Development, on the merits of public-private financing for water infrastructure projects.

Despite these barriers, journalists are still interested in what we have to say and we will continue to advocate for clean, affordable water as a universal human right.

-Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, from Istanbul

As the World Water Forum opened on March 16th in Istanbul Turkey, 300 Turkish activists gathered near the forum's entrance were faced with an overwhelming force of 2000-3000 police. The peaceful protest quickly escalated as police charged the crowd, firing water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets and lunging into the crowd with fists and truncheons.

The World Water Forum is a triennial gathering which, according to it's website, is "an open, all-inclusive, multi-stakeholder process" where governments, NGOs, businesses and others "create links, debate and attempts to find solutions to achieve water security." The World Water Council, the forum's main organizer, is dominated by two of the world's largest private water corporations, Suez and Veolia. Loïc Fauchon, president of the Council, is also the president of Groupe des Eaux de Marseille,  a company owned jointly by Veolia and a subsidiary of Suez. The alternate president, Charles-Louis de Maud'huy, has been working at Compagnie Générale des Eaux, a subsidiary of Veolia, since 1978. Critics contend that the Council's links to Suez and Veolia, as well as the large representation of the business industry in the Council, compromise its legitimacy.

With 1.4 billion people lacking access to clean drinking water worldwide according to WHO figures, the issue has come to the forefront of the global agenda, and sparks anger in many who are close to the problem, especially in poor countries.

At a meeting of the Freshwater Action Network, a global gathering of civil society organizations the day before the Forum's opening, Zimbabwean water activist Nyanzone Malimi warned his colleagues from many countries in the Global South, “The World Water Forum is not a politically neutral space – it is a very ideological space, and so while we are here this week, we've got to go out there and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight.”

The World Water Council and the four previous forums have promoted policies such as Public-Private Partnerships (PPP's) that put water services under private ownership. PPP's in Argentina, Bolivia, the US, and other countries have resulted in price hikes, decreased pollution control, and water cut-offs, which, in the language of the water justice movement, "deny people the right to water." Despite these and other harmful impacts, the Istanbul Water Consensus, a key document of the 5th Forum, attempts to secure the commitment of local authorities to similar water policies, including private sector management.

The police riot at the forum's gate resulted in 26 arrests and three people severely injured, two by beating and one by rubber bullets. According to Turkish law, they can be held up to 48 hours before charges are brought.

One of the Turkish organizations protesting the forum is the ‘Campaign Another Water Management is Possible.' A spokesperson for the Campaign, Turkish musician Birol Topaloğlu, has criticized his government's current water policies, focusing on the rash of dams being planned and constructed. Turkey's General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works, or DSİ, plans to build 600 dams on the country's rivers, including several in the Eastern Kurdish region where the local population has been demanding political independence from Turkey for decades.

"Although it is going to create 10,000 megawatts of energy annually, they don't take notice of the damage it will cause to nature," said Topaloğlu. "There are plans to build 50 dams on just one river near the Black Sea. The Ilısu Dam Project will leave 313 square kilometers of settlement underwater, which will also destroy the 10,000-year-old city, Hasankeyf."

Just after the violent scuffle outside the forum's main gate, another scuffle erupted inside at the inaugural event. Ann-Kathrin Schneider and Payal Parekh of the organization International Rivers unfurled a banner reading “No Risky Dams.” While many WWF participants applauded the protest, the police immediately detained the two. After being held in jail overnight, charged with “manipulating the public opinion,” they were given the option of one year in Turkish prison, or immediate deportation.

Meanwhile, a block of southern governments led by Uruguay is building support for an alternative, legitimate forum to be led by the United Nations, and high-profile civil society voices such as Maude Barlow are calling for this to be the last World Water Forum.

You may have heard about the protests Monday at the World Water Forum in Istanbul that were met with violent suppression from the Turkish police. Food & Water Watch released a statement Monday denouncing this reaction, which you can read here.

If you didn’t already know, the World Water Forum is taking place this week in Istanbul, and is touted as the “premier water event in the world,” with more than 20,000 people flooding into the city to participate. Food & Water Watch and our allies are there too, but are not attending as regular participants. Our coalition is there to oppose the forum and to hold counter events known as the People’s Water Forum, including discussion panels and a film screening, and to denounce the forum as a sham. Our allies include Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians and representatives of the Latin American network Red VIDA, the Asian organization Focus on the Global South, and others from groups around the world.

Why would a group dedicated to clean water access for all people be denouncing the world’s largest water event? The other day, before she flew out, I had a chance to chat with Darcey O’Callaghan, Food & Water Watch’s International Policy Coordinator. Here’s how she explains it.

“The World Water Council is a false authority,” Darcey told me. “The Council is a self-appointed assembly of corporate honchos and leaders in the international financial institutions. They are not an unbiased group of experts; they are the CEOs of the very companies that will profit off the widespread privatization of water resources. The Council includes the heads of Veolia, Suez and others.”

Not elected or appointed, the Council came into existence when the heads of several multinational corporations came together to fill a vacuum: the management of the world’s water resources. No legitimate international body was doing it, and these groups recognized an opportunity for massive profits.

Companies like these, helped by pressure from the World Bank and IMF, have bought municipal water supplies in places all over the globe with the purported goal of increasing efficiency and connecting more people. In reality, communities have experienced increased rates, poorer service, and even water cutoffs. From Cochabamba, Bolivia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Guayaquil, Ecuador to Jakarta, Indonesia, community residents have found that their water providers were no longer accountable to them, but to shareholders far away in the Global North.

Food & Water Watch believes that privatization of water is not the solution to the world’s water crisis. We believe that all human beings should have access to clean, safe, affordable water, and that an important factor in ensuring this is to maintain public ownership of water resources. This essential fluid, without which health, dignity and life itself are not possible, should not be a commodity to be traded and controlled by the whims of the market. Rather, it should be controlled by those who use and rely upon it, and profits should be reinvested locally, not exported. Not coincidentally, public management of water creates jobs for local community members and opportunities for education and empowerment regarding resource management.

“While the World Water Forum touts the privatization of municipal water systems as a means of improving the welfare of communities in need, the reality is that water is being used to generate profit rather than to slake the world’s growing thirst,” said Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch’s executive director. “Water privatization has caused conflicts around the world, and communities that have sold their water rights face limited access to water, higher tariffs, and poor water quality.”

Food & Water Watch board member Maude Barlow, who serves as a special advisor on water to the U.N. General Assembly, is also at the forum, working to protect the right of all people to clean water. “As a vital natural resource, water systems need to be managed by governments and communities, not markets,” said Barlow. “This is an illegitimate forum convened by private sector interests driven by profit. The U.N. is the only global forum that can guide policy on water.”

For more on this perspective, watch our blog for updates on the news in Istanbul from Food & Water Watch International Research and Communications Coordinator Jeff Conant. You can also see our press releases on the issue and read our new report, Dried Up, Sold Out: How the World Bank’s Push for Private Water Harms the Poor.

-Erica Schuetz

Three months into the New Year, and the Obama family seems to have finally settled in to their White House lives. They have a new dog, the girls are in school, and the President and First Lady are hard at work. Considering the stresses that inevitably come with being a First Family, it’s imaginable that things like choosing sustainable seafood might get overlooked. However, safe and sustainable seafood is an important matter – and luckily, finding better seafood can be very simple if you just know where to look.

In an effort to assist our First Family in finding safe and sustainable seafood, Food & Water Watch recently sent a letter to White House Chef Cristeta Comerford, along with a variety of materials to make choosing better seafood a simpler task. This included our recipe book, Fish & Tips, our Smart Seafood Guide, and a refrigerator magnet with lists of “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” fish.

Our concern regarding the First Family’s seafood arose when we learned that when the Obama family was in Hawaii in January, their chef there served them Kona kampachi, a brand name fish grown by the Hawaii ocean fish farm Kona Blue Water Farms Inc. The operation claims to be sustainable – but offshore fish farming is associated with many potential problems.

As we discussed in our report Fishy Farms, open ocean or offshore aquaculture can cause habitat damage, depletion of wild fish, from use of wild fish in food to feed cultured fish, pollute surrounding waters and wildlife, and more.

Kona touts itself as an example of a sustainable open ocean fish farm – but there is already evidence to the contrary. One instance of this involves the various fish escapes from the Kona facility. The cages first broke a few years ago, releasing thousands of fish into the wild; the most recent fish escape was in December 2007, in which a diver failed to fully close one of the cages, releasing approximately 1500 fish. Intermixing of captive fish with wild fish can contribute to a number of problems – like alterations in behaviors of wild fish, intermixing of wild and captive fish and a permanent change in the surrounding ecosystem if captive fish displace wild species.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, seafood products cause approximately 18 percent to 20 percent of the known outbreaks of foodborne illnesses annually. Therefore, it is incredibly important to know where your seafood comes from and how it is produced. We hope that Chef Comerford keeps this in mind and takes to heart our recommendations for the First Family – and especially avoids serving fish grown in open water aquaculture facilities.

Just as this blog was being posted, news came out that Kona Blue may have to halt its production, as the farm has not been able to turn a profit. Kona hopes to install new bigger cages, but this plan is already being contested by community groups.

-Sofia Baliño