7-24-2012 The Aqueduct Alliance, which allows users to create maps by combining hydrological data with geographically specific details, gives companies and investors unprecedented detail of water availability in some of the world’s largest river basins.
The promoters say the data should help companies use water more responsibly while helping them to manage their exposure to risk.
But critics fear the data could be used to cash in on an increasingly scarce natural resource - two-thirds of people are expected to face water shortages by 2025. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-water-maps/maps-spark-concern-over-corporate-water-grab-idUSBRE86N13C20120724
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2-12-2013 As a growing population stresses the world's food and water supplies, corporations and investors in wealthy countries are buying up foreign farmland and the freshwater perks that come with it.
From Sudan to Indonesia, most of the land lies in poverty-stricken regions, so experts warn that this widespread purchasing could expand the gap between developed and developing countries.
The “water grabbing” by corporations amounts to 454 billion cubic meters per year globally, according to a new study by environmental scientists. That’s about 5 percent of the water the world uses annually. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/corporations-grabbing-land-and-water-overseas/
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Voters in one Oregon county on Tuesday approved a ban on commercial bottled water production, stopping a years-long effort by Swiss transnational Nestle to sell over 100 million gallons of water a year from the Columbia River Gorge.
"This is really a resounding victory for everyone who cares about protecting not only our water supply, but water supplies around the world," said Aurora del Val with Local Water Alliance, which filed the ballot measure petition.
Though opponents of the proposed plant in Cascade Locks in Hood River County were vastly outspent, Measure 14-55 easily passed—roughly 69 percent to 31 percent. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/18/people-power-just-trumped-corporate-power-oregon-county-rejects-nestle-water-grab
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Water is the ultimate shared resource and we can only manage it sustainably if all water users in a river basin work together. Businesses, every level of government, and local communities must collaborate to ensure water is responsibly governed and shared. To leverage the relative nimbleness and influence of the private sector we challenge businesses to become water stewards—to go beyond water efficiency practices and lead collective action in river basins around the world. For the private sector, water is both a risk and opportunity. Without it, businesses will fail. Water flows from corporate headquarters, through manufacturing facilities and complex supply chains, to the fields were raw materials are grown. https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/corporate-water-stewardship
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April 22, 2019 Corporations in many sectors of industry use a lot of water. In general, industry uses around 20% of the world’s freshwater withdrawals, while in the wealthiest nations, corporate water consumption can be as much as 40% of the total. And according to one March 2019 survey, 64 of 86 (or 75% of) large, multinational companies polled have goals in place to use less.
Yet, when it comes to actually doing something to meet those goals, many companies have thrown up their hands. Almost half of the companies surveyed, or 44%, had no plan in place for how to reach water-savings goals.
The survey was conducted by Ecolab, a US-based water-and-energy technology firm, and the US-based GreenBiz group, which develops reports on sustainable business practices. All of the 86 companies surveyed had 2018 revenues of at least $1 billion, and spanned the tech, consumer goods, healthcare, and hospitality sectors. Almost 60% of those companies agreed that global water scarcity was becoming a business risk. But that didn’t mean they were doing anything about it. https://qz.com/1597964/corporate-water-sustainability-goals-are-mostly-just-talk/
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The delta, the largest estuary on the U.S. Pacific Coast, is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and provides water for more than 25 million people and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland. The delta supplies a third of the Southland’s water.
Newsom’s position on the bill, known as the California Environmental, Public Health, and Workers Defense Act of 2019, remains unclear. His administration has been buffeted by intense lobbying by environmental groups who support the legislation and some of California’s most influential agricultural interests, business groups and water suppliers, who have been fighting for changes to the bill….
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said he’s worried — the legislation will create separate sets of endangered species projections and pumping restrictions on California’s two major water systems that draw water from the delta: the federal Central Valley Project, which is under the purview of U.S. Department of the Interior, and the State Water Project, which California authorities oversee….
The Trump administration last month took action to weaken the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act, including removing protections for creatures recently added to the threatened list and allowing the federal government to disclose economic costs when deciding whether to list a species as endangered. The Interior Department says those costs will not be a factor in any decisions about species.
That came in the wake of the administration decision to roll back a series of Obama-era environmental policies, including stringent vehicle mileage standards and fighting climate change by phasing out coal-fired power plants….
The Westlands Water District, a San Joaquin Valley irrigation district led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers, would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s proposal to allow more water to be withdrawn from the delta.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, before joining the Trump administration, was a partner at a law and lobbying firm that represented Westlands and sued the Department of the Interior four times on behalf of it. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-07/california-trump-environment-federal-laws-water
April 22, 2019 Corporations in many sectors of industry use a lot of water. In general, industry uses around 20% of the world’s freshwater withdrawals, while in the wealthiest nations, corporate water consumption can be as much as 40% of the total. And according to one March 2019 survey, 64 of 86 (or 75% of) large, multinational companies polled have goals in place to use less.
Yet, when it comes to actually doing something to meet those goals, many companies have thrown up their hands. Almost half of the companies surveyed, or 44%, had no plan in place for how to reach water-savings goals.
The survey was conducted by Ecolab, a US-based water-and-energy technology firm, and the US-based GreenBiz group, which develops reports on sustainable business practices. All of the 86 companies surveyed had 2018 revenues of at least $1 billion, and spanned the tech, consumer goods, healthcare, and hospitality sectors. Almost 60% of those companies agreed that global water scarcity was becoming a business risk. But that didn’t mean they were doing anything about it. https://qz.com/1597964/corporate-water-sustainability-goals-are-mostly-just-talk/
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The delta, the largest estuary on the U.S. Pacific Coast, is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and provides water for more than 25 million people and millions of acres of Central Valley farmland. The delta supplies a third of the Southland’s water.
Newsom’s position on the bill, known as the California Environmental, Public Health, and Workers Defense Act of 2019, remains unclear. His administration has been buffeted by intense lobbying by environmental groups who support the legislation and some of California’s most influential agricultural interests, business groups and water suppliers, who have been fighting for changes to the bill….
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said he’s worried — the legislation will create separate sets of endangered species projections and pumping restrictions on California’s two major water systems that draw water from the delta: the federal Central Valley Project, which is under the purview of U.S. Department of the Interior, and the State Water Project, which California authorities oversee….
The Trump administration last month took action to weaken the 45-year-old Endangered Species Act, including removing protections for creatures recently added to the threatened list and allowing the federal government to disclose economic costs when deciding whether to list a species as endangered. The Interior Department says those costs will not be a factor in any decisions about species.
That came in the wake of the administration decision to roll back a series of Obama-era environmental policies, including stringent vehicle mileage standards and fighting climate change by phasing out coal-fired power plants….
The Westlands Water District, a San Joaquin Valley irrigation district led by some of the state’s wealthiest growers, would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s proposal to allow more water to be withdrawn from the delta.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, before joining the Trump administration, was a partner at a law and lobbying firm that represented Westlands and sued the Department of the Interior four times on behalf of it. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-07/california-trump-environment-federal-laws-water
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10-2-19 In a letter Tuesday to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, Reclamation’s regional director Ernest Conant defended the plan to deliver more water to the irrigation districts that belong to the federal government’s Central Valley Project, saying it was “sound, science-based and lawful.” But he said Reclamation is backing off because it “values its relationships” with Fish and Wildlife and other California agencies.
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The Trump administration released its draft plan to reopen more than a million acres of public land and mineral estate in central California to oil drilling and fracking. The plan would end a five-year-old moratorium on leasing federal public land in the state to oil companies. It targets some of California's most iconic landscapes, including areas close to Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks as well as state parks, nature reserves, and recreation areas.
New drilling and fracking would damage air quality even more in Central California, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Valley has one of the most polluted air basins in the United States. The air fails to meet federal pollution standards for both particulate matter and ozone.
This move would threaten the health of communities already suffering from toxic air pollution, endanger our water (fracking uses alot of water), hurt wildlife that depend on these lands, and push us even further toward climate catastrophe. https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/National?actionId=AR0164855
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9.19.19 When water giant Suez and Wall Street partner KKR made their move to win a $811 million, 40-year water and sewer privatization deal in New Jersey, they had enough money to buy ads on TV and Facebook, and deliver round after round of fear-mongering junk mail to residents’ mailboxes. On our side, we had a kind of power that money can’t buy: Volunteers and interns going door-to-door, and fired up residents who demanded a voice in their town’s future. We had people power.
In a stunning win for public water, voters in Edison, New Jersey voted 84 percent to 16 percent in favor of bringing their sewer system and part of their drinking water system under public control. This makes the town—the fifth largest in New Jersey—the third municipality in the country to effectively ban water privatization, and the first to do so via citizen-initiated referendum.
How on Earth did a small, determined group of residents go to battle with a giant multinational corporation and a Wall Street investment firm… and win in a landslide?! Back in February, Edison Mayor Tom Lankey unveiled the proposal that was apparently in the works for months: The township would sign off on a 40-year, $811 million contract. Initial reports stressed that the upfront payment would help pay for new facilities, including a $40 million community center. But those are exactly the kinds of promises water privatizers like to make; residents are left to find out the hard way that’s not the way it works out.
There was instant community opposition to the proposal. Residents packed public meetings demanding to know when the deal had been negotiated, why they weren’t informed about the process, and why in the world anyone would take these companies at their word. Just a few miles north, the city of Bayonne has been saddled with a nightmarish long-term contract with the same two companies. We knew there was a way to give the public a voice. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/how-grassroots-coalition-stopped-corporate-water-grab-new-jersey
How on Earth did a small, determined group of residents go to battle with a giant multinational corporation and a Wall Street investment firm… and win in a landslide?! Back in February, Edison Mayor Tom Lankey unveiled the proposal that was apparently in the works for months: The township would sign off on a 40-year, $811 million contract. Initial reports stressed that the upfront payment would help pay for new facilities, including a $40 million community center. But those are exactly the kinds of promises water privatizers like to make; residents are left to find out the hard way that’s not the way it works out.
There was instant community opposition to the proposal. Residents packed public meetings demanding to know when the deal had been negotiated, why they weren’t informed about the process, and why in the world anyone would take these companies at their word. Just a few miles north, the city of Bayonne has been saddled with a nightmarish long-term contract with the same two companies. We knew there was a way to give the public a voice. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/how-grassroots-coalition-stopped-corporate-water-grab-new-jersey
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