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TechnoratiBANFF - Canada must resist pressure to sell or share its water with the United States if it wants to avoid an environmental catastrophe, said environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"Water is going to become the oil of the 21st century," said Kennedy, in Banff today to help the Waterkeeper Alliance raise funds to fight water pollution.
"Canada is going to find tremendous pressure from the U.S. to sell or share water as a commodity. But sharing water would lead to an environmental catastrophe in Canada."
Kennedy is hosting the Fairmont Banff Springs and Sunshine Village Celebrity Sports Invitational, which last year raised more than $1 million for Waterkeepers.
Some of the stars supporting the event include Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon and partner Tim Robbins, Christie Brinkley, Daryl Hannah, Kelsey Grammer, Jason Priestly and Justin Trudeau.
"The U.S. southwest is already experiencing a water crisis, with lots of people moving there and development increasing exponentially," said Kennedy. "They have already run out of water.
"If you talk to government officials, everybody says they are looking for Canada to bail them out."
Water from the Colorado River is being routed for development to such places as Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
"This is in the short-term interest of a few developers," said Kennedy, who has a master's degree in environmental law.
"It's not a sustainable practice. The Colorado now dies in the Sonoran Desert. It was once a river that fed a great estuary full of fish and migratory birds."
Kennedy, the nephew of the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy and son of the late senator Robert F. Kennedy, is one of 11 children whose childhood was filled with outdoor adventures.
He remembers making a trip down the Colorado River with his father in 1964. "Some of the native fish there have disappeared from the planet," he said.
"Canada must give kids in future the chance to enjoy the good health this generation has had," he said.
Giant commodity transfers of water are not in Canadian interests, he said. And if some suggest there might be exceptions, they should be opposed. "Those kinds of ventures are risky and fraught with economic and environmental risks," he said.
"In Russia and elsewhere, they have suffered the economic injury that results from big water transfers. Some of the largest freshwater bodies on Earth are now desert. Fishing fleets and communities have been destroyed."
Kennedy also said it is not a good idea for Canada to sell bottled water. The U.S. must become self-sustainable.
Meanwhile, the environmentalist said the Waterkeeper Alliance in Canada is showing "explosive growth."
Edmonton's Karen Percy-Lowe and husband, Kevin, the Oilers' general manager, are Waterkeeper Alliance trustees in Western Canada.
"Everyone has the right to fresh water," said Percy-Lowe, who became involved with Waterkeepers after attending a San Francisco conference in 2006.
But some Canadians, especially in the West, can be a bit naive about water clarity and cleanliness, and assume the water is good because we live in a pretty clean country, she said.
The Waterkeeper model began in New York in the 1960s when commercial and recreational fishermen, concerned about depleted fish stocks and industrial pollution, decided to organize and restore the health of the Hudson River.
Later, Kennedy was among those who breathed life into laws that protected environmental rights and helped clean up the Hudson. They formed the Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, the year the first chapter appeared in Canada. There are now 171 Waterkeeper chapters on six continents.
"We've just launched the Fraser Riverkeeper, kick-started by a rare private prosecution over untreated human waste going into some of the best salmon waters in Canada," said Percy-Lowe. "We will build on this. People are asking questions. As soon as they find out what's happening, they want to become involved."
Toronto lawyer Mark Mattson, Canadian representative to the Waterkeeper Alliance board of directors, said nine Waterkeeper chapters in Canada stretch from coast to coast.
"As we speak, we are in court in Sarnia with a coal-firing plant," he said. "We are challenging them for the discharge of water with mercury content into the St. Clair River."
The federal Fisheries Act is the most protective and enforceable piece of environmental legislation used to investigate problems at sewage treatment plants, hazardous waste sites and industrial facilities, Mattson said.
The plan is to make sure every discharge into Canada's waterways is safe.
"The Fisheries Act is up for reform and we are trying to protect important areas and make others more relevant," Mattson added.
Waterkeepers come from every walk of life and are concerned about the deterioration of waterways in their neighbourhood, he said.
The Banff fundraiser will help Canadians and others around the world fight legal battles to protect their communities, and through legal precedent, everyone else.
nlees@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
7 Comments so far
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To quote Margaret Mead, "Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Let's remember that when we feel overwhelmed. Also worth considering is the ability of rag tag armies like the Vietnamese or the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan to overpower and/or keep a "super power" like the U.S. at bay. Or how about Ghandi and the British Empire? There are lots of examples of the David and Goliath scenario playing out through history.
Well-said jonedone. I too have included that quote in my work. . .astonishing. "The American Way of Life is non negotiable." was the statement Bush gave at the Rio Conference in 92, when asked by media how the USA would deal with emission controls, given the need to cut greenhouse gasses. Bush when elected, beating Gore, in a rigged election, I knew the world had lost at least eight years. There is no possibility to change this condition of American life for any elected leader given the general selfishness and ignorance of the American people and their attitude of entitlement. Those who write here form part of a minority too small to break this mind-set that will ultimately bring the western world's house of cards down and is the result of the consumer society ethic and the global economy now based on this concept. Welcome to 1948.
Thanks joneden. I wonder what the public, not just the oligarchy and the theocracy, would say about a candidate who at least addressed the global overpopulation problem as a factor of resource depletion?
responding to ezeflyer:
When you add income redistribution to reduction of consumption, you are calling for a paradigm change--the kind of stuff over which people would rather war than acknowledge.
As all recent presidents--going back at least as far as Carter--have stated, "The American Way of Life is non negotiable."
But this hogging resources became a matter of national policy almost a half century ago:
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. ... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
—George F. Kennan, Policy Planning Study 23 (PPS23), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1948
Until we are willing to confront the root causes of our environmental collapse--don't know what else to call the loss of 30% of our ecosystem goods and services in just 30 years--the precipitous decline will not just continue but will accelerate as more and more people grab from the declining renewable (and non renewable) resource base. See StudentsForTheEarth.org
Why is everyone afraid to mention the underlying problem of uncontrolled population growth and resource depletion?
Bobby Kennedy in the tradition of his family is trying his best to help the world's people stave off American gluttony. I attended the second World Water Forum at the Hague, Maud Barlow, a Canadian activist was there, as was I, fighting against the World Bank who wanted fresh water designated as a commodity for sale rather than a basic human right not for sale. The World Bank won but of course the Dutch care more about Gilders than they do about the environment. Of course, back than in 2000 they were not immediately threatened with drowning from environmental corporate control. The World Bank policy has led to a bottled water industry worth billions of dollars and the US government now buying rivers, they have graduated from springs, mega America is on the move. If the Canadians don't sell the river there will be political pressure brought to bear on Canada, anyhow why do they need so much water when they have so few people?
Yet is seems the American political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points of the economy stupid and the Clintons are back. All this in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake which is human survival. These folks on the stage wanting to be president rarely talk to the complete interrelated package of all the important issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package, which a true leader must address. The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue, which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change and all the other issues like for example, water conservation.
The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change! Remember New Orleans many more of those will be on the way and nothing is being done about it. The USA is trying to make Pakistan a democracy instead. Within next 10 to 20 years is where survival hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Now grab all the water Americans have been wasting with their outrageous habits. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!! There is where most of the fresh water on earth is located. One quarter of one percent of all the water on Earth is fresh water for human beings and exists at the poles.
Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock, in his view the feedback loops have begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame for action being eight to ten years, the term of the next president of the USA and that is why who becomes president is so important! I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned, the IPCC, James Hansen, and NASA. It is technical information worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests who are behind the purchase of Canadian water you can be certain, rather than drastic conservation measures in the USA to deal with the waste and profligacy built into the American economic model for profit alone.