"Federal programs designed to make headway on some of the Great Lakes' most longstanding ecological problems, from harbors caked with toxic sludge to the threat of an Asian carp attack, would lose about 80 percent of their funding under a spending plan approved Tuesday by a Republican-controlled U.S. House panel."
So reads a Minneapolis Star Tribune article about the House of Representatives plan that would set back years of bipartisan work to ecologically restore the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative was established in 2009 by President Obama and would suffer greatly under the proposed bill. The list of cuts named in the bill include reduced spending on projects that upgrade aging sewage treatment systems (which protect citizens from harmful bacteria like E. coli), scrape away contaminated harbor sediments, restore wildlife habitat and support efforts to ward off invasions of Asian carp.
Critics of the proposed reductions cite the negative health impacts of reduced spending on sewer systems, the cultural significance of the Great Lakes and the positive economic impact that the Great Lakes bring to surrounding communities. "The Great Lakes is one of the jewels of the United States and it's imperative we protect it for its environmental significance but also because of its economic might," the Star Tribune reports Rep. Dave Joyce, an Ohio Republican and member of the subcommittee, as saying in a news release announcing the bill introduction. "Studies have shown more than 1.5 million jobs are directly connected to these five lakes, generating $62 billion in wages.
Read the entire Star Tribune article here, and consider the wide-ranging consequences that political gridlock and sequestration have on what ought to be our protected commons.
Marcel Dijkstra speaks at Lake Superior Day: "Lake Superior is owned by us all"
Copper Harbor, MI, recently hosted the Upper Peninsula's first Lake Superior Day celebration as reported by the Mining Gazette.
Marcel Dijkstra, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental engineering working with Dr. Marty Auer, one of the Great Lakes Commons allies with Michigan Technological University, was invited to speak at the event. Here is an excerpt on his address:
Dijkstra said he's working on ecosystem models of environmental challenges to Lake Superior, including invasive species, such as Asian carp, and the effects of excess nutrients entering the lake.
"Lake Superior is common," he said. "It's owned by us all. It's not a commodity."
Addressing some of the approximately 200 people attending the event, Dijkstra said he's encountered some people from out of the area who behaved in ways detrimental to the lake, and he thinks people who live here have an obligation to inform others who may be involved in such activity.
"It's all our job to reach out to people who don't have a beautiful lake in their back yard," he said. "This is a really important part of our job as stewards."
An Opportunity for a Commons Approach - or How Water Wars May Begin
A story playing out across the Great Lakes makes it clear that we can't make decisions locally and individually--we need to make them as a commons, and share the decision-making process with all those involved.
A small wealthy suburb in Wisconsin wants to draw on Lake Michigan for drinking water, but has failed to see that water is held in a larger commons--one that includes all of those who depend on that water in the entire bio-region.
Although extracting the water from the lake for the community, whose aquifer is running out of fresh water, would be "the equivalent of taking a teaspoon of water out of an Olympic-sized swimming pool" (as the general manager of the local water utility said), if each community does so we will continue to the lakes shrink. Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs, chair of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, recognizes the issue. "We're already looking at low water levels in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron. And those levels are really having an effect on all kinds of things."
The situation has also upset nearby communities who are not on the shores of the Great Lakes and who wonder how they will sustainably draw water in the future. "Where do you draw the line," Hobbs asked. "I could see water wars coming if [we don't resolve the issue]."
Perhaps this case will help awaken more people to the need for a commons approach to the waters. We are all connected through the Great Lakes, and we need to embrace shared use, shared stewardship, and shared governance in our relationship to the waters.
The Greatest Threat to the Great Lakes and No One Seems to Know About It: Expanding Enbridge’s Line 5 Through the Straits of Mackinac
Oil and Water Don't Mix
This article is cross-posted from FLOW for Water. A PDF report is available here. Click here to join the rally on July 14!
How often do you hear a story in the news and then feel utterly shocked that you didn’t know anything about it? Well, that’s how all 40 million of us living in the Great Lakes should feel about the Enbridge Line 5 expansion across the Straits of Mackinac—a pipeline expansion project that will transport tar sands oil directly through the heart of the Great Lakes. In a nutshell, this just may be the greatest threat facing the Great Lakes at this time in history. “An oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac isn’t a question of if—it’s a question of when,” according to National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) comprehensive report on this issue, Sunken Hazard.
What would a tar sands oil spill the size of Exxon-Valdez mean for the Great Lakes? Goodbye fisheries, aquatic food links, goodbye wildlife, goodbye municipal drinking water, goodbye Mackinac Island, goodbye tourism and property values, and goodbye to one of the world’s largest freshwater inland seas.
What company is stealthily completing this hazardous energy venture with limited public scrutiny? Enbridge—the same Canadian company responsible in 2010 for a million gallon tar sands oil pipeline rupture and a $1 billion cleanup along a 35-mile stretch of Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. Known as the largest transporter of crude oil, Enbridge is requesting a permit from the State Department’s U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to expand its existing pipeline—Line 67 also known as the Alberta Clipper—to transport heavy tar sands oil originating from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. From there, Enbridge, according to company officials, has already expanded the volume of tar sands oil in a second pipeline—Line 5—that travels directly through the Straits of Mackinac to a refinery located in Sarnia, Ontario. This 1,000+ mile pipeline route will double the tar sands oil that it currently carries and will deliver even more tar sands oil than the highly publicized and controversial TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline.
Built sixty years ago in 1953, Line 5’s twin pipelines that cross the Straits of Mackinac—each 20 inches in diameter—were designed to transport light conventional crude oil, not Enbridge’s viscous, heavy tar sands oil or “bitumen” blended or diluted with volatile natural gas liquid condensate, also known as “dilbit.” Dilbit spills are particularly difficult to remediate because the bitumen and diluents separate, releasing toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and heavy, sticky bitumen material. And in Lake Michigan, who knows how long it would take to actually clean up these pollutants. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that it takes an average of 99 years to rid of pollutants in Lake Michigan.
Now let’s dig a little deeper into Enbridge’s depressing track record. According to NWF, “Enbridge’s pipelines had more than 800 spills in the U.S. and Canada between 1999 and 2010, leaking 6.8 million gallons of oil.” So with the combination of strong currents along the Straits, Enbridge’s inexcusable track record, its weak emergency response, and a strong likelihood of mechanical pipeline failure in this fragile ecosystem, we must ask ourselves: is this a risk we as citizens, inheritors, and future protectors of the Great Lakes are willing to accept?
This Enbridge pipeline expansion is a perfect example of why we have the public trust in our navigable waters—an ancient legal doctrine dating back to the Roman times—designed to protect our common shared resources like the Great Lakes. The public trust empowers us as a democratic and thoughtful people to question the impacts of proposed actions like Enbridge’s and determine whether they will impair, pollute or irreparably harm our water resources, and jeopardize protected water uses like fishing, swimming, and navigation.
This proposed action is a clear violation of the public trust as the pipeline threatens to destroy the Great Lakes’ common waters, which support the region’s $62 billion economy with 1.5 million jobs, drinking water for 40 million citizens, as well as our very social fabric, quality of life and enjoyment, and shared ecosystem with wildlife. The unprecedented scale of such an ecological and economic disaster also would undermine the $1 billion already invested in the U.S. government’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This is why the public trust and its protection of the commons is more important than ever.
What this debate really boils down to is a much-needed larger national conversation about our country’s future energy policy. Not only does President Obama need to have the Keystone XL pipeline on his radar, but all pipeline expansions like this project, in assessing the impacts of climate change. It’s time that our nation makes good energy choices that respect the Great Lakes as a shared common resource protected by the public trust. We need to put the safety of our water and our future generations before our overzealous energy development. If we do this, we can chart a future with clean and abundant water, food, energy and a prosperous economy.
Looking for something concrete to do about this pressing pipeline issue? Join FLOW, TC350, 350.org, National Wildlife Federation, Michigan Land Use Institute, Food & Water Watch, and many other organizations and attend the Oil and Water Don’t Mix: A Rally for the Great Lakes on July 14th at the St. Ignace Bridge View Park, just north of the Mackinac Bridge. The purpose of the rally is to bring attention to the dangers of this pipeline and its expansion, and to organize a response to these risks. We want to pressure our leaders to put safety measures in place to prevent a devastating oil spill in the heart of the Great Lakes. Click here to sign up and RSVP via this Facebook event.
Take Back the Tap!
This post is directly pulled from the Food and Water Watch blog. The FWW has written a report on the ways that bottled water wastes resources and money: read the original report here.
Take Back the Tap
Americans have bought into the myth that bottled water is purer and healthier than tap water. This misconception is largely the result of crafty marketing tactics from the bottled water industry, but the truth is that the federal government requires more rigorous safety monitoring of municipal tap water than it does of bottled water.
For this first time in years, total U.S. bottled water sales fell during the economic recession. During this time, more-expensive brand names struggled while cheaper private label water — store brands — experienced an increase in sales. This competition led Nestlé, among other companies, to reduce the price of its bottled water, to use advertising methods that tout purity6 and to target both people in emerging markets and minority groups in the United States that have limited access to safe drinking water.
Between 2007 and 2012, Nestlé’s bottled water sales fell in the United States, Canada and Europe but boomed by 73 percent in other regions. A survey published in a journal of the American Medical Association found that African-American and Latino parents dish out more money on bottled water than non-Latino white parents. The survey found that this is largely because Latino and African-American parents were more likely to believe that bottled water was safer than tap water. What some people may be unaware of is that almost half of the bottled water sold today comes from municipal tap water supplies. When bottlers are not selling municipal water, they are pumping and selling common water resources that belong to the public. These pumping operations can harm the environment and natural resources that communities rely on.
Just kicking the bottle in favor of the tap is not enough. Our public drinking water systems need renewed federal commitment, but instead we are decreasing federal funding for our essential water and sewer systems. The federal government’s contribution to water infrastructure improvements dropped from more than 60 percent in 1977 to less than 7 percent in 2007. After receiving a boost in 2010, federal support for water and sewer systems continued to decline in 2011 and 2012. A Clean Water Trust Fund would provide a dedicated source of federal funding so that communities across the United States can keep their water clean, safe and affordable, and the U.S. Congress should pass legislation declaring water a universal human right.
Read the entire report from the Food and Water Watch here.
Fracking Takes A Lot of Water
A Canadian firm is planning to drill 500 new wells to harvest natural gas from northern Michigan, as reported by the Bridge Magazine.
Fracking has become "cloaked in controversy" in part because of the effect of Fracking on the water required for the process. The water is mixed with chemicals, sand and other materials, then blasted into rock formations underground, releasing natural gas. The contaminated water is then left underground, seeping into groundwater reservoirs and nearby water bodies.
In addition to contaminating water, the fracking process simply requires massive amounts of the precious liquid. Encana Corp, the firm planning 500 new wells in Michigan, is projected to require 4 billion gallons of water for their operation, as much as a small town uses over two years.
The high social and environmental costs of fracking begs us to ask ourselves--is it worth it?
"I was walking because I want world peace"
Earlier this year, we featured an interview with Ojibwe leader Sharon Day as she walked along the entire length of the Mississippi River as part of the Mississippi Water Walk. Sharon and her companions completed the journey, but are still working hard to advocate for a healthy future for water. Although this is walk was not directly about the Great Lakes, Sharon's words and actions can be an inspiration for us all.
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Sharon on Resilience.org, written by Jessica Conrad. Read the full interview here.
Sharon Day carrying the eagle feather staff and copper pail of water. Photo credit Kevin E. Schmidt.
When I heard you speak at an event this winter, you gave a brilliant answer to someone in the audience who asked a simple question: Why? Why walk the length of the Mississippi River?
I’ve been asked this question many times, and my answer is usually this: if I were a lawyer or a hydrologist I might be doing something different, but I’m neither of those things. I am an Ojibwe woman, and my responsibility is to take care of the water. I can walk and I can pray and I can sing. And that’s what I have chosen to do.
Today many people seem to have a material relationship with the water, and yet others have a highly spiritual relationship with it. Can you share your perspective on our collective relationship to water today?
Today we’re missing a spiritual connection to the water because all we have to do is turn on a faucet. It’s like going to the store and buying a loaf of bread. We don’t have a relationship with our water, and we don’t have a relationship with our food. They are just products that we consume, as opposed to life-giving forces.
We must change this idea of water as a commodity. When we see the water as something that lives, then it’s hard to think of it simply as a commodity. We need to care for the water instead of merely use it. If we can do that it will change so many things.
I did the Mississippi River Water Walk because I live a block from the river, and I cross it several times a day. I have a relationship with the Mississippi River. But it’s about love. It’s about moving toward something, as opposed to resisting anything. The old people say that if you want peace, you must be with love.
One day when someone asked, “Why do you do this? What do you hope to accomplish?” I said I was walking because I want world peace. And ultimately that is why we walk. If we can treat the water with respect and love—not violence—then perhaps that sentiment will spill over into our relationships with each other and our relationships with the earth.
What other strategies do you recommend for making more people aware of the importance of clean water and other gifts we share?
People need to understand that we face these kinds of changes globally, yet we can all take local action. Walk around lakes. Walk along the river near your home, whatever river that is. Offer that. Meditate. I believe that the water spirits are much more powerful than our corporations and cities. So ask for the deepest truth and purest love through invocation. Then add science.
The Milwaukee Water Commons
Our inquiry process explored the basis for an alternative focus. Building from a commons perspective, one that seeks solutions of shared benefit, shared responsibility and shared stewardship, we engaged 50 community leaders from a range of sectors (the arts, public health, law, urban agriculture, academia, faith, K-12 education, business, and water professionals) in a set of in-depth interviews and two large group working sessions.
We found that not only were we able to activate a circle of leaders around Milwaukee’s water future but that underlying their interest were some shared and motivating beliefs about water and our responsibility for it that we could work from as foundational orientation. We have drafted a set of common first principles:
1. Water is an essential element for all life on Earth. 2. Water belongs to no one and cannot be owned. 3. We recognize our inheritance of the Great Lakes; they have nurtured our ancestors and shaped us as a people and as a community. They continue to sustain us. 4. We have a responsibility to protect and pass on clean and abundant fresh water to future generations. 5. Decisions about the care and responsibility for our waters must involve all of us.
We have begun working on five interlocking strategies to lift up and live these principles here in Milwaukee:
1. Activating Citizens-We are partnering at seven neighborhood sites strategically chosen to develop local involvement with water issues and stewardship. We are working to expand beyond the familiar circle of water experts and to explore partnerships within the arts, the faith community, public health, recreation and urban farmers to name a few. Our inaugural water leadership training will begin this spring, bringing together residents from our diverse neighborhoods. Each team will then engage in a water related project that will benefit their neighborhood. We will culminate the year with a lakeshore event calling attention to the preciousness of our waters.
2. Fostering Collaboration in the Community-There is a great deal of work happening in Milwaukee. Our goal is to seek out synergies and foster collaboration among and beyond established water groups. Partner organizations will work with neighborhood groups to support their water initiatives and to provide educational, scientific, and artistic support.
3. Leveraging Existing Capacity and Resources for Local Solution Making-One of the most important connections is the interface between the University of Wisconsin’s School of Freshwater Science and the Community. We will explore ways to better leverage and integrate the research expertise and capacity of the school in local policy and community water challenges.
4. Developing a New Public Narrative of Milwaukee as a Water City-The power of narrative to shape the public conversation is increasingly recognized in social change circles. We need a story that puts community and water stewardship at the center of the Milwaukee landscape. We will work across several platforms-social media, websites, the arts, events and two documentary films to tell our story and to document the emergence of new community water leadership.
5. Linking Milwaukee to the Great Lakes Commons and Bio region-The work we are doing in Milwaukee-from organizing citizen leadership to fostering collaboration and defining a new narrative is breaking ground. We stand to gain, to learn, and to share new learning as we progress. Ultimately we need our local water efforts to encourage bold citizen leadership across the bioregion and to grow a network of Great Lakes Commons leaders that can draw strength from working together.
As our friend Ben Yahola (a member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma) sang to us:
“We take care of the water and it takes care of us”
2013 is the Year of Water Cooperation
March 22 this year was the United Nations’ World Water Day. This designation by the UN seems extremely appropriate, given the complex threats facing many other water bodies around the world, including our own lakes, as well as the great work being done by many groups working together to create new ways to collaborate on and solve water issues.
Although World Water Day may seem more dedicated to water supply issues of a global significance, perhaps far away from home, North America has plenty of reasons to stop and think about water. Decreasing groundwater supplies, drained lakes, polluted water bodies, and aging water infrastructure are making the local news more and more. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave the United States a “D” grade on water infrastructure. The Great Lakes, which contain 20% of the world’s surface fresh water supply, are threatened by short sighted economic interests that could cause them to be “bone dry in 80 years.”
Although the day is passed, 2013 is still the year of “Water Cooperation." Now is the perfect time to join the efforts of all the communities working together on water issues around the Great Lakes! Click here to participate.
Wisconsin Waters: At a Crisis Point
James Rowen is an environmental policy blogger at The Political Environment. Rowen recently released a report on the critical state of water resources in Wisconsin.
Despite Wisconsin's Public Trust Doctrine and Native American treaties that Rowen cites as examples of legal documents declaring that "Wisconsin's Waters belong to everyone," current state politics threaten Wisconsin's water resources. "Partisan disdain for principles water policy, science and law emerged in the early hours of Governor Walker's administration," writes Rowen. The Governor's administration has helped developers avoid environmental reviews, encouraged building in wetlands, and allowed the expansion of high-capacity wells without assessing their cumulative effect on the ground water table. "Imagine if authorities were to allow developers to build multiple 10-story parking ramps without studying the cumulative impacts on traffic."
Walker is also enabling mountain-top removal in an iron mine in the same watershed as the Bad River, one that "would be upriver from public drinking water supplies and close to wild rice producing estuaries central to the survival of the Bad River Band of Ojibwe (Chippewa). [This] would allow, despite scientific testimony and other warnings, the dumping of millions of tons of acid-yielding waste rock across more than 3,000 acres and into streams and wetlands."
The report demonstrates not only how the commodification of water resources can lead to unjust distribution of costs and benefits or to unsustainable resource depletion, but also how it can corrupt policy and politicians when it comes to water issues. Even though Wisconsin is bordered by two Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, protection of water resources in the state is imperative.
A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body of water may be eaten away until it may no longer exist.
Great Lakes: a Toxic "Sink"
Areas of Concern for Toxicity on the Great Lakes
The Toxic Substances Control Act, a piece of legislation that gives the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to regulate toxic chemicals, is failing to protect our Great Lakes and our public health. Over 20% of the shoreline of the Great Lakes are impaired due to sediment contamination, and 33% of the 1,305 sites in the United States are in the Great Lakes Region.
The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition has released a report stating that the EPA has required testing of fewer than 200 of the 26,000 chemicals that were grandfathered in under the law when it was passed in 1976 and that newer chemicals (that are actively being used in common products and often find their way into water bodies) have not been adequately addressed.
According to the report,
"These newer sources of contamination include bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, alkyphenols, 5-methyl- 1H-benzotriazole, synthetic musks, Triclosan, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and other flame retardants. Many of these emerging chemicals of concern come from non-point sources. Some leach from landfills, polluting lakes, rivers, streams, and ultimately contaminating the Great Lakes. Many chemicals are also widely used in both consumer products and in industrial applications, and are released during production, processing, use, and disposal. However, these chemicals are not yet, for the most part, regulated by the U.S. under TSCA. According to Environment Canada, emerging contaminants like BPA have been found in surface water, groundwater, drinking water, aquatic species, sewage sludge, soil, sediments, and other spots in the Great Lakes basin.
Read the entire report here (PDF).
Art and the Environment as an Education Tool
We collaborate with all sorts of allies--stakeholders, policymakers, advocates, etc.--to bring about positive changes to the Great Lakes. In order to make these changes sustainable into the future, though, we also need to work with another important demographic: kids. Children will become the innovators, change-makers and commoners of the future, and they will carry the torches of our causes and the costs of our decisions today. Education is an integral part of our work to establish the Great Lakes as a Commons and protect it for future generations.
Students in the area of London, Ontario, recently learned about environmental problems and the Great Lakes through a pilot Environmental Art Project program funded by their local arts council. The goal of the project was to encourage students to consider problems around the Great Lakes through art media. For instance, one assignment had students learn how to draw the lakes by looking at the shapes (an equilateral triangle, a moustache, two peanuts, etc.) and painting the land and the water. Students studied the watershed, animals and plants and reflected on how important water is to their lives.
2nd and 3rd Graders in Laura Mills' class at Delaware, Ontario, Public School.
The "triangle, moustache, and peanut"!
Julie Picken-Cooper is an artist and teacher who focuses on environmental issues and helped to launch the program. “I find that this approach is a very subtle way of learning about the environment,” she said. Even though the children are painting and drawing, “the lessons include deforestation, ocean acidification, species extinction, urban sprawl and global perspectives.”
Picken-Cooper was originally inspired to focus on the environment in her work after hearing Maude Barlow speak at her convocation from Althouse College at the University of Western Ontario. “I had no idea who Maude was or what she was talking about, but she was inspiring, articulate and passionate... this sparked my curiosity, so I went to the library and got out all of her books and started to read.” Picken-Cooper then began to focus her work on environmental problems, including a show about trees with H.B. Beal Secondary School in London that raised $1000 for a local nonprofit.
Programs like this and the Haggerty Museum of Art’s Water Across Curriculum integrate ideas like water or trees into the classroom and free students from the confines of the textbook, allowing them to think about things in a different way. “Thinking about things in a different way” is becoming more and more important when considering the future of our endangered commons like the Great Lakes, and the minds of children are an excellent place to start.
Challenging Nestle's Water Takings in Ontario
This article is cross-posted with permission from the Council of Canadians in-house magazine, Canadian Perspectives. This article is written by Emma Lui and the original can be found here.
All around the world bottled water companies like Nestlé are depleting freshwater sources to make money. The Council of Canadians is part of the fight to say “no” to corporate greed over water, and fighting for it to be recognized as part of the commons – a shared public resource for all.
The Council of Canadians and Wellington Water Watchers (WWW), with legal representation from Ecojustice, are parties to a legal case involving Nestlé’s water withdrawals in Hillsburgh, Ontario. In February, the two groups won the right to challenge a proposed agreement between Nestlé and Ontario’s Ministry of Environment (MoE) that would permit Nestlé to take water from a shared water source during low water conditions. The agreement stems from Nestlé’s appeal of conditions in their Permit to Take Water, requiring the company to reduce its water takings during times of drought.
Nestlé has been withdrawing water from a deep aquifer well in Hillsburgh, Ontario since 2000, paying $3.71 for every million litres that it removes from the watershed. Last September, the MoE renewed Nestlé’s permit for another five years. The permit set out a mandatory restriction requiring Nestlé to reduce its maximum allowable water taking by 20 per cent during times of moderate drought.
On October 15, 2012, Nestlé filed a Notice of Appeal with respect to the permit, arguing that the mandatory restrictions were not being applied uniformly throughout the watershed, and that water-taking restrictions should be implemented by conservation authorities, not by the Ministry. The Council of Canadians and WWW applied to intervene in the case, which both Nestlé and the Ministry argued against, but the Environmental Review Tribunal ruled in favour of our intervention because of our genuine public interest in the case.
Earlier in the year we formally requested a review of Ontario’s water-taking permit process as it applies to licences granted by the province to bottle water, urging Ontario to overhaul its “outdated and narrow approach.” We argued that the permit process is inconsistent with the Public Trust Doctrine, which asserts that certain natural resources, including groundwater, belong to all Canadians and cannot be privately owned or controlled. The doctrine recognizes the inherent importance of natural resources to individuals and to society as a whole. The Public Trust Doctrine requires that governments fulfill legal responsibilities of a “trustee” and manage natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations. It embodies key principles of environmental protection, including stewardship, communal responsibility and sustainability. Essentially, under the Public Trust Doctrine, the government holds the natural resource in trust for the benefit of the public – now and in the future.
The Council of Canadians and WWW are concerned that under the agreement struck between the MoE and Nestlé, the company will be allowed to take up to approximately 1.1 million litres of water per day from Hillsburgh for its bottling operations in Aberfoyle even during times of drought, which have recently affected the area. The City of Guelph issued a red alert last summer requiring a 20 per cent mandatory reduction in water use from Guelph residents because of drought conditions. Wellington County farmers, livestock producers and residents were seriously impacted, experiencing the worst drought in over a decade. Guelph/Eramosa Township, located at the southern end of Wellington County bordering the city of Guelph, was on Level II drought restrictions (yellow alert) well into November of last year.
Water sources are under stress from increasing commercial use, population pressure and drought-inducing climate change. A 2010 Statistics Canada study has warned that renewable water in southern Canada has declined by 8.5 per cent from 1971 to 2004. Water-taking decisions that approve large commercial uses without considering the long-term needs of the local community and environment could seriously impact freshwater sources.
Because water is a fundamental resource, the Council of Canadians and WWW will argue that the Ministry’s permitting process must recognize the urgent need to protect it in a time of growing stresses. Provincial governments are legally responsible for the protection of groundwater supplies. Ontario and other Great Lakes jurisdictions have committed to a precautionary approach in managing water. This sort of approach stems from the precautionary principle, which says that where a risk of serious and irreversible harm exists, lack of full scientific certainty should not prevent measures to protect the environment.
This case presents an exciting opportunity for the courts to recognize that the Public Trust Doctrine provides a valid legal basis for adding drought-related conditions to Nestlé’s water-taking permit, and to prioritize public rights to water over private, commercial uses.
Thoughts from a Gathering of the Toronto Chapter of the Council of Canadians
This post is written by Alexa Bradley from On the Commons.
Great Lakes
"The commons starts with common ideas and common understandings" was how Gavin McGrath described the experience of the recent Council of Canadians Forum focused on the Great Lakes as a Commons. For the past four years, our Toronto Chapter of The Council of Canadians has invited water experts, and representatives from organizations that are concerned about how our aquifers, rivers and lakes are being overused and abused, to express their concerns in public. The meeting was held in a conference room overlooking Lake Ontario and included a range of communities and presenters including Water Keepers, Idle No More, National Union of Farmers, On The Commons, and more. The overall quality and content of the presentations has never been higher. It was great to be able to sit right on the lake with the sun shining and speak with new friends and colleagues about what the water means to them, and why they are passionate about its care and preservation. The number and nature of the threats and obstacles can seem overwhelming, but one person and one community at a time we can change the discussion and build a relentless force for positive change. We would like in future meetings to expand the participation to include fishermen, the cottage associations, the sports anglers. Plans are already underway for next year. Watch this site for details.
Politics Based on Justice, Diplomacy Based on Love
What Indigenous diplomatic traditions can teach us
This article is cross-posted from Briarpatch Magazine and written by Leanne Simpson. Leanne Simpson is of Mississauga Nishnaabeg ancestry and is the author of Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-Creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence. She is the editor of Lightening the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence and Protection of Indigenous Nations and This is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades, all published by Arbeiter Ring Publishing in Winnipeg.
A few months ago, I travelled from Mississauga, Anishinaabeg territory on the north shore of Lake Ontario, to Victoria, B.C., to speak in the Indigenous governance program’s lecture series. Before I left, I consulted with an Elder to remind myself of the protocols and diplomatic traditions we carry with us when visiting another nation. I wanted to make sure that I was respectful of both my Ancestors and of the Peoples whose homelands I was visiting.
Doug Williams from Curve Lake First Nation always makes time to meet with me and answer my questions. He reminded me to acknowledge the territory I was visiting directly after I had shared with the audience my clan affiliation, where I was from, and my name. We talked about how as a visitor in another’s territory, my primary responsibility would be to listen and to take direction from my gracious hosts. We talked about our protocols and processes of engagement that foster and maintain good relationships between our nation and neighbouring nations. We talked about how even though I am not a political leader, I carry those responsibilities no matter where I go. Off I went to Victoria.
I spoke in the First Peoples House at the University of Victoria, a beautiful building designed in the Coast Salish style. At the end of my talk, after having acknowledged that I was in the territories of the WSÀNÈC and the Lekwungen nations, a WSÀNÈC student came over and thanked me for that recognition. Although he couldn’t understand exactly what I said in my language, he heard the word “WSÀNÈC” and recognized my engagement with the protocols and philosophies of Anishinaabeg diplomacy. He was appreciative that I had invoked Indigenous political protocols of engagement even though our two nations have no formal diplomatic ties.
Had I been moving to Victoria, this kind of diplomacy would have carried even greater responsibilities. According to my own traditions, I would have a responsibility to listen, to learn, and to appreciate the jurisdiction, political culture, and traditions of the nation within which I was residing. I would have a responsibility to understand the issues this nation was facing, and I would have an obligation to support them and to stand with them. I would have a sacred duty to learn about my place and role within their political structure and their culture, and I would expect the same if one of their citizens moved to my territory.
A few weeks later, in the same room I spoke in at the University of Victoria, local Idle No More organizers held a teach-in. It was broadcast online and attracted over 1,000 people between the webcast and the live audience. Wab Kinew, a well-known Anishinaabe from the northwestern part of our nation, was one of the speakers. During his presentation he passed out gifts to the other panelists. Watching online, I smiled as he did this. Kinew was invoking the protocols of Anishinaabeg engagement. He was pointing to ancient traditions and acknowledging their importance and their relevance in contemporary society. He was honouring his hosts and fellow panelists.
Drawing on diplomatic traditions
Idle No More is the most recent surge in Indigenous resistance, a resistance that has been ongoing since the beginning of colonial conquest. Throughout history, Indigenous Peoples have continuously engaged in diplomatic traditions to seek restitution from the Crown for the abuses suffered under colonial rule and to forge a new, peaceful relationship. Each nation has its own spiritual and political mechanisms, rooted in its own unique legal system, for maintaining the boundaries of territory, for immigration and citizenship, and for developing and maintaining relationships with other nations regarding territory, the protection of shared lands, economy, and well-being, among many other things. Indigenous diplomatic traditions generate peace by rebalancing conflict between parties. Spiritual and social practices such as storytelling, the oral tradition, ceremonies, feasting, and gift-giving are designed to bond people together toward a common understanding. Our diplomacy concerns itself with reconciliation, restitution, mediation, negotiation, and maintaining sacred and political alliances between peoples.
The Idle No More movement has referenced these diplomatic traditions repeatedly in both our actions and our words. In early December, the media showed images of Wiindawtegowinini (Isadore Day), chief of Serpent River First Nation, carrying the 1764 Treaty of Niagara Covenant Chain Wampum Belt onto Parliament Hill. The Onondaga nation and its Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign brought a large replica of the Two Row Wampum into the city streets, and countless grassroots leaders have talked about the importance of honouring treaties as a way of transforming the relationships between Indigenous nations and the Canadian state.
On the West Coast in mid-February, hereditary Chief Beau Dick of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation walked from his homeland to the legislature in Victoria to perform a ceremony that involved breaking copper. To the Kwakwaka’wakw people, copper is a symbol of justice, truth, and balance, and to break copper in ceremony communicates a threat, an insult, or a challenge. Chief Dick and his supporters performed the ceremony on the lawn of the legislature because they want to change the political relationship they have with Canada – like their Ancestors, they are demanding a relationship based on justice, truth, balance, and protection of their homeland, the environment, and their way of life.
A sacred bond
Going to public school in the 1980s in rural southern Ontario, I learned nothing about Indigenous diplomacy. My experience is by no means unique. Unless Canadians have taken it upon themselves to seek out Indigenous political traditions, they likely have encountered few opportunities to learn about Indigenous diplomacy and our legal and political perspectives – yet it is precisely these concepts that hold the most promise for resetting the relationship with Canada.
For us in the Mississauga part of the Anishinaabeg nation, treaties are ongoing relationships. The word relationship is paramount here. Anishinaabeg political and philosophical traditions emphasize good relationships – with the natural world and with neighbouring nations – as the basis of good governance and a good life. For Anishinaabeg, signing a treaty means a commitment to ongoing meaningful negotiations. It means a political relationship that recognizes and respects parties’ nationhoods, legal traditions, and sovereignties. This is true whether the agreement is between the Anishinaabeg and the natural world, another Indigenous nation or confederacy, or a nation-state.
Treaties, from this perspective, are alliances with a commitment to continual renewal. Our politics are embedded within our spirituality, making treaties a shared, sacred bond between peoples. They are a commitment to stand with each other, a responsibility to take care of shared lands, and an appreciation of each other’s well-being. They are based on a profound mutual respect, and they are meant to be transformative. They transform conflict into peace by holding parties accountable for past injustices. They transform hardship into sustenance. They transform abuse of power into balanced relations. Treaties and other Indigenous diplomatic traditions transform differing perspectives into, as the Haudenosaunee say, “one mind.”
While Canada continues to engage in narrowly defined “modern treaty making” through processes like the B.C. Treaty Process and the federal Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements that require Indigenous nations to give up title and terminate many of their rights, Indigenous nations are moving forward with the resurgence of their own diplomatic traditions.
In 2011, a small delegation of people from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation in northwestern Ontario travelled to Ardoch Algonquin First Nation (AAFN) in central Ontario to receive a Wampum Belt, or treaty, made by the women of AAFN. The bond between the two communities goes back to 2008 when members of the KI council were jailed for refusing to allow mining exploration in their territory. At the same time, Ardoch community member Bob Lovelace was also jailed for his role in resisting uranium prospecting in Ardoch territory. Paula Sherman, a family head on the traditional governing council of the AAFN, said at the ceremony: “As we present this belt, we pledge the support of our community to yours as you continue to deal with mining companies and governments.” Cecelia Begg, a member of the KI council and also a member of the KI Six who were jailed in 2008, accepted the belt on behalf of her community, saying, “We thank you for this. It marks our strong bond, a bond we may need to call upon as we face another struggle.”
Even in a modern context, treaties are a storied political relationship, consolidating sacred bonds between peoples. They are not about the cession of land or the surrender of Aboriginal title, nor do they assimilate Indigenous law into Canadian law. They are not a bill of sale. They are not a policy discussion. Whether the treaty-making process is historic or contemporary, treaties are not termination agreements.
Separate sovereignties on a shared territory
There is much evidence both in the oral tradition and in the historical record that, over time, Canada engaged in a treaty-making process that was increasingly based on coercion, deception, and violence. The Cree signed Treaty 6 while facing starvation from the massacre of the buffalo, a smallpox epidemic, and increasing settler violence. The final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples documents several examples of misunderstandings, problems in translation, and acts of fraud on the part of the state. Although the numbered treaties were negotiated in the oral tradition of Indigenous diplomacy, the Crown failed to record Indigenous perspectives on these agreements. They did not implement what they agreed to within their own legal traditions and written documents, let alone Indigenous oral understandings.
So yes, the treaty-making process in Canada was fraught with duress. Yet, even as the political power was shifting in favour of settler governments during the signing of the numbered treaties, Indigenous leaders continued to exercise agency within the process. The negotiations for Treaty 3 were extremely difficult, and the Crown ended up making several concessions to the Anishinaabeg. Treaty 7 was negotiated under the reality that the Blackfoot Confederacy had been successful in defending their territory from outside encroachment. Indigenous Peoples still believe in the strength of their oral understandings of these agreements because, even under the threat of violence, our Ancestors made intelligent and far-reaching decisions as best they could.
Instead of interacting with First Nations through these negotiated international agreements, successive Canadian governments have chosen to interact with First Nations through the Indian Act. This continues to be a crucial mistake. Many of us believe Indigenous diplomacy is the best way forward in developing a just and fair relationship with the Canadian state, because this kind of diplomacy carries within it the terms for a nation-to-nation relationship that is respectful of separate sovereignties and nationhoods over a shared territory.
Oftentimes, divisions between Indigenous nations that signed historic treaties and nations that did not are amplified in the mainstream media. It’s an arbitrary division because treaties are simply the embodiment of a much larger set of politics and philosophies rooted in each nation’s system of international law, peacemaking, conflict resolution, and negotiation. The fundamental principles of protection of land and Indigenous ways of life, governance, nationhood, sovereignty, sharing, and non-interference remain consistent whether manifested in Mi’kmaq law or Gitksan Witsuwit’en law and regardless of whether Indigenous nations signed treaties or not.
We are all treaty people
When I asked my Elder about how to behave in another nation’s territory, he reminded me that it is individuals who carry political responsibilities within them. Indigenous diplomacy is not so much about dialogue, but about action and embodiment. Treaties are not just between Indigenous nations and the Canadian state; they are carried and acted out through the actions of individual people. In December of last year, Idle No More organizers in Toronto organized a large round dance in the intersection of Yonge and Dundas. During the round dance, I saw a non-Native man with a sign that read, “We are all Treaty People.” Under that, he had written the treaties that he was a part of, based on where he was currently living and where he grew up. He was reminding his fellow Canadians that they have enjoyed treaty rights for hundreds of years, and that they also need to uphold their treaty responsibilities.
Mohawk scholar Taiaiake Alfred notes that Idle No More has demonstrated that many Canadians are supportive of a principled movement lead by Indigenous Peoples that addresses the protection of the land and the environmental, social, economic, and political issues facing Indigenous communities. If the resurgence of Indigenous political traditions is widely seen as the next step in decolonizing our relationship with Canada, it is critical that we understand and recognize the contemporary resilience and manifestations of Indigenous diplomacy. This kind of peacemaking is diplomacy based on love – the love of land and the love of our people – and this alone has the power to transform Indigenous-state relations into a relationship based on justice, respect, and responsibility.
See the original article here at Briarpatch Magazine.
Lake Superior Youth Symposium, May 16-19
Lake Superior Youth Symposium
The Lake Superior Youth Symposium is celebrating it's 10th Biennal this year, from May 16-19 at the Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. The Symposium aims to inform, inspire and motivate students and teachers to become stewards of Lake Superior and the Great Lakes. The goal of the symposium is to increase understanding of challenging environmental and scientific issues, enhance appreciation for Lake Superior’s beauty and history, promote personal involvement in creating solutions, and encourage participants to build upon their symposium experience in their schools and communities after the event.
At the symposium, students and teachers will attend presentations and field trips conducted by Michigan Technical University faculty and graduate students, natural resource professionals, artists, writers, historians, and educators. More than 50 different presentations and field trips are planned on a variety of topics, including fisheries and wildlife, water quality, forest ecology and management, geology, Great Lakes threats and uses, conservation, sustainability, writing, art, photography, and student initiatives.
If you are interested in learning more about the event or signing up to attend, please visit the Lake Superior Youth Symposium's website or find them on Facebook.
Protecting the Great Lakes
This article is cross-posted from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online and is written by Maude Barlow. Maude Barlow is the national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch.
The Great Lakes are in serious trouble. Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are at their lowest levels since record keeping began in 1918, and the levels of Lakes Superior, Ontario and Erie are also well below average.
Lake levels in Milwaukee are creating uncertainty for residents who are unsure how lower levels will affect storm water runoff, the shipping and fishing industry and their livelihoods. The situation could be exacerbated by a proposal to transport water from Lake Michigan via pipeline to Waukesha residents, which requires approval under the Great Lakes compact.
Pollution, climate change, over-extraction and invasive species are all taking their toll on the watershed that provides life and livelihood to more than 40 million people and thousands of species that live around it. The Great Lakes are a source of increasing concern as residents watch their shorelines recede, their beaches close and their fisheries decline.
Adding to these concerns is a Wisconsin bill aimed at streamlining the mining permitting process, which was signed last month, reducing environmental standards for iron mining and threatening water sources.
The story of the global water crisis sets the stage all over the world: to feed the increasing demands of a consumer-based system. We have built our economic and development policies based on a human-centric model and assumed that nature would never fail to provide or that, where it does fail, technology will save the day.
What might happen if the citizens living around the Great Lakes, including in Milwaukee, decided to collectively protect them based on some of the very principles and practices that informed the first peoples of the region, namely that the Great Lakes must be shared equitably by all who live around them and protected for seven generations into the future? What if governments managed the lakes based on the human right to water, incorporated public input and prioritized public and indigenous rights over private interests?
These ideas form the basis of an emerging new vision for the Great Lakes, one that is based on the notion of the "Commons" and Public Trust Doctrine.
A group of legal experts from Canada and the United States have described a Commons approach as one which requires that "we envision water as a shared resource and so recognize our shared responsibility to carefully steward our water resources. The goal of a Commons approach to water is to ensure that there is sufficient water to meet human and ecological and community needs for many generations to come."
The Public Trust Doctrine holds that certain natural resources, including groundwater, belong to the community and cannot be privately owned or controlled. This means that governments, as trustees, are obliged to protect these resources for the common good and ensure that they are not appropriated for private gain.
Unless we shift the current "business as usual" model and create real sustainable jobs, the Great Lakes will remain in peril and we as a generation will have failed future generations in protecting the region's largest and most precious watershed. Protecting the future of the Great Lakes is in all of our hands. When communities come together with passion and purpose, they can change political priorities and shape a better future for these precious lakes.
Rochester Groups are Protecting the Great Lakes Forever
This article is cross-posted from the Council of Canadians' blog and is written by Emma Lui. The original post can be found here.
I just got home from an incredible event in Rochester, New York, the fourth Great Lakes tour stop. Maude Barlow, National Chairperson for the Council of Canadians, has been touring around the Great Lakes speaking out about threats to the Great Lakes and what we need to do to stop them once and for all. We began the Great Lakes tour last year where we visited eight cities and continued the tour this year with events already in Duluth, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids.
Wayne Howard, Linda Isaacson Fedele, Kate Kremer and Peter Debes of Rochester Sierra Club, Eric and Jim Olson from FLOW for water along with the support of Cool Rochester, Monroe Community College and Rochester Institute of Technology, did an incredible job organizing an thought-provoking and inspiring event.
On Thursday night Maude gave a riveting talk to a captivated audience of 300 about the serious threats plaguing the Great Lakes including fracking, pollution, low water levels and inequitable extraction. Recognizing the amazing work that groups have been doing to protect the lakes for decades, she outlined a needed shift in decision and policy making around the Great Lakes and outlined a framework on how to effectively address the threats to Great Lakes, so we’re not simply fighting one fight after another.
Maude put forward a vision of the Great Lakes that protects a community’s right to say ‘no’ to projects harmful to water sources, incorporates community input into decision making and prioritize communities’ rights to water over private interests. These ideas form the basis of the notion that the Great Lakes are a commons and public trust. The notion of the commons, a very old concept, states that certain resources - such and air and water - are shared resources which people within a community have the collective obligation to protect. The public trust doctrine outlines governments’ obligations to protect these shared resources for community use from private exploitation.
After Maude’s talk, she was joined by Jim Olson from FLOW, Roger Downs from Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and David Klein from the Nature Conservancy for an engaging panel discussion and to answer the audience’s questions. Jim Olson, an expert in the public trust doctrine, stressed that private rights cannot subordinate public rights.
Rochester was an important community to host a tour stop because of the water issues they’re facing. There are plans to ship fresh water by train from the region for fracking projects in Pennsylvania. Mountain Glacier, a subsidary of Nestle, is bottling water from Lake Hemlock as well as the municipality’s water. Similar to what happened in Niagara Falls, there is talk about the possibility of Monroe County, which Rochester is a part of, treating fracking wastewater.
Communities in New York state are incredibly active in the fight to protect water sources, public health and the environment against fracking. With approximately 200 municipal resolutions, New York state has by far the most resolutions on fracking in the US. Community groups and fracking coalitions have been successful in keeping a moratorium on fracking in New York state where delays in a health study are stalling Governor Cuomo’s already delayed decision on whether to lift or continue the moratorium. There have been recent calls for the environmental impact assessment to be scrapped because of Ecology and Environment and other consultations links to the Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York.
Yesterday morning Maude and Jim outlined the principles of the commons and public trust respectively and set the context for the day-long workshop where 50 engaged participants applied them to local issues. I gave short presentation of examples of our work on the commons and public trust. An ongoing case with Nestle, of which we’re parties to, is an exciting opportunity for the public trust doctrine to be recognized by the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal. I also talked about two municipal resolutions in Burnaby and Niagara-on-the-Lake that respectively recognize water as a commons and the Great Lakes are a shared commons and public trust.
I am heartened and inspired by the enthusiasm and openness of the people we met in Rochester to embrace the needed shift in the framework governing the Great Lakes, one that will rightfully prioritize the protection of the lakes above all else. With many governments failing to protect community watersheds, the commons and public trust principles are crucial to changing people’s relationships to water to one of responsibility and stewardship and holding our governments to account so they protect water sources for today’s and future generations. People within communities like Rochester are the catalysts for this change and it is them that I place my faith and hope that we will save the Great Lakes.
Maude Barlow Speaks in Milwaukee
This post is written by Alexa Bradley, Program Director at On The Commons.
Maude Barlow
At her recent talk [on April 16th] on the Great Lakes at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Maude Barlow urged the several hundred people gathered not to wait for the politicians to protect our waters, but to get involved ourselves "armed with the belief that we have the right to care." The facts she shared about declining water quality and quantity in the Lakes and beyond were alarming. "We have lost connection to water, divorced ourselves from the ecological, spiritual and place based nature of water. We see it as something to be conquered, as a means to produce a certain type of lifestyle." She suggested we need to wake up to the "myth of abundance" that allows us to treat "water as a resource to promote profit rather than a precious gift of nature."
She asked us to consider, "what would happen if we governed the Great Lakes on the First Nations principles of the Seventh Generation" considering the impact of our decisions many generations forward. We would "protect the bio-region as a commons," she offered, "something that belongs to all of us, equitably shared and governed for the public good." She described a vision of the Great Lakes Commons governed as one body, with "strict accountability, basin wide consistent planning and laws, collectively managed." She included in her hopeful vision for the Great Lakes Commons, a recognition not only of the much greater role of local communities in water decisions but also the rights of other species and even the water itself to well being.
The most remarkable aspect of the evening was the energy at the end of her talk. Despite all the painful news she shared on the state of the Lakes, she had galvanized a sense of urgency and willingness to act. She reminded us that the future is not written but depends on what we do next.
Mississippi Water Walkers
Sharon Day has been walking every day since March 1st, through cold and snow, sometimes more than 30 miles each day. Day is an Ojibwe woman from Minnesota and one of five indigenous women currently walking the entire length of the Mississippi River--from the headwaters at Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi Water Walkers are carrying a copper pail of the river’s water all along their journey, planning to pour the clean water into the “dead zone” at the end of the river.
The Water Walkers hope to draw attention to the pollution in the river and educate people along the way about ways they can take action. They set off on March 1st and intend to be at the river’s delta by April 29th (and they’re on track to do so!). You can track their progress (via a GPS device attached to the pail of water) here. Join their Facebook group to get the latest updates, find ways to get involved, or join them on part of their journey!
I called Sharon back in March to get an update on the walk:
Erin Garnaas-Holmes: You are really booking it! Are you moving along faster than planned?
Sharon Day: We were three days ahead about a week ago, but now we’re about even. We still plan to arrive at the gulf around April 28th.
EG: How are your bodies holding up?
SD: Our bodies are doing okay, although we’re a little tired tonight. We have been staying at one of the Walker’s parents’ house and have been entertained by other hosts, which is very nice. The Dakota Memorial Society and the United Warrior Society out of Illinois have been very hospitable.
EG: So you’re keeping up through the cold and snow?
SD: We had anticipated 45 degree weather in Winona, MN, but it snowed there instead. And in Wabasha, and McGregor, and yesterday! There have been some pretty cool temperatures. So far so good, though, and no injuries. We’re just tired of boots. Even when it snows, it is still beautiful walking, looking at the big huge flakes. We feel very privileged.
EG: How are your spirits holding up in the cold?
SD: Good. Most of us didn’t know each other before this, so we’ve been talking about trust and support amongst each other. Lots of laughter, lots of teasing.
EG: Who has walked with you so far?
SD: All along the way people have joined in. On Saturday, three people who were with us for a week went home. On Sunday two more who were with us for four days went back to Duluth. It’s just been the five of us for the past two days. Our hosts from tonight will join us tomorrow. People who have walked with us before will walk with us again, through St. Louis, Oklahoma, Hannibal, Memphis... a woman from Minneapolis and another from the East Coast are flying into Memphis for last two weeks. Lots of people who were with us at the beginning want to fly down to New Orleans at the end. We’re hoping to have 100 walkers at the end.
EG: I know you are walking the Mississippi, but Water Walkers have walked the Great Lakes in the past. How are the journeys different? The same?
SD: I think some is the same. When we walked, last time, from Gulfport, MI, with water from Mississippi, to the Great Lakes, we walked a direct path north, which was very efficient and worked fine. This time, though, we’re hugging the river. It does feel different than bringing water to Lake Superior, where you can always hear the water. You don’t hear the Mississippi so much. Even today, we were far away from the river, and just saw lots of trash in the streams, and dead animals, farther away from the river. Maybe that’s why we’re all so tired. When we are walking right up near the river, though, it feels like we are moving with the river. Or the river is moving with us.
EG: What are you greatest hopes for the Walk?
SD: Our hope is that we will help people to reconnect with the river. Not the river as a mechanism for commerce or a mechanism for just travel or something that you use, but to reconnect with the river as this loving source of life. We want to get people to become aware that the river needs our help. We know that further south where the water is so full of chemicals and “dead zones,” that will be really hard to see. We want people to become aware that the river at the source is pure and clean--only through human intervention does she become what she is before she empties into the gulf. We hope people will pray for the water, tell the water that we love the water, be respectful, and ask her to please forgive us. We want to motivate people to be part of the solution.