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Water Issues
 The
water committee met regularly at each of the Continental Congresses.
Below is a very brief summary of those meetings. Also below, are
the most recent resolutions written
by the committee and those approved by the Congress in July '05.
The article, The
World Water Forum and Alternative Forums, by Cathy Holt, mentions
how some bioregionalists incorporated the bioregional ideas in
the discussion for the World Water Forum held in Mexico City in
March '06.
More extensive informaton on
Water and Bioregionalism can be found
in the WaterWorks
Journal. It includes articles by David Haenke and
Peter Berg and many others.
For an excellent overview of
the function and value of North America's premier water managers,
read Learning
from the Ecological Engineers: Watershed Wisdom of the Beaver
byToby Hemenway
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Reports:
Some North American
Bioregional Water Committee Reflections
by Barbara
Helen Harmony
The
Water Committee met initially at the first North American
Bioregional Congress (NABC) in May of 1984.
Water workers from across the continent designed a platform
and wrote resolutions near Excelsior Springs, Missouri, in
the Kansas Area Watershed.
We determined that Water
is the basis of life on the planet and the primary organizing
force of the bioregion. We promised to found a bioregional
Water Network with Water Committee Members collecting and
disseminating information. We were happy to learn the good
water practices of Bioregionalists particularly the use of
compost toilets.
In 1986 at the second
NABC on the shores of Lake Michigan in the Leelanau Province
of the Great Lakes Macroregion, the Water Committee shared
stories of Water degradation and deepened our resolutions.
In 1988, at NABC lll, on
Cheakamus river, Paradise Valley, Squamish Ish Bioregion in
British Columbia, again resolutions were refined.
At the fourth NABC in 1990
in the Kennebec River Watershed on the Gulf of Maine, when
the Water Committee met it was agreed that we should give
thanks for to the Water. The morning the plenary session was
to open, the Committee met on the banks of Lake Cobboseecontee
and gave thanks to the water. The group joined the plenary
session, bringing with us the purity and strength of purpose
that we received from the water.
When the Committee met on the
Guadalupe River in the Hill Country of Texas at the 5th Turtle
Island Bioregional Gathering each person told about their
water work. We than sat in silence in the circle as it rained
for about 4 minutes, the same amount of time each person had
spoken.
In 1994, at the 6th Turtle Island
Bioregional Gathering, the Committee met on Otter Creek in
Kentucky. We attempted to summarize the resolutions.
At the 1996 Gathering there
was a good exchange of Water information covering a wide range
of experiences. Once again it was remembered and noted that
water speaks a universal language of oneness and sustains
all life.
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In
July 2005, at the 9th CBC held at Earthaven Ecovillage in North
Carolina, these Water Resolutions were passed by the full Congress:
1. All people have a right
to clean water. Water should not be commodified or privatized.
2. Water is best protected by local conscious communities.
3. We oppose over-development of watersheds, destructive logging,
and destruction of habitat. We support replanting of native
vegetation.
4. We support catchments of rainwater and water conservation
and protection by agriculture, industry, and households. We
support use of renewable energies.
5. In small human-made dams for power, flood prevention, or
water storage and fish must get through and people affected
must be involved. We oppose large dams.
Full Version of the Water Resolution
proposed by the Water Committee (based on the Cochabamba Declaration,
which was ratified by the CBC in 2003) also summarizes previous
resolutions:
Preamble:
Since water is life, let
us give thanks to the water every time we drink and use it,
recognizing water as a gift and blessing. Water belongs to
the earth and all species and is sacred to life, therefore
the world's water must be conserved, reclaimed, and protected
for all future generations and its natural patterns respected.
All forms of water in the ground, the air, and on the land
are connected. There is no new water; it is a closed system,
which for eons has had a natural cleansing process - a process
which we should not disturb.
1. Protection and conservation
Because we seek protection
for water at its source, we oppose logging and over-development
of watersheds and support the replanting of trees to protect
streams from sedimentation and land from erosion, and
to restore the natural hydrological cycle based on transpiration
from trees. We support citizen monitoring of waterways
for greater awareness of water's health.
We support catchments
of rainwater, conserving water through water saving appliances,
and advocate use of dry composting toilets, cleaning and
reuising watewater with biological methods, and release
of water without damage to the environment. We oppose
using water as a carrier of waste.
We recommend that agricultural
policy mandate installation of drip irrigation to conserve
60% of their current water use and improve yields while
protecting the soil from salinization.
We recommend that industry
adopt a zero emissions policy requireing treatment and
recycling of the waste stream to prevent pollution from
entering the air and waterways.
We oppose ground and
surface water pollution from toxic rain, soil erosion,
agricultural runoff, draining of marshes, channelization
of streams, municipal waste water, landfills for municipal
or toxic waste, dumps for radioactive waste, deep well
injection of hazardous waste, depletion of aquifers, or
any other degradation of water.
We seek protection
for the fragile interfaces between water and land: the
coastal estuaries, coral reefs and the outer continental
shelf, as well as wetlands.
When dams are necessary
for small hydroelectric power generation, flood prevention,
or water storage, provision must be made for fish to get
through. People affected by dam building must be consulted,
compensated, and given a share in the benefits. We oppose
large hydroelectric facilities, which damage ecosystems
and people.
2. Opposing Privatization
Water is a fundamental
human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels
of government; therefore, it should not be commodified,
privatized or traded for commercial purposes. These rights
must be enshrined at all levels. In particular, an international
treaty must ensure all people on Earth have a right to
water regardless of abiltity to pay, and all beings have
a right to water.
We oppose use of bottled
water, because it contributes huge amounts of waste plastic
to the natural environment and landfills; bottled water
is not as regulated as tap water and is often less safe.
3. Other Policies
We
are already seeing increased frequency
and severity of storms, droughts,
floods, rising oceans, and desertification.
The burning of fossil fuels is
the major cause of climate change.
The most vulnerable are impoverished
and indigenous peoples. We support
developing renewable energies
such as solar, wind, biomass and
small hydro, in order to protect
the natural water cycle. Fossil
fuels such as coal and oil and
all their by products are a major
source of water pollution.
We should consider
the present importation of water as a carrying capacity
indicator of the whole watershed. Other indicators include:
inches of rainfall (potential catchments),
groundwater, and surface water.
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World
Water Forum and Alternative Forums
by Cathy Holt
An International Gathering
of Water Experiences was held in Mexico City in Mid-March
'06. The conference, a preluce to the fourth World Water
Forum, was to generate an inclusive space of reflection
centered on the challenges societies are facing around
the management and use of water. 1.1 billion people on
earth lack access to safe drinking water. An average of
4,700 people die every day due to lack of potable water.
Barbara Harmony, Coordinator
for the Water Committee of the Bioregional movement since
1984, was one of the speakers. Here address began, "My
purpose here today is to talk about the changes in consciousness
that I believe must occur for us to share water and use
it wisely." The Bioregional Water Committee's resolutions
formed a large part of her speech. (For the complete speech
go here.)
While the World Bank,
governments, and big corporations (20,000 attendees) at
the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City discussed plans
for privatizing water, an Alternative International Forum
in Defense of Water was taking place. Free and open to
the public, this people's forum met in city buildings,
a union hall, and tents in public places.
An encampment of
around 800 members of the National Assembly in Defense
of Land and Water and Against Privatization (mostly indigenous
peoples such as the Parota, whose land is being threatened
by a dam and flooding) was held in the Monument to the
Revolution.
The Alternative
Forum received funding of about $50,000 (500,000 pesos)
from the Local Assembly of Mexico City. Space in public
buildings, such as museums, was donated. Bioregionalists
Arnold Ricalde (a former Green Party memver of the government),
Joscelyn Proctor, and Helen Samuels were some of the key
organizers of the Alternative forums, especially the "Espejo
de Agua" (Mirror of Water), a 5-day event which began
with a Hopi-Aztec dance. there were workshops on water
rights, a stage where educational skits, music and dance
took place, a women's teepee, tables for NGOs, a children's
area, and a "Green Room" for computers, media
links, and film showings. Flower petals and colorful corn
kernels combined to create complex and beautiful mandalas,
which would be dismantled at the end. In a festive opening
ceremony, some of the traditional grandmothers joined
the younger women in a dance of blessing with copal and
flowers.
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