Gasland director Josh Fox supports the Global Frackdown from the banks of the Brazos River, in Parker County, Texas. Despite drought conditions, Parker County uses more than 30% of its available water for fracking. Take a look at where the banks of the Brazos are (not to mention the boat launch) and figure out for yourself whether that's the best possible use for an irreplaceable resource.
Tethys Enterprises has given up efforts to build a massive water bottling plan in Anacortes. Kudos to Sandra Spargo for years of diligent watchdogging and organizing through Defending Water in the Skagit River Basin. Sandra brought in some of the area's most outstanding experts on siting, transportation, and water supply issues. Thanks and congratulations to all the Defending Water board members in Anacortes, and to the many people in the community who attended hearings and events, and raised questions about the environmental and community impacts of this project. You can read press releases from Steve Winter, CEO of Tethys Enterprises, and the mayor of Anacortes here.
Read more...
National and international policies based on neoliberal economics, corporate globalization, and "free" trade which aim to commodify, privatize and profit from almost every aspect of nature are destroying local communities and cultures, and the ecosystems on which all life depends. Earth Democracy is juxtaposed to this system and is grounded in the inherent rights of living beings and Mother Earth.
The Earth Democracy Conference will be one of several tracks at this year's Democracy Convention, to be held August 7 through 11 at Madison College, Madison Wisconsin. Earth Democracy builds on the declaration adopted by the Ecojustice People's Movement Assembly at the 2010 US Social Forum which states: "We support the conclusion that only by 'living well', in harmony with each other and with Mother Earth, rather than 'living better,' based on an economic system of unlimited growth, dominance and exploitation, will the people of this planet not only survive but thrive."
The Earth Democracy Conference will bring together people who are working on the frontlines of the ecojustice movement to:
Even in Maine where Nestle seems to reign supreme with its Poland Spring bottled water brand topping all spring water brand sales in the country, there has been legislative pushback against bottled water. In late February, Chris Buchanan, AfD’s Maine coordinator for Defending Water for Life, testified at a state legislative hearing on LD 315: An Act to Ban the Purchase of Bottled Water by State Agencies. Her testimony in favor of the bill was very well received and she has been asked to return for the work session on the bill. It would still be very surprising if the bill becomes law, but having the discussion is an important step forward.
Meanwhile, organizing against the East/West SuperCorridor continues full steam ahead. On March 2, the town of Dexter held a forum on the Corridor with two hundred people in attendance. Chris and others with Stop the E/W Corridor were on the panel. Once again, Cianbro, the corporation proposing the Corridor, declined an invitation to attend.
The proposed corridor is generating strong local opposition, with interest growing in taking a rights-based approach for local self-governance which denies corporations court-conferred constitutional rights and protects the rights of nature. Defending Water helped with scholarships so local activists could attend two 2-day Democracy Schools in early March where they are delving deeply into this approach. The Alliance set a national precedent when we worked with Barnstead NH which passed the first rights-based ordinance to protect their water from corporate takings. We hope to see this approach expand in Maine which already has two Barnstead-style local laws in Shapleigh and Newfield.
For more information go to www.defendingwater.net/maine and www.stopthecorridor.org.
What are the latest plans for Cascade Locks, coal terminals, LNG pipelines, and fracking in Oregon? David Delk talks with Bethany Cotton of Greenpeace and FLOW, and Julia DeGraw of Food and Water Watch.
Bethany discusses plans to turn the Pacific Northwest into a fossil fuel export epicenter, with national and multinational corporations lining up to build coal and liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals in both Oregon and Washington. She details some of the environmental and economic consequences of these plans, as well the shape of local resistance.
Julia gives an update on Nestlé's planned bottled water plant in Cascade Locks, and asks who has the right to water--a private corporation, or the people of Oregon?
The Whanganui river, New Zealand's third longest, now has the legal standing of a person, thanks to a court case initiated by the Whanganui River iwi, an indigenous community with strong ties to the waterway. The river is a person “in the same way a company is, which will give it rights and interests” with representatives from both the iwi and the national government acting as legal custodians. More here.
Read more...Alliance for Democracy, through our Defending Water for Life campaign, has been working with California's Safe Water Alliance to pass the Human Right to Water Act, AB 635. Most recently, western campaign coordinator Nancy Price signed on to a letter to Governor Jerry Brown, asking him to sign the bill, which has now cleared the state legislature, into law.
From the letter:
The need for a statewide policy is illustrated by the 11.5 million people in California currently relying on water suppliers who faced at least one violation of state drinking water standards in 2007, the 8.5 million people in California who relied in one recent year on water supplies that experienced more than five violations of state drinking water standards, and the recent University of California, Davis report that found that 1 million people in California have been exposed to nitrate-contaminated groundwater. The fact that some of the communities in the latter category have struggled for years to address the contamination is a resounding indictment of the status quo.Advocates hope to meet with Brown this week to deliver petitions in support of passage. Read more...
The latest edition of "Populist Dialogues" features Dan Serres of Columbia Waterkeeper and Judy Barnes who heads up Alliance for Democracy's sponsored project, Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy.You can watch the show on Blip.tv here, or right in this post.
The first half of the show features Dan's perpectives on the problems of fossil fuels. Then Judy discusses renewable energy solutions that will help us keep old hydrocarbons in the ground. She focuses on what renewable energy advocates are now calling Clean Energy Contracts, formerly known as Feed-in Tariffs.
Populist Dialogues programs are also available on the show's YouTube channel, and are easy to comment on, and share online.Watch it, "like it," and share it with friends on social media, or in your hometown by rebroadcasting it on your local community cable station.
Sharing "Populist Dialogues" on community cable isn't difficult! Requirements vary between stations but are usually quite simple. Your station can download shows for free at PEGMedia (instructions are here), but we can also send shows on dvd or via filesharing. Email the office for more information at afd //at// thealliancefordemocracy.org.
This past week, the California Assembly passed AB 685, the Human Right to Water Act. Now we're just a signature away from ensuring law and policy that will bring safe, affordable water to all Californians.
What's the story behind the Human Right to Water Act? Getting this far has meant building a strong grassroots coalition with much community and member support. We hope that the history of this legislation inspires other water democracy and environmental justice activists to get going on their own version of AB 685.
AB 1242, the first Human Right to Water policy bill, was part a “water bill package” introduced in early 2009. After AB 1242 made it through all Assembly and Senate Committee hearings with some amendments and was passed by the Assembly 53-24 and the Senate 23-14, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Schwarzenegger, however, did sign some of the other more “narrowly focused” bills in this 2009 package.
Alliance for Democracy's Portland chapter produces the interview show "Populist Dialogues," hosted by AfD co-chair David Delk, and featuring activists, writers, and educators on an incredible variety of policy topics.
Here are a few of the shows they've done in the past year on energy and environment. If you're thinking of actions that can continue past the Global Frackdown, why not share these with your city through your community cable television station? They're available for rebroadcast free through PEGMedia, or you can request dvds to share at meetings by contacting the Alliance for Democracy office.
There are more video and print resources on fracking at the end of this post, so keep scrolling down!
Solutions to Jobs/Climate Crisis
David Delk interviews Dave King, Portland Jobs with Justice, and Ted Gleichman with Oregon Sierra Club LNG subcommittee on the dual problems of the jobs crisis and the climate crisis. Looks at how the solution to one should be the solution to the other and what some of those solutions are. First broadcast June 3, 2012
There's a coal train comin'!
David interviews Laura Stevens of the Sierra Clubs campaign to stop using coal and opposing the building of coal export terminals in Oregon and Washington. First broadcast May 13, 2012
Community Based, Rights Based Organizing
Paul Cienfuegos, founder of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County in California, says that we need to cease being stuck in single issue campaigns and look at how we challenge corporate power. Democratically-instituted rights-based ordinances have challenged the corporate "right" to pollute or extract resources in Maine, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Here's how they work. First broadcast 1-1-12
How do Feed-In Tariff work to rapidly jump start production of renewable energy and produce good paying jobs?
David talks with Judy Barnes, co-founder of Oregonian for Renewable Energy Policy, on the use of Feed-In Tariffs to address the global climate crisis by quickly jump starting the production of renewable energy sources and good paying green jobs at the same time. First broadcast on 5-22-11
And from other groups, elsewhere online:
In this “Viewpoint” web exclusive, Josh Fox, environmental activist and director of “Gasland,” talks about fracking and his new “emergency film,” The Sky is Pink about the impact of fracking on NY state, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering allowing fracking in just a few counties.
“Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Resources: Separating the Frack from the Fiction” by the Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA, is an excellent source for detailed information, charts and maps on the threat of natural gas fracking to our fresh water resources and health.
“Scientists Tell Senate Panel: Climate Change Is Here and Disaster Costs Will Be Huge”
“Common Sense: Banning Fracking at the Local Level”
Go to the Fracking Action Center for: “How Much Do You Know About Fracking?,” “Why Ban Fracking?,” “Hazards to Drinking Water Aren’t the Only Reasons,” “Ready to Ban Fracking?,” “Your Efforts to Grow the Movement are WORKING,” and much more.
On September 22 Alliance for Democracy joins the growing coalition in the Global Frackdown Day of Action calling for a global ban on fracking.
Join this growing and powerful people’s movement to ban fracking not just in the U.S., but world-wide. This is one big step toward environmental and climate justice that will help secure national and international peace and freedom now and for future generations.
Alliance for Democracy is one of many hundreds of partner endorsing organizations. Sign on here as an AfD chapter, member network, or as an individual. Encourage your union, professional organization, community group or faith group to sign up too.
As a partner organization, we’ll have the opportunity to:
The Defending Water in Maine campaign will be holding several East-West Corridor informational events across the state during July and August. The latest list is here on the campaign website, along with the first of a two-part video report on the planned super-corridor.
In May, a full house packed the Foxcroft Academy auditorium in Dover-Foxcroft to hear Peter Vigue, CEO of Cianbro, a construction company that stands to make millions off the supercorridor, which would consist of a private toll road for tractor-trailer trucks, as well as pipelines and power lines. Many of the 1000 people at the hearing wore hunter orange hats or shirts to protest the project.
Opposition to the project has come from farmers, hunters, environmentalists, and local landowners. Chris Buchanan, of Defending Water in Maine who also coordinates the state wide coalition, points out that constructing the highway opens the door to more extractive industry: “If it was built, it would open up areas of Maine that are currently very difficult to get to for companies like Nestlé to mine for water and sell it on the global market.”
A recent community forum on the proposed Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement explored the local impacts of past free trade agreements as well as what might be coming for workers and communities here and across the Pacific if this new FTA is passed.
Elizabeth Swager of Oregon Oregon Fair Trade Campaign opened the forum, focusing on working conditions overseas, the "race to the bottom" and the probable impact of the Trans-Pacific FTA on health care and jobs. She was followed by Greg Pallesen, Vice President of AWPPW Local 5 on trade related job loss; Kim Marks, a grassroots organizer with the Rising Tide North America Collective and former board member of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment and BARK, who spoke on the impact of trade on labor and the environment, and Ted Gleichman, active within the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club, on trade and climate change.
by Chris Buchanan, Defending Water for Life in Maine
With Canada developing natural gas fracking fields in Quebec and New Brunswick and a LPG (liquid petroleum gas) tank proposed for Searsport, serious questions have arisen as to whether the proposed East-West Highway might be destined to become a super-corridor to transport LPG in trucks to Canada and natural gas by pipeline along the highway to the Maritime Provinces for export. Here’s why we are concerned.
The East-West Highway route through Maine connects both the Canadian fracking fields directly adjacent to Maine so it could be highly profitable for the investors in the East-West Highway to run a natural gas pipeline along the highway from the Canadian natural gas fracking fields to the Canadian Maritimes. This would provide even greater returns for highway investors, in addition to tolls they would receive from Canadian transport trucks.
The proposed Searsport LPG storage facility comes into the picture because of new fracking technology developed by GasFrac, a Canadian energy company, which uses a thick gel made from propane, rather than water, to force the natural gas out of the shale rock. LPG is a mixture of propane and butane.
“This is a game changer for the industry,” says Don LeBlanc in a November 15, 2011 article in Chemistry World. LeBlanc is the “principal consultant at Eastex Petroleum Consultants in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who has been involved in shale gas trials with gelled propane in New Brunswick, Canada.” So far gelled propane has been used about 1,000 times mostly in Canada.
From an investor’s prospective, under this scenario a LPG tank in Searsport is a great idea. From there, they can truck the propane to Canada via the East-West highway to use for fracking shale gas. Then the natural gas produced by the fracking could be transported to the Canadian Maritimes via a pipeline built along the East-West Highway.
Indeed, Peter Vigue of Cianbro announced his vision to use the highway as a multi-use corridor during his presentation to the Maine Legislature’s Transportation Committee during the public hearing on Valentine’s Day.
This larger energy scheme would benefit private investors, but lead to further exploitation of Maine as a supercorridor throughway with only two proposed exits for the whole state. Yet the people of Maine would have no voice in how this private toll road was built or managed. Nor would the state and federal regulatory agencies be concerned with the environmental impacts of fracking or the safety of the new technology using highly flammable propane.
This is a highly organized energy triad, poised to make a few people very wealthy at the cost of Maine’s people and the land we need to survive. We were confused why Searsport selectmen were supporting the East-West highway, but now it is clear how the pieces can fit together in a highly profitable way.
Instead of locking Mainers into a supercorridor dissecting the state for foreign profit, our legislators need to step back and identify what the people of Maine need to thrive over the long haul. Prioritizing Canadian businesses and multinational corporations that do raw resource extraction, is not the way. Public funding for private investment, at the added cost of individual rights and local control, is not the way. We need to create a long-term vision that values Maine’s strengths—how we can benefit from our priceless ecological beauty and how best to use Mainers creativity, work ethic and passion to create lasting jobs for the people and families of Maine.
If you're interested in building the social and political supports for locally-produced renewable energy, check out the audio recording of Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy's January Conference Call, now available on OREP's website at the Webinars page.
Guest speakers Rep. Jules Bailey, a state senator representing southeast Portland, (D-OR, district 42) and Jeff Bissonnette, organizing director for the Citizens's Utility Board of Oregon, shared their experiences from their recent Climate & Energy Study Tour to Germany.
OREP secured places for Bailey and Bissonnette to participate in the study tour this past December. The tour was sponsored by the American Council on Germany, and it enabled participants to learn directly from German government officials, business leaders and researchers about Germany's successful climate/energy policies. Jules and Jeff generously agreed to share their impressions, a portion of what they learned firsthand during their intensive study tour and answer audience questions.
If you have questions after listening to the audio, please feel free to contact either of our speakers directly:
Jules Bailey
rep.julesbailey@state.or.us
503-986-1442
Jeff Bissonnette
jeff@oregoncub.org
503-516-1636
The OREP team thanks everyone who participated in this well-attended conference call.
Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy (OREP) is a sponsored project of the Alliance for Democracy. OREP promotes Feed-In Tariff policies that produce good economic, environmental and social outcomes at reasonable costs. To request a speaker, host an Energy Future House Party or volunteer, call Judy at 503-232-1911. To support the work of Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy, you can make a donation through Alliance for Democracy here.
In support of the January 20 Occupy the Courts action, here's Bill McKibben on our "money talks" political system, climate change, and the need for environmental activists to be involved in the democracy movement. Get to MovetoAmend.org to find the Occupy the Courts action near you.
Alliance for Democracy is part of the Move to Amend coalition and most AfD chapters are planning or will be involved in Occupy the Courts events. Our local chapter list is here. If you're heading to an action check out material (signs, fliers, bumper stickers) here.
The Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy (OREP) Action Bulletin is online here. Check it out! Highlights include upcoming events, links to online video on feed-in tariffs, frequently-asked questions to bring you up to speed on equitable and localized development of solar power. OREP is a sponsored project of Alliance for Democracy.
Did you know...
Last month, OREP was invited to join the Steering Committee for Alliance for Renewable Energy... That OREP's outreach to Occupy Portland activists added feed-in tariffs to the Solutions Work Group's discussion... that OREP is now a member of the NW Energy Coalition, an alliance of more than 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, progressive utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and British Columbia. NWEC promotes development of renewable energy, energy conservation, consumer protection, low-income energy assistance, and fish and wildlife restoration.
For more information, see the OREP website, www.oregonrenewables.com.
Check out OREP organizer Judy Barnes on the Alliance for Democracy show, "Populist Dialogues":
As true now as ever!
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