“Hardworking farmworker families with annual incomes well below the poverty line are often forced to pay twice for water – once for a monthly water bill for water they can’t drink and then again when they are forced to seek alternative water sources, usually from neighboring towns,” says Maria Herrera, the community outreach coordinator for the Community Water Center in Visalia. 

Photo: In conclusion of her 11-day mission to the United States, United Nations Independent Expert on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation Catarina de Albuquerque shared her recommendations for the government. Photo courtesy of Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

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U.N. water report focuses on California problems 

by Dan Bacher 

California has acquired a reputation over the years as a national “leader” in environmental policy, but this reputation proves to be false when one considers the state’s often deplorable record on water, fisheries and environmental justice.

In fact, California’s failure to provide clean, safe drinking water to its residents is so alarming that it captured the attention of the United Nations in a special report released in August as a package of “human right to water” bills proceeds through the State Capitol. 

Reporting on her mission to the United States last winter, Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapportuer on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, cited a host of worrisome drinking water supply and sanitation conditions in California. 

“Ensuring the rights to water and sanitation for all requires a paradigm shift towards new designs and approaches that promote human rights, that are affordable and that create more value in terms of public health improvements, community development, and global ecosystem protection,” de Albuquerque wrote. 

While her mission and report touched on issues around the nation, the bulk of her findings addressed problems in California, specifically the San Joaquin Valley, where she cites “enormous challenges” particularly with nitrate contamination of drinking water. While occurring naturally, nitrate levels are elevated by crop fertilizers and animal manure and are known to harm respiratory and reproductive systems as well as the kidney, spleen and thyroid, according to a news release from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and Community Water Center in Visalia. 

“Because it is difficult to assign responsibility for this type of pollution (non-point source pollution), no one is obliged to pay for the clean-up costs. In these circumstances, the affected community inevitably bears these costs,” she reported. 

Central Valley groundwater is contaminated with nitrates 

De Albuquerque pointed out this is especially disturbing because groundwater, which is vulnerable to nitrate contamination, serves as the primary source of drinking water for almost 90 percent of Central Valley residents. For instance, in Tulare County she reported that approximately 20 percent of the small public water systems are unable to meet the nitrate maximum contaminant level (MCL) on a regular basis and another 20 percent are over half the nitrate MCL. 

“The goal of universal access to clean and safe water has yet to be attained. Infants, older persons, persons with certain medical conditions and other vulnerable groups remain at risk from exposure to water that does not meet federal standards. Moreover, hundreds of substances found in water remain unregulated, and some sources of water, namely private drinking-water supplies, are also unregulated,” she wrote. 

The Community Water Center in Visalia, an advocate for safe drinking water in the Central Valley, is especially familiar with this reality. 

“Hardworking farmworker families with annual incomes well below the poverty line are often forced to pay twice for water – once for a monthly water bill for water they can’t drink and then again when they are forced to seek alternative water sources, usually from neighboring towns,” said Maria Herrera, the Center’s community outreach coordinator. 

The U.N. noted this disturbing reality in their report and pointed out that affected households in these small rural areas are paying as much as 20 percent of their income to water and sanitation. 

“While there is no federally recognized right to safe drinking water and sanitation, individual states have taken the initiative to consecrate this right,” de Albuquerque says. 

Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have a right to clean water in their constitutions and the United States joined international consensus in 2010, recognizing the human right for water and sanitation. 

Environmental justice advocates campaign to pass Human Right to Water bill package 

In California, the State Legislature is presently considering AB 685 (Eng-D Monterey Park), the Human Right to Water Measure. If passed, proponents say this would be a fundamental first step to addressing many of the recommendations and concerns in the U.N. report. 

“A holistic, systemic approach is required, whereby the water sector is not viewed in isolation from the agricultural, chemical, industrial and energy sectors,” de Albuquerque said. “The absence of political will inevitably means poor planning and scarce funding, and ultimately leads to pollution that jeopardizes water quality and increases costs.” 

“It is shocking that in California we have communities where the sole water supply is contaminated, and where families unable to afford treatment are left entirely without safe water,” said Assemblyman Mike Eng, in explaining why he authored his bill. “It is critical that we help communities throughout the state gain access to clean, affordable water.” 

AB 685 was held in the Senate Appropriations Commiteee last week. This same bill with almost identical language made it all the way through the Legislature and to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk in 2009 in the form of AB 1242 (Ruskin). Schwarzenegger, bowing to pressure from corporate interests, vetoed the bill. 

Four other bills, AB 938 (VM Perez), AB 983 (Perea), AB 1221 (Alejo), and SB 244 (Wolk), are still moving through the Legislative process. They will all be up for floor votes over the next two weeks. 

The human right to water bill package, including AB 685, is co-sponsored by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy; California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation; Catholic Charities Diocese of Stockton; Clean Water Action; Community Water Center; Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; Food and Water Watch; Southern California Watershed Alliance; Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry Action Network, CA; Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; Urban Semillas, and Winnemem Wintu Tribe. 

AB 685 is opposed by the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), the Western Growers Association and several other water service providers, who contend the bill “may lead to a requirement that water agencies provide water service without consideration to affordability, thereby increasing water bills and have other unintended consequences,” according to the Legislative Analysis. 

Winnemem Wintu Tribe: ‘Water is sacred’ 

“Water is sacred, water is Life for all,” commented Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “Just as all need to breathe Air, so should be the waters be for all, not just those who market water and ruin the rest in poor planning.” 

The UN report was released as the Obama and Brown administrations are fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDC) to build a peripheral canal to export more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water agencies. 

Canal opponents note that the peripheral canal’s construction is likely to result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other species. The canal would take vast tracts of Delta farmland, some of the most productive on the planet, out of production to divert water to irrigate drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. 

At the same time, the peripheral canal would do nothing to provide clean, safe drinking water for rural communities in the San Joaquin Valley plagued by the contamination of drinking water systems. 

More than 11.5 million Californians rely on water from suppliers that experienced at least one violation of State Drinking Water Standards as reported to the Department of Public Health in 2004, according to supporters of the legislative package. As many as 8.5 million Californians rely on supplies that experienced more than five instances of unsafe levels in a single year. 

The U.N. mission was coordinated by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC). For additional information on the U.N. mission and corresponding recommendations, contact Patricia Jones, UUSC Environmental Justice Program Manager at (617) 301 4393 or email pjones [at] uusc.org. The full U.N. report is available online at:http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/18session/A-HRC-18-33-Add4_en.pdf. 

For more information about the legislative package and UN report, contact: Maria Herrera, Community Water Center, (559) 733-0219, or Michael Miller, Brown∙Miller Communications, (800) 710-9333.

by Dan Bacher 

Stormy Staats, an independent video journalist and member of the Klamath Justice and Coastal Justice coalitions, reports from Cancun, Mexico for the UNFCCC COP16 (United Nations Climate negotiations), where she is helping out with the COP16 Independent Media Centers. 

Stormy has covered numerous environmental justice battles in recent years, including the direct action protests by Klamath River tribes, fishermen and environmentalists in Portland, Oregon and Omaha, Nebraska to bring down PacifiCorp dams and the protests by North Coast tribes, fishermen and grassroots conservationists to defend tribal rights under assault by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s corrupt and unjust Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process. 

“We are posting stories and video from the voices of people outside the meeting who have the real solutions to climate change,” Stormy says. “We are trying to put the actual event in context for what it really is…a corporately hijacked, green washed vacation for those representing the governments who keep us on the track to profits over people.” 

Their videos cover rampant police surveillance of a permitted March “For Life and Climate Justice,” police harrassment of a Mayan Caravan headed to COP16, including the stopping of a religious ceremony, and other events. All posts are on the Mobile Broadcast News website.http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/story/Cancun-COP16. 

“I heard from members of a youth delegation inside the Moon Palace (the resort where the meeting is being held) that a lot of young people, among others are feeling dis-empowered,” she explained. “A few people from Friends of the Earth International said this is the same meeting as the last few COP meetings, just in a new location.” 

“The New Zealand youth delegates said that if you go by the rules (for fearing getting kicked out), you have to submit action plans to the event authorities 48 hours in advance of doing actions that make a statement in the Moon Palace,” she emphasizes. “Action plans are unsurprisingly being edited and denied. I encouraged them to just go for it, and join us on the outside. They got in trouble and were threatened with removal for standing in line wearing t-shirts that spell ‘Stop the Tar Sands’.” 

Stormy said it is “a lot more interesting” at the alternative forums (http://www.dialogoclimatico.org) and at the encampments where thousands of people from around the Americas are arriving and participating in alternative workshops and forums. Check out their videos to see whats happening in the streets! 

“Some of my favorite media-ninja friends and I have created a collective tactical media team, which means we are part of creating the history and future of this movement in our voice, the voice of those who believe in community rooted solutions to climate chaos,” Stormy reports. “If news media is reporting in a timely fashion, and documentary is telling a story long after an event, tactical media is telling the story fast enough to effect the future for change.” 

Community rooted solutions to “climate chaos” are much different from the “green energy” scams proposed by ruling elites throughout the world, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, corporate environmental NGOs and gas, oil and energy corporations. 

Each video you see is the product of 4-6 people filming, editing, and distributing media every day. “We are simultaneously filming ourselves working in this collective process to teach other people how to do the same. Sometimes it’s like the Mad Max thunder dome…two editors go in and only one comes out! We are having a great time challenging each other and ourselves to creatively go beyond the limits of our imaginations!” Stormy adds. 

These are the latest videos from independent journalists outside the COP16. Please pass on and post everywhere!! 

People’s Caravans Arrive in Cancun to offer Alternative Voice to COP16 Summit 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw9ULKRXt2g 

COP16: Rampant Police Surveillance of Legal, Permitted March “For Life and Climate Justice” 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzJJ7oeVZM 

Police Harass Mayan Caravan Headed to COP16, Stopping religious ceremony 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwgv4FjfJOM 

Glassbead Report from Espacio Mexicano 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BD3ZG80GCQ 

Great Links: 

Indigenous Environmental Network 
http://www.redroadcancun.com 

The Ruckus Society 
http://www.ruckus.org/blog 

Espacio Mexicano 
http://www.dialogoclimatico.org 

La Via Campesina 
http://viacampesina.org/en/ 

Risingtide North America 
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org 

INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK 
FOUR PRINCIPLES for CLIMATE JUSTICE 

“Industrialized society must redefine its’ relationship with the sacredness of Mother Earth” 

1. Leave Fossil Fuels in the Ground 

Leave the coal in the hole – the oil in the soil – the tar sand in the land. Offshore accidents prove oil and water don’t mix. Climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels. Stop it at the source. Limit people’s consumption. Efficiency is meaningless without sufficiency. The transition to a low-carbon economy is not just about technology but about re-distributing economic and ecological space. In recognizing the root causes of climate change, people of the world must call upon the industrialized countries and the world to work towards decreasing dependency on fossil fuels. Demand a call for a moratorium on all new exploration for oil, gas and coal as a first step towards the full phase-out of fossil fuels, without nuclear power, with a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and environment. 

2. Demand Real and Effective Solutions 

End the promotion of false solutions such as carbon trading, carbon offsets, using forests and agriculture as offsets, agro-fuels, carbon storage and sequestration, clean coal technologies, geoengineering, mega hydro dams and nuclear power. These allow the rich industrialized countries to avoid their responsibility to take major changes. False solutions allow polluting corporations to increase their profits; allow Northern countries to disregard their high levels of consumption and expand production and release of greenhouse gas emissions and conduct “business as usual” practices. Promote a just transition to a low-carbon society that protects people’s rights, jobs and well-being. 

3. Industrialized – Developed Countries take Responsibility 

The burden of adjustment to the climate crisis must be borne by those who created it. This means: 

o Demand industrialized countries agree to an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period from 2013 to 2017 under which developed countries must agree to significant domestic emissions reductions of at least 50% based on 1990 levels, excluding carbon markets or other offset mechanisms that mask the failure of actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. 

o Based on the principle of historical common but differentiated responsibilities, demand 

developed countries to commit with quantifiable goals of emission reduction that will allow the return of the concentration of greenhouse gases to 300 parts per million (ppm), limiting the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of 1 degree Celsius. 

o A minimum of 95% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries by 2050 based on 1990 levels. 

o An end to over-production for over-consumption, and a dramatic reduction in wasteful 

consumption and production of waste by Northern and Southern elites. 

o Developed countries, assuming their historical responsibility must recognize and honor their climate and ecological debt in all of its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. Restore to developing countries the atmospheric space that is occupied by their greenhouse gas emissions. This implies the decolonization of the atmosphere through the reduction and absorption of their emissions. 

o Demand financial support from the North to the South to help with the cost of adjusting to the effects of climate change and continuing to develop along sustainable lines and it must be subject to democratic control. 

o Honor these debts as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth by adopting and implementing the Cochabamba People’s Accord and the proposed Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all Life. 

4. Living in a Good Way on Mother Earth 

o Climate justice calls upon governments, corporations and the peoples of the world to restore, revaluate and strengthen the knowledge, wisdom and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, affirmed in our experiences and the proposal for “Living in a Good Way”, recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship. 

o The world must forge a new economic system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. We can only achieve balance with nature if there is equity among human beings. The capitalist system has imposed upon us a mindset that seeks competition, progress and unlimited growth. This production-consumption regime pursues profits without limit, separating human beings from nature. It establishes a mindset that seeks to dominate nature, turning everything into a commodity: the land, water, air (carbon), forests, agriculture, flora and fauna, biodiversity, genes and even indigenous traditional knowledge. Under capitalism, Mother Earth is turned into nothing more than a source of raw materials. Human beings are seen as consumers and a means of production, that is, persons whose worth is defined by what they have, not by what they are. Humanity is at a crossroads: we can either continue taking the path of capitalism, depredation and death, or take the road of harmony with nature and respect for the Circle of Life. 

o The “shared vision” for “Long-term Cooperative Action” (UNFCCC Ad Hoc Working Group) must not be reduced in climate change negotiations to defining temperature-increase and greenhouse gas concentration limits in the atmosphere. Rather, it must undertake a balanced, comprehensive series of financial, technological and adaptation measures, measures addressing capacity building, production patterns and consumption, and other essential measures such as recognition of the rights of Mother Earth in order to restore harmony with nature.