Please leave this field empty
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
  • About
  • Problems
  • Campaigns
  • Impacts
  • Research
  • Contact
Donate Monthly Make a Gift Renew Your Membership Ways to Give
  • facebook
  • twitter
Please leave this field empty
Food & Water Watch Food & Water Watch
$
Menu
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Search
Please leave this field empty
  • facebook
  • twitter

BLUE COMMUNITIES: Learn What They Are And Get Started

Here’s how you can join people from around the world to turn your town into a place that  protects the human right to water.

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • google-plus
  • envelope

We all need safe food and clean water.

Donate
BLUE COMMUNITIES: Learn What They Are And Get Started
By Mary Grant
09.28.20

Ten years ago, Maude Barlow, our Board Chair, was on the balcony of the United Nations General Assembly as it passed the historic resolution recognizing and affirming that access to water and sanitation are basic human rights. She recently reflected, “I remember feeling that in defining water and sanitation as an issue of justice rather than charity, the human family had just taken an evolutionary step forward.” 

Through her decades of activism and research, Maude has arrived at a critical strategy for realizing that human right to water — starting at the local level to build a global family of Blue Communities. 

Maude Barlow's Whose Water Is It Anyway?

Maude describes this strategy in her new book, Whose Water Is It, Anyway? Taking Water Protection Into Public Hands. The Blue Communities project found its origins in Canada’s fights against bottled water extraction and water privatization. More than a decade ago, Canadian labor union leaders and workers, environmentalists, and indigenous and community activists convened a Blue Summit to develop a new path forward in the face of inaction from their federal government. 

The goal of the project is to have local governments commit to become a Blue Community by passing local resolutions to protect the human right to water. 

What is a Blue Community?

A Blue Community must commit to:

  • Recognize water and sanitation as human rights;
  • Reject water privatization in all its forms; and
  • Ban or phase out bottled water in government buildings and at municipal events.  

 

In 2011, Burnaby in British Columbia, Canada, became the first Blue Community. Since then, 80 communities around the world have joined the effort — check out this map by the Council of Canadians:

Almost 25 million people now live in official Blue Communities that have pledged to promote water as a human right, protect water as a public trust and public service, and phase out bottled water in government buildings and events. These cities include Montreal, Vancouver, Paris, Berlin and Brussels.

In the United States, Northampton, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles, California, have become Blue Communities, but we have a lot more work to turn our country blue. 

Why should U.S. towns become Blue Communities?

Water is a basic human right. It is intrinsic to living a life with dignity, and to life itself. We need water to drink, cook food, bathe, clean, wash our hands and flush our toilets. In the midst of a global pandemic, this basic essential need for water has never been clearer. 

Water privatization can undermine this basic human right. At its core, turning water over to a for-profit company abdicates a basic government responsibility to protect and promote the human right to water. We lose control over an essential service, typically leading to higher rates and worse service.

Bottled water companies like Nestlē extract local water supplies to put in plastic bottles and ship around the world to generate profit. Bottled water costs thousands of times more than local tap water, and it generates billions of pounds of plastic. People and the environment lose.

That’s why right now is the time to take action to protect the human right to water.

How you can make your town a Blue Community

This fall, we are going to launch an online digital organizing guide for you to take action to turn your home town into a Blue Community.  We will provide you with the tools you need to move your elected officials to recognize that our water is a common resource and a human right.

Stay tuned for more! For now, take action to tell your Congressmember to support a national water shutoff moratorium!

CONTACT CONGRESS!

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Monsanto's Roundup is a "probable human carcinogen." We need to ban it!

Get the latest on your food and water with news, research and urgent actions.

Please leave this field empty

Latest News

  • Trump’s Out, Biden’s In! Now The Fight Of Our Lives On Climate Begins.

    Trump’s Out, Biden’s In! Now The Fight Of Our Lives On Climate Begins.

  • Biden’s 100-Day Must-Do List for a Cleaner, Healthier Country

    Biden’s 100-Day Must-Do List for a Cleaner, Healthier Country

  • Fracking, Federal Lands, And Follow-Through: Will President Biden Do What He Promised?

    Fracking, Federal Lands, And Follow-Through: Will President Biden Do What He Promised?

See More News & Opinions

For Media: See our latest press releases and statements

Food & Water Insights

Looking for more insights and our latest research?

Visit our policy & research library
  • Eversource’s Plan to Privatize New Hartford’s Water

  • The Urgent Case for a Moratorium on Mega-Dairies in New Mexico

  • Fracking, Power Plants and Exports: Three Steps for Meaningful Climate Action

Fracking activist with stickersFracking activist in hatLegal team loves family farmsFood & Water Watch organizer protecting your food

Work locally, make a difference.

Get active in your community.

Food & Water Impact

  • Victories
  • Stories
  • Facts
  • Trump, Here's a Better Use for $25 Billion

  • Here's How We're Going to Build the Clean Energy Revolution

  • How a California Activist Learned to Think Locally

Keep drinking water safe and affordable for everyone.

Take Action
food & water watch logo
en Español

Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.

Food & Water Watch is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

Food & Water Action is a 501(c)4 organization.

Food & Water Watch Headquarters

1616 P Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20036

Main: 202.683.2500

Contact your regional office.

Work with us: See all job openings

  • Problems
    • Broken Democracy
    • Climate Change & Environment
    • Corporate Control of Food
    • Corporate Control of Water
    • Factory Farming & Food Safety
    • Fracking
    • GMOs
    • Global Trade
    • Pollution Trading
  • Solutions
    • Advocate Fair Policies
    • Legal Action
    • Organizing for Change
    • Research & Policy Analysis
  • Our Impact
    • Facts
    • Stories
    • Victories
  • Take Action
    • Get Active Where You Live
    • Organizing Tools
    • Find an Event
    • Volunteer with Us
    • Live Healthy
    • Donate
  • Give
    • Give Now
    • Give Monthly
    • Give a Gift Membership
    • Membership Options
    • Fundraise
    • Workplace Giving
    • Planned Giving
    • Other Ways to Give
  • About
  • News
  • Research Library
  • Contact
  • Careers
  • Donate
Learn more about Food & Water Action www.foodandwateraction.org.
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • 2021 © Food & Water Watch
  • www.foodandwaterwatch.org
  • Terms of Service
  • Data Usage Policy