Recently in Government & Water Category

On July 28th, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of recognizing clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right.

122 of 192 member nations voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, no nation voted against it. However, 44 member nations did abstained from voting. The US was in that 44.

Over 900 million people do not have access to clean water. More than 1.5 million children under the age of 5 die every year from lack of clean water and sanitation. The vote was a gesture by many nations that they were committed to bringing clean water to as many people as possible.

In light of the huge trend in water privatization and monetization around the world, this vote expressed the widespread feeling that water cannot be treated as just another commodity.
If humans need clean drinking water to live, like they need air, than water cannot be put on the market to the highest bidder.

The US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Botswana were among the countries which did not vote. The US expressed concerns that the resolution was not consistent with international law regarding water and might undermine future international law regarding water.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell took a stand for bottled water companies this week by reversing the state's ban on spending government funds on single serve water containers.

Many city and state governments around the country have taken bottled water out of their budgets in the last year to end wasteful spending on a product they often produce themselves.

Many city governments have been taking a closer look at the impact of plastic waste in their municipalities and the hypocrisy of having government workers purchase a product from the private sector that the government produces and often promotes to the public themselves.

Despite Gov. McDonnell's claim that he has lifted the ban in order to help Virginia's economy, it is very easy to suspect he is doing a little favor for the industry.

After all, the news was announced by the biggest bottled water lobby around, the International Bottled Water Association. They were very excited about his decision.

Tell Gov. McDonnell to take a step forward, not back.

UPDATE:
In our comments below, Tom Lauria, Vice President of Communications at the International Bottled Water Association informed us that the IBWA did not actually announce the decision of Governor McDonnell to reverse the state bottled water ban as stated in this post. Governor McDonnell announced the decision nearly 4 days earlier, to the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Out of the grim saga of the Gulf Oil Spill comes some hope that BP could possibly be held accountable in a significant way for polluting the Southern US's coastline.

Three environmental groups, the Gulf Restoration Network, Louisiana Environmental Action Network and Environment America are suing BP under the Clean Water Act, charging the company with allowing oil to leak into the gulf and failing to measure the true volume of the leak.

The Clean Water Act was, after all, partly inspired into law by a 1969 oil rig spill near Santa Barbara, CA. Additionally, the Exxon Valdez Spill in the Gulf of Alaska in 1989 helped inspire the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) that strengthened the Clean Water Act to open up criminal charges and civil action against companies responsible for oil spills.

The oil rig spill near Santa Barbara leaked 100,000 barrels of oil. The Exxon-Valdez tanker spill was responsible for 10 million gallons of spilled oil. BP Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico? 22 to 35 million gallons so far. If this does not spur catastrophic fines for BP and other companies involved and new stronger legislation, I don't know what will.

Because the BP clean up effort seems to have vastly underestimated the volume of oil leaking into the ocean and used banned practices such as releasing toxic chemicals into the water to break up the oil, legal experts believe the companies could be fined as much $4.7 Billion under the Clean Water Act.

Lets hope these environmental groups are successful against what I imagine is a massive BP legel effort. We just can't afford for something like this to happen again.

You can support these groups through the following links: Gulf Restoration Network, Louisiana Environmental Action Network and Environment America.

Photo thanks to jeferonix on flickr under Creative Commons license

A new community based energy utility in the industrial waterfront of Vancouver, British Columbia is using waste water and sewage to heat thousands of homes.

The Southeast False Creek Neighborhood Energy Utility is using a technique that takes the heat from warm water from your drain, such as bathwater and sink water, as well as warm sewage water (with an average temperature of 65 degrees) and uses it to heat a network of high efficiency water pipes. The piping system runs underground to local buildings and distributes the heat. The water then returns to the plant to be reheated by more waste water and sewage.

Many of the buildings being serviced by the new plant are part of the Olympic Village, that since February have been converted into over 1,000 housing units. The process is cutting greenhouse gas emissions from these buildings by 65% compared to conventional methods.

The housing is being awarded Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design (LEED) Platinum, the highest rating possible.

The utility also hopes to be a model for other local, community based utilities. They have built and education center in the plant to show visitors how the process works.

Who knew our 'waste' was so useful?

The New York Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), who is responsible for the New York water supply, has partnered with Fishs Eddy, a Manhattan housewares retailer, to encourage New Yorkers to stop using bottled water and switch to tap water.

Fishs Eddy has produced a line of glasses, t-shirts and coasters carrying the slogan  "drink NYC water" with the DEP's tap water logo.

"We're very New York and we see ourselves as an institution. And we developed this idea with a fun graphic on the glasses to promote NYC tap water", said Julie Gaines, the store's owner. "I think the bottled-water industry is getting ticked off at us because of this". Great to have them onboard! Glasses will run $5 or $20 for a set of four. Coasters are $3.95 for a set of ten. Order them here.

photo credit: Fishs Eddy

The recent Boston water main brake has heightened the debate on how to fix America's aging water infrastructure.

Representative Earl Blumenauer from Oregon is trying to raise support for the The Water Protection and Reinvestment Act that, among other initiatives, taxes beverage bottlers, which would include water bottlers, who directly benefit from the county's clean water supplies.

The bill would aim to raise about $10 Billion a year to for water system repairs nationwide through a 4 cent per bottle tax.

Bottled water interests such as Nestle Waters North America  and the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) are taking issue with the bill and think the costs should not rest so heavily on their industry. IBWA spokesmen Tom Lauria said in a statement, "The Blumenauer bill is singling out one product unfairly and disproportionately, and it's not going to solve the problem."

Unfortunately, an estimated 40% of bottled water comes from municipal sources. So, many of the companies opposing a water infrastructure tax have a business model dependent on public water systems to make money. Should they be obligated to pay?

To find out more information on the bill click here. To tell congress you support new funding for water infrastructure, click here.

photo credit: dipfan on flickr creative commons

The first American town has fully banned the sale of bottled water. Concord, Massachusetts the historic landmark and suburb of Boston, has followed the lead of Bundanoon, Australia to become completely bottled water free.

The ban came out of a vote at a town meeting in late April. Much of the momentum for the bill was conjured up by 82 year old activist Jean Hill. "All these discarded bottles are damaging our planet, causing clumps of garbage in the oceans that hurt fish, and are creating more pollution on our streets,'' says Hill. She lobbied her neighbors and aquantences for months to finally get the issue to be addressed at the town meeting.

This is a surprising turn of events for the bottled water industry, and the ban is getting national attention. Joe Dess of the International Bottled Water Association issued a statement: "Any efforts to discourage consumers from drinking water, whether tap water or bottled water, is not in the best interests of consumers. Bottled water is a very healthy, safe, convenient product that consumers use to stay hydrated."

Many people are beginning to see the major downsides to having bottled water be a replacement for the public supply. This does not look good for the water bottlers.

Concord did face an immediate challenge when a water main broke in the Boston Area putting all the town on boil notice. Emergency situations provide one of the few arguments water bottlers have that they provide a valuable product (although single serve containers still don't serve a practical purpose, even in emergencies). Many in the town began to doubt how wise the bottled water ban was.

Jean Hill was not perturbed. "I have no second thoughts about this vote. The problem is that when there isn't a crisis, too many people use bottled water instead of tap water". Well put.

There has been a battle in New York in the past six months to save New York City's water supply from dangerous hydraulic fracture natural gas drilling.

Amid public uproar, the gas drilling company that owned drilling rights in New York City's watershed decided not to drill there, citing PR concerns.

This was great news except the New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused to put a legal ban on the practice in the watershed. That all changed on Friday. Kind of.

The new rules announced on Friday for the watershed will require drillers to get approval for drilling on a well by well basis. While in other parts of the state, presumably areas that are not as environmentally sensitive, there are general environmental guidelines that need to be followed, allowing for gas companies to more easily comply and drill.

These new rules will effectively make gas drilling in the watershed too costly and time consuming for companies to consider. However, it falls short of an actual ban that many New Yorkers were hoping for. There is more work to be done to make sure our water is safe. New York cannot afford to even have even the slightest chance of one of our most important natural resources to be contaminated.

Detroit has seen the worst economic decline of any American city. With the collapsing American auto industry and manufacturing continuing to be sent over seas, Detroit has gone from a peak population of about 2 million in the 1950's to 800,000 today and loses 10,000 residents a year.

To make things a little worse, many people in Detroit are getting disconnected from the city water supply. Due to decreasing revenue and budget shortfalls, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) has raised prices and shut tens of thousands of resident's water off over the past few years.

Residents in less populated areas often share water between houses using hoses as service does not come to every house. The problem may only get worse. Detroit's population is projected to bottom out in 2020, leaving many years for services to potentially decline even more.

Residents that lose water access tend not to have the income to pay for tap water alternatives, such as bottled water, that can cost up to a thousand times more. Hopefully the city can find a way to provide basic services that many need to survive.

photo credit: stan on flickr

The city council in Ottawa, Canada's national capitol, has approved a plan to put $1.1 Million CAD into reducing bottled water use and promoting local tap water.

The plan will include giving out refillable water bottles with city logos on them, putting new water fountains in high profile places and other educational efforts to raise awareness of the safety of Ottawa's water.

The coolest part of the plan is the "Ottawatermobiles", which are mobile water refill trailers used at concerts and city events. Promoters of the Ottawa Folk Festival have already banned bottled water at their concerts and plan to use these water mobiles to hydrate festival attendees this summer.

Hopefully this well funded push will have significant impact on bottled water consumption in the city. Maybe TapIt needs to take a little trip to Ottawa and help out the cause!

photo credit: Afiler from flickr