Posted on 28-7-2002

Private Property And Water Don't Mix
From www.waterissweet.org/blockade.html

Water Rights Activists Blockade Ice Mountain Bottling Plant by Cyclone -
Department of Down-Home Security 7.23.02 Water rights activists blockaded
the Ice Mountain bottling plant in Stanwood, Michigan Monday, shutting down
truck traffic to and from the plant for over seven hours.

At around 6:30 a.m. a group of seven protestors locked themselves together
in the plant’s shipping entrance, holding the position until mid-afternoon.
A support rally numbering 60 joined the blockade group at around 8 a.m.,
staging pickets at the east and west entrances. The blockade is the latest
in a series of actions by citizens looking to defend the state’s water
resources from an attempted takeover by the Ice Mountain Spring Water
Company, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America. In May 2002 the
company began production at its new $100 million bottling facility, pumping
at rates which could top 200 million gallons in water withdrawals per year.

Protesters see the project as a dangerous step toward privatization of the
world’s water resources and a serious threat to “water democracy”. “This
project flies in the face of almost every legal and social standard that we
have regarding water use,” said Louis Blouin, one of the blockaders.
“Historically and globally, water has been viewed as a sacred resource,
common to all, and something which—because of its essential nature—everyone
is entitled to. “Now because water has become such a scarce resource
globally, corporations are actually trying to profit off one of the most
basic of human needs,” Blouin said. “If we fail to act now, we are not far
from a world in which the rich have a right to clean water and the poor do
not.”

The state’s permitting process has also drawn protests. In August 2001,
upper level officials in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
sanctioned the project after at least one DEQ agent refused to sign the
permit “on principle”. On another occasion, County officials changed zoning
regulations in order to illegally maneuver around a referendum vote on the
project. At public hearings, citizens of the affected counties voiced
opposition to the project by a margin of nearly 9 to 1. A new referendum is
now scheduled for August 6. State tax abatements to Ice Mountain, totaling
almost $10 million over the next decade, have also raised eyebrows. “Thanks
to the state’s handling of this issue, we are now in a position where we’ll
actually be paying a corporation to take our water away,” Blouin said. “No
citizen has a right to take and sell millions of gallons of water from
shared, public waterways. But the state is trying to tell us that a
corporation does. It’s simply absurd.”

Legal battles are raging as well. In August 2001, a separate citizen group
filed a lawsuit against Ice Mountain in circuit court, contending the
project violates Michigan’s public trust principles governing the use of
water from the Great Lakes Basin. “Under public trust principles of
Michigan law, the citizens of Michigan—not corporations—have the primary
right to use the water of Michigan’s lakes and streams,” said Terry Swier,
president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the group bringing
the suit. “Public trust protects the citizens’ rights in these waters for
fishing, boating, swimming, and survival. Pure water for pure profit
violates the public trust and robs Michigan of its most vital heritage. “We
firmly believe that Michigan and its citizens have a distinct say in who
can take the waters of the State and divert them for sale for private
convenience,” Swier said.

In addition to its significance for state law, the case may have huge
implications for how water is defined in international trade agreements.
“Water is already officially designated as a commodity according to the
rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA),” said Holly Wren Spaulding, an independent journalist
and organizer with the Sweetwater Alliance. Spaulding says that a
sanctioning of the Ice Mountain proposal by the State would amount to
another step in the direction toward defining water—both legally and
culturally—as a commodity rather than a public good. According to
Spaulding, the Ice Mountain situation in Mecosta County could also be one
of the first real tests of whether a state law guaranteeing public
ownership of resources can be challenged by an international trade body
inclined to view resources as private. Spaulding also points out that NAFTA
and WTO rules could prevent Michigan from denying other bottling
corporations access to water once Ice Mountain has its foot in the door.
“So-called ‘Preferential Treatment’ guidelines in these trade agreements
basically say that if one corporation—whether indigenous or foreign—gains
access to an area to extract a resource, no restrictions can be made on
anyone else who might wish to do the same because it would not be fair,”
Spaulding said. “If future investors in the region were to be turned away
for some reason, the state, and in some cases the federal government, would
be liable for fines to be paid to the corporation for its ‘loss of
potential profits’.”

Direct actions like Monday’s are now being viewed as key tools for beating
back Ice Mountain and restoring public control of the State’s water
resources. “We have the laws on the books now that would have stopped this
project long ago. What we don’t have is a government with the will to
enforce them,” said Blouin. “Stopping this water privatization scheme and
restoring water democracy will now require action by citizens themselves.”

Protestors also stressed the global significance of their actions. “Today
we are here in solidarity with all those around the world who have fought
and won struggles for water democracy,” Blouin said. “We put our bodies on
the line today, but in Cochabamba, Bolivia, people actually gave their
lives defeating one of the harshest water privatization schemes ever.”
Following the implementation of a project engineered by the World Bank and
Bechtel Corporation, water bills for people in Cochabamba soared over 40
percent and citizens were actually outlawed from collecting rainwater.
After days of protests and direct actions, the Bolivian government
terminated the contract and Bechtel was forced to leave the country. “We
cannot let this happen in North America knowing the sacrifice others have
made elsewhere.” Blouin said. “As guardians of the Great Lakes Basin—one
fifth of the world’s fresh water—we must think about strengthening both our
commitment and our resolve,” he said. “The consequences for us not doing so
are almost too grave to imagine.”