Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water? by Kate Fried

Published on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 by Food & Water Watch Blog

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water?

by Kate Fried

We were disheartened to learn this week that Nancy Stoner, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acting assistant administrator for water, is an advocate for water privatization. In an interview with Greenwire (Sorry, but subscription required.), Stoner expressed doubt about the federal government’s ability to help provide the public with drinking and wastewater service, citing them as “too expensive.” She then went on to say,
“I think there’s big money in to be made in how to address the water resources needs for our country, particularly when we are going to have population growth, development, the decay of existing infrastructure and climate change.”
Hearing a top government official in charge of protecting one of our most essential shared resources laud a scheme that has been linked to the degradation of municipal water supplies definitely makes us wonder where our government is placing its priorities. Across the U.S., privatization has been linked to deteriorating water quality, rate hikes, job force reductions and poor customer service.
If there is any money to be made in water privatization, it’s among wealthy corporations and their shareholders, who time and time again have proven that they are not responsible patrons of common resources such as water. Privatization has led to disasters around the U.S., especially in Illinois, where customers of the water systems purchased by Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois over the last fifteen years have seen their water bills more than double on average since privatization.
The EPA should be ensuring the abundance of safe, clean, affordable water, not encouraging corporations to swindle more Americans.
Stoner is correct in her assessment of the challenges facing municipal water systems, which every year fall at least $22 billion short of the funds needed to safely and affordably deliver this basic resource to Americans. Many public water systems in the United States were built over a century ago, around the same time that Henry Ford was tinkering around with the first Model T. Few people rely on cars from that era for their basic transportation needs, yet much of our water flows through pipes just as old.
While Stoner supports the President’s proposed infrastructure bank, which wouldn’t even address the needs of small and rural water systems, she fails to mention a bill recently introduced in Congress that would create a clean water trust. Food & Water Watch has been actively engaged in the fight to establish such a fund for several years now because it would create a sustainable, dedicated source of federal funding for community water systems, freeing them from the funding whims of congress and the president. According to our research, closing the gap in federal infrastructure funding could also create up to 750,000 new jobs.
Today Food & Water Watch issued an open letter to Stoner that encapsulated many of the points above, and can best be summed up with this: When looked at from the perspective of environmental protection or job creation, privatization is a problem, not a solution.
It’s no secret that our nation’s prolonged economic crunch has drained local and federal coffers alike. Perhaps we’re so accustomed to recession-era hysteria that just about every fix to raise money seems like a sound one. Regardless, it’s extremely irresponsible of the EPA to advocate for water privatization.
Municipal water systems deliver an essential resource that belongs to us all. Our government should remember that before turning it into a cash cow.

© 2011 Food & Water Watch

Private Utilities Land Residents in Hot Water Food & Water Watch

Private Utilities Land Residents in Hot Water


ew Food & Water Watch Analysis Shows that Inter-municipal Partnerships can Better Deliver Safe, Affordable Water to Illinois Consumers

WASHINGTON - October 26 - New analysis by national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch finds that Illinois’s largest private water utilities are earning profits of as much as $18 million dollars a year, while raising rates for consumers by as much as 23 percent. Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois: Community Experiences With the Largest Investor-Owned Water Utilities in Illinois shows that Illinois’s communities are better served by publicly owned and operated water systems and that public-public partnerships are better options through which to efficiently deliver affordable water to consumers.
“The experience of Illinois consumers with these private water companies highlights the need for publicly-owned and operated water systems that are locally-controlled, transparent and more accountable to ratepayers. Only publicly owned and operated water systems can deliver high-quality water at an affordable price,” said Emily Carroll, an organizer for Food & Water Watch.
Residential customers of the water systems purchased by Illinois American Water (IAW) and Aqua Illinois over the last fifteen years have seen their water bills more than double on average since privatization. Nationally, water rates typically increase 5 percent a year, but Illinois customers of these two corporations are seeing their water rates increase 260 percent faster than the typical increase. Despite the high prices, the companies’ customers have received poor service in the form of billing mistakes, inadequate water pressure and even improper fire hydrant maintenance.
In just the first eight months of 2011, IAW and Aqua Illinois spent a combined $33,300 on campaign contributions and $3,080 on lobbying state officials to influence policy in their favor. Communities such as Homer Glen in Will County have seen their water rates increase by as much as 82 percent, even when customer service has been so bad that village residents were charged for IAW’s unaccounted-for water. 

“Under private ownership, people pay much more than their neighbors across the street who get their water from a public utility, even though that water comes from the same source — Lake Michigan,” said Representative Renée Kosel, assistant republican leader of the Illinois House of Representatives. “One of the factors making it difficult for my constituents to sell their homes is high utility rates from Illinois American Water.”
Since Bolingbrook sold its drinking water system to Illinois American Water in 2002, residents have been slammed with rate hikes, adding $267 to $615 onto typical annual bills. Under public ownership, residents paid $246 a year for 72,000 gallons of well water, or $524 a year for water from Lake Michigan. In 2011, Illinois American Water charged households $922 a year for the same amount of water. Yet, Bolingbrook’s water prices were 228 percent higher than the average price of ten nearby publicly owned water systems supplying Lake Michigan water. 

Despite the high rates paid in Lisle, Illinois American Water has consistently provided water service with water pressure so low that it was considered “woefully inadequate” for fire fighting. In 2007, a group is Lisle residents sued the company for this.
The track record of Aqua Illinois is not much better. In 2007, Aqua Illinois bought the water system serving Manteno. In less than one year, about a hundred customers had problems with their bills; in some cases, the company charged them nine times as much as their actual water usage. One customer was even charged for supposedly using 270,000 gallons of water on a vacant lot.
“The track records of Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois demonstrate that privatization is not a responsible or acceptable way to address the needs of water and sewer systems in Illinois,” said Carroll. “Instead, policy makers should explore the benefits of public-public partnerships, which would especially benefit low-income and rural communities.” 

Food and Water Watch’s analysis finds that municipalities can better serve consumers by sharing resources and expertise. These public-public partnerships can enhance service quality and save money while allowing communities to retain local control of an essential resource.
Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois: Community Experiences With the Largest Investor-Owned Water Utilities in Illinois is available here: (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/illinois-american-water-and-aqua...)

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Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.

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ACLU Will Take Gene Patent Case to Supreme Court by Amanda Wilson

Published on Sunday, October 16, 2011 by Inter Press Service

ACLU Will Take Gene Patent Case to Supreme Court

by Amanda Wilson

WASHINGTON - When Jaydee Hanson, then-bioethics director for the United Methodist Church, spoke out publicly against gene patents over 15 years ago, some in the biotech industry compared his stance to the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo, the 15th century astronomer who discovered the moons of Jupiter.

Hanson and 200 other religious leaders had released a statement that DNA in the human body and animals are natural objects and should not be subject to patenting. "It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life." (photo: opensource.com)

Patent supporters in the biotech industry disagree, arguing that "isolated copies" of genes outside the human body should be patentable and that the prospect of intellectual property rights on genes serves as incentive for further research.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced it would ask the Supreme Court to rule on a patent by Myriad Genetics, a genetic diagnostics company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, on "isolated" BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, two genes that can have mutations linked to breast, ovarian and prostate cancers.

Those with a stake in the case say any ruling from the court would have a major impact on patient care, scientific research, and rights to access human genetic information, as well on legal doctrine.

The gene patenting case has been moving up through lower courts since 2009, when the ACLU first filed a civil suit in a district court in the state of New York arguing that Myriad's patent on the genes should be invalidated.

District judge Robert Sweet agreed with the ACLU in 2010, but Myriad appealed, and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sweet's ruling in July, with two out of three judges siding with Myriad, affirming the company's right to patents on the two "isolated" BRCA genes linked to breast cancer.

Facing a mid-December deadline to appeal the lower court's ruling to uphold gene patents, the ACLU decided to move forward with the appeal in time for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, said Sandra Park, an ACLU attorney working on the case.

"We consulted with our clients and made the decision to move forward, given the importance of the issues to patients and scientists," Park told IPS, adding that the Supreme Court would likely make a decision in the spring of 2012 about whether it will hear the case.

More than 4,000 genes have been patented, including copies of genes that make up 20 percent of the human genome, according to Hanson, who now works as a policy director for the International Centre for Technology Assessment (ICTA). In the past, Hanson and ICTA have successfully challenged patents on a beagle and other animals.

In September, Myriad sent the following comment to IPS: "Myriad defended its position in the courts and recently had a favourable outcome. We believe that isolated DNA and cDNA are patent-eligible material, as both are new chemical matter with important utilities which can only exist as a product of human ingenuity."

With its patents, Myriad holds exclusive rights in the U.S. to test the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes for mutations and provide that information to doctors and patients. Those mutations place women at a much greater risk of developing breast cancer and some men at greater risk of developing prostate cancer.

ACLU: Patents make tests cost-prohibitive and block research

The ACLU represents a group of 20 other plaintiffs, including geneticists, pathologists and breast cancer survivor advocates, who maintain that the patents block patient care.

They argue that patients shouldn't have to pay for genetic information they could use to make life-or- death decisions, such as whether to get a mastectomy, especially when other genetic testing providers could offer that information if Myriad didn't have exclusive rights to sequence the genes.

Five to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are linked to mutations on the BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 genes, and those with the mutations have an 85 percent risk of developing cancer. Some insurance policies cover the tests, but other plans, especially those providing insurance for the poor, don't.

According to Park, Myriad chose not to enter into contracts with about half of all insurance programs in states that cover low-income people.

Ellen Matloff, a genetic counselor at Yale for over 15 years and a plaintiff in the ACLU case, said the cost of the test was a real issue for many of her patients.

According to her, "comprehensive" breast cancer test from Myriad for other breast cancer mutations costs 3,400 dollars and a supplementary test for the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes, called the BART test, costs 700 dollars. Matloff said that 95 percent of patients she recommends for supplementary testing don't end up being tested because of its high cost.

"I know that we are missing mutations," Matloff told IPS, adding that the BRCA gene mutations are passed down maternally and paternally. "It is going to impact them, their children, their siblings their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, and from a clinician's standpoint it is horrifying."

Gene patenting opponents also argue that in a new era in which full- genome sequencing is getting faster and cheaper, patents stand in the way of access to new knowledge about how certain genes are related to disease.

"The whole next phase of [research in] genetics and disease is to understand how genes work together," Hanson told IPS. "It is a huge task, and the patents just interfere with it."

Matloff expressed a similar concern that advanced knowledge about genes without access to that knowledge could create problems for patients and care providers.

"It is almost like saying, 'we have your genes right in front of us, it came out of your body, but we are not allowed to look at it, we're not allowed to interpret it, and we are not allowed to give the information back to you,'" Matloff said.

"It's kind of like saying two of your genes are in jail, but we are not allowed to report this information to you, even though it would save your life."

GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides, say NGOs

GM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides, say NGOs

Published on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

Report finds genetically modified crops fail to increase yields let alone solve hunger, soil erosion and chemical-use issues

by John Vidal

Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.

The so-called miracle crops, which were first sold in the US about 20 years ago and which are now grown in 29 countries on about 1.5bn hectares (3.7bn acres) of land, have been billed as potential solutions to food crises, climate change and soil erosion, but the assessment finds that they have not lived up to their promises.

The report claims that hunger has reached "epic proportions" since the technology was developed. Besides this, only two GM "traits" have been developed on any significant scale, despite investments of tens of billions of dollars, and benefits such as drought resistance and salt tolerance have yet to materialise on any scale.

Most worrisome, say the authors of the Global Citizens' Report on the State of GMOs, is the greatly increased use of synthetic chemicals, used to control pests despite biotech companies' justification that GM-engineered crops would reduce insecticide use.

In China, where insect-resistant Bt cotton is widely planted, populations of pests that previously posed only minor problems have increased 12-fold since 1997. A 2008 study in the International Journal of Biotechnology found that any benefits of planting Bt cotton have been eroded by the increasing use of pesticides needed to combat them.

Additionally, soya growers in Argentina and Brazil have been found to use twice as much herbicide on their GM as they do on conventional crops, and a survey by Navdanya International, in India, showed that pesticide use increased 13-fold since Bt cotton was introduced.

The report, which draws on empirical research and companies' own statements, also says weeds are now developing resistance to the GM firms' herbicides and pesticides that are designed to be used with their crops, and that this has led to growing infestations of "superweeds", especially in the US.

Ten common weeds have now developed resistance in at least 22 US states, with about 6m hectares (15m acres) of soya, cotton and corn now affected.

Consequently, farmers are being forced to use more herbicides to combat the resistant weeds, says the report. GM companies are paying farmers to use other, stronger, chemicals, they say. "The genetic engineering miracle is quite clearly faltering in farmers' fields," add the authors.

The companies have succeeded in marketing their crops to more than 15 million farmers, largely by heavy lobbying of governments, buying up local seed companies, and withdrawing conventional seeds from the market, the report claims. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta, the world's three largest GM companies, now control nearly 70% of global seed sales. This allows them to "own" and sell GM seeds through patents and intellectual property rights and to charge farmers extra, claims the report.

The study accuses Monsanto of gaining control of over 95% of the Indian cotton seed market and of massively pushing up prices. High levels of indebtedness among farmers is thought to be behind many of the 250,000 deaths by suicide of Indian farmers over the past 15 years.

The report, which is backed by Friends of the Earth International, the Center for Food Safety in the US, Confédération Paysanne, and the Gaia foundation among others, also questions the safety of GM crops, citing studies and reports which indicate that people and animals have experienced apparent allergic reactions.

But it suggests scientists are loath to question the safety aspects for fear of being attacked by establishment bodies, which often receive large grants from the companies who control the technology.

Monsanto disputes the report's findings: "In our view the safety and benefits of GM are well established. Hundreds of millions of meals containing food from GM crops have been consumed and there has not been a single substantiated instance of illness or harm associated with GM crops."

It added: "Last year the National Research Council, of the US National Academy of Sciences, issued a report, The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, which concludes that US farmers growing biotech crops 'are realising substantial economic and environmental benefits – such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields – compared with conventional crops'."

David King, the former UK chief scientist who is now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, has blamed food shortages in Africa partly on anti-GM campaigns in rich countries.

But, the report's authors claim, GM crops are adding to food insecurity because most are now being grown for biofuels, which take away land from local food production.

Vandana Shiva, director of the Indian organisation Navdanya International, which co-ordinated the report, said: "The GM model of farming undermines farmers trying to farm ecologically. Co-existence between GM and conventional crops is not possible because genetic pollution and contamination of conventional crops is impossible to control.

"Choice is being undermined as food systems are increasingly controlled by giant corporations and as chemical and genetic pollution spread. GM companies have put a noose round the neck of farmers. They are destroying alternatives in the pursuit of profit."

© 2011 Guardian Media

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water? by Kate Fried

Published on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 by Food & Water Watch Blog

Is the EPA Selling Out Your Water?

by Kate Fried

We were disheartened to learn this week that Nancy Stoner, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) acting assistant administrator for water, is an advocate for water privatization. In an interview with Greenwire (Sorry, but subscription required.), Stoner expressed doubt about the federal government’s ability to help provide the public with drinking and wastewater service, citing them as “too expensive.” She then went on to say,
“I think there’s big money in to be made in how to address the water resources needs for our country, particularly when we are going to have population growth, development, the decay of existing infrastructure and climate change.”
Hearing a top government official in charge of protecting one of our most essential shared resources laud a scheme that has been linked to the degradation of municipal water supplies definitely makes us wonder where our government is placing its priorities. Across the U.S., privatization has been linked to deteriorating water quality, rate hikes, job force reductions and poor customer service.
If there is any money to be made in water privatization, it’s among wealthy corporations and their shareholders, who time and time again have proven that they are not responsible patrons of common resources such as water. Privatization has led to disasters around the U.S., especially in Illinois, where customers of the water systems purchased by Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois over the last fifteen years have seen their water bills more than double on average since privatization.
The EPA should be ensuring the abundance of safe, clean, affordable water, not encouraging corporations to swindle more Americans.
Stoner is correct in her assessment of the challenges facing municipal water systems, which every year fall at least $22 billion short of the funds needed to safely and affordably deliver this basic resource to Americans. Many public water systems in the United States were built over a century ago, around the same time that Henry Ford was tinkering around with the first Model T. Few people rely on cars from that era for their basic transportation needs, yet much of our water flows through pipes just as old.
While Stoner supports the President’s proposed infrastructure bank, which wouldn’t even address the needs of small and rural water systems, she fails to mention a bill recently introduced in Congress that would create a clean water trust. Food & Water Watch has been actively engaged in the fight to establish such a fund for several years now because it would create a sustainable, dedicated source of federal funding for community water systems, freeing them from the funding whims of congress and the president. According to our research, closing the gap in federal infrastructure funding could also create up to 750,000 new jobs.
Today Food & Water Watch issued an open letter to Stoner that encapsulated many of the points above, and can best be summed up with this: When looked at from the perspective of environmental protection or job creation, privatization is a problem, not a solution.
It’s no secret that our nation’s prolonged economic crunch has drained local and federal coffers alike. Perhaps we’re so accustomed to recession-era hysteria that just about every fix to raise money seems like a sound one. Regardless, it’s extremely irresponsible of the EPA to advocate for water privatization.
Municipal water systems deliver an essential resource that belongs to us all. Our government should remember that before turning it into a cash cow.

© 2011 Food & Water Watch