JourneySantaFe | Who Controls Water

Water, in all its forms, is under attack. How we respond to this attack will determine our future, and that of millions of other species on this planet.

Corporations are focused on water as a bottom line and a mere commodity for their survival - to buy and sell, to fraccing aquifers - a major source of aquifer pollution that threatens water supplies throughout the country, to agribusiness farming with its massive chemical input that pollutes nearly all of our streams and rivers and oceans, electricity generation that consumes billions of gallons of fresh river water every year, to large scale development, deforestation, and the death of our oceans. All this is seen as the absolute "right" of corporations, while communities are left powerless. A grim picture - but not hopeless.

Many communities in the US have passed local ordinances that protect their water from corporate ownership and destruction. Bolivia and Ecuador recently placed their water within the protection of their federal constitutions.

In the arid Southwestern Bioregion we are facing increasing record temperatures, droughts, decreased snow pack,and lower river flows, along with the degradation of our farming and grazing lands.

In Santa Fe County we financed the Buckman Direct Diversion Project - which will supply much of Santa Fe's potable water from the Rio Grande River.

This system is sited down stream from the oldest and most polluted nuclear weapons complex in America. It is sited beneath the Pajarito Plateau that has experienced two major wildfires within the last decade, resulting in massive flows of ash throughout the canyon systems that drain into the Rio Grande above Buckman. It depends on its water from a river basin that is increasingly compromised by climate change - one that is over appropriated by powerful entities down river - Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, to mention a few.

How did we get into this astonishingly screwed up situation where the very basis of life is owned by, controlled by, polluted and depleted by corporate interests with little or no say from the citizens? And how do we get out of it, into a world where a healthy water cycle, healthy watersheds, and democratic control of water are seen as basic rights?

We must first begin to pass, and enforce local water ordinances within our counties. These could prohibit fraccing of aquifers, outlaw corporate water withdrawal from aquifers, prohibit any pollutants from entering our rivers and streams, and codify the rights of nature within local law. To accomplish this we will need to return to a basic, democratic form of governance - one that recognizes the rights of nature and the power of local communities to protect those rights. This will be a completion of the original revolution upon which our country was founded and the creation of a whole new democratic story based on life, resiliency, democracy and sacred world.

This dialogue is already taking place within many communities throughout New Mexico, the nation and the world.

In Santa Fe we will be holding ongoing dialogues on water at the Travelbug every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. These conversations will bring together political activists, water activists, food activists, energy activists, grazing activists, forest health activists, scientists, writers, poets, and ecologists to begin weave together the broken strands of a truly resilient and democratic bioregional water system. This will culminate in a statewide water summit in January 2012.