State giving away massive amounts of shrinking water supplies to corporate interests

Global trend of privatization hits home, tied into Great Lakes Compact

Felton, Calif., is a hippie town hidden among the coastal redwoods in the mountains outside Santa Cruz. Past the verdant state park, across the railroad track and down a steep hillside, you will find the best natural swimming hole I’ve ever had the pleasure of jumping into.

Little did I know at the time, the water flowing gently through Fall Creek was owned – as all the town’s water was – by a German energy company. Michigan, too, is ceding generous portions of public water to private interests, including ones based overseas.

Water privatization is an ever-increasing concern around the globe, especially as global warming makes the formerly public resource more and more scarce.

Here in Michigan, privatization and global warming are squeezing the Great Lakes and other state waterways from both ends, leaving a lot less water for fish, wildlife, recreation, agriculture, tourism, and our taps.

Lake levels are at or near record lows, and scientists studying the issue suspect that milder winters and hotter summers are causing unprecedented evaporation. Researchers say it’s likely that half of the water loss observed is due to this excessive sucking of moisture into the sky.

A second worsening threat to water levels and underground aquifers is the state government allowing significant withdrawal by private corporations of this natural public resource.

Continued -It certainly doesn’t help matters that the Pepsi-owned Aquafina is bottling up water from Lake Huron and the Detroit River. Or that at the invitation of former Gov. John Engler, Swiss-owned Nestle is pumping 270 million gallons of water each year from the headwaters of two trout streams near Stanwood, Mich., then selling it back to us (and others across the Midwest) for a dollar a bottle under the brand Ice Mountain. Just this month, Nestle unveiled a new plan to pump 200,000 gallons a day in Osceola County.

Right now Michigan lawmakers are hashing out a compromise between House- and Senate-passed versions of a Great Lakes Compact tie-in that will allow private interests to reduce the state’s cool and warm rivers and streams by as much as 25 percent and legally allow for the reduction of fish populations from 1 percent to 20 percent depending on the character of the stream or river.

And wait, there’s more: The bill would also require no permit for water withdrawals until the proposal reaches a level of an eye-popping two million gallons a day. Those companies with proposals for less than that simply register and take state water unsupervised.

The version of the bill that gives the most water away, basically for the price of few hundred dollars for a permit, is championed by Republican majority in the Senate and defended by Rep. Howard Walker, R-Traverse City, in this editorial.

The trend of corporate control of public water is apparently not inevitable, however. Slowing the momentum, in a small way, is tiny, rebellious Felton, home to my beautiful swimming hole.

On May 30, the town’s 5,000 residents won a six-year legal battle to retake their water from German multinational corporation RWE, for $7.6 million.

Almost immediately after acquiring a private company called American Water, which had purchased Felton’s water system in 2001, RWE introduced a 74-percent rate hike on Felton. The town decided immediately that this was a drag and banded together by forming Felton FLOW (Friends of Locally Owned Water). Felton FLOW did many things to aid its cause, including getting an attorney and, as hippies will, writing poetry.

The town’s residents, pleased with owning the water in their own community once again, are planning “a big party on the afternoon of Saturday July 26 on the Gushee Street side of the Felton firehouse.”

Water activists in this state, such as Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, who are against numerous provisions in the Great Lakes Compact, have no celebrations planned anytime soon.