by Rick Scharf
The proposal by the Montpelier Springs Water Company to use the public right-of-ways to take public water for private gain has generated a lot of questions. How many gallons will be withdrawn? Where will the pipes run? What will be the environmental impact? How will this affect the watershed? And while debate has begun and the answers to these questions speculated upon, the most important questions are yet to be addressed. Who owns the water? Does anyone have the right to sell it? Who will make the decisions that will dictate the future of this common resource? How will those decisions be made?

Corporations like Nestle (Poland Spring), Coca-Cola (Dasani) and PepsiCo. (Aquafina) continue to tap groundwater and municipal water supplies to expand water bottling operations. Citizens face a dual threat as lesser known European corporations like Veolia, Suez and RWE are focused on ownership of municipal water distribution systems. The corporatization of water and the water scarcity that private ownership has created have become the subject of intense debate and public outrage.

In 1998, as a condition of securing World Bank loans, the Bolivian government agreed to turn the public water system of one of its largest cities, Cochabamba, over to the Bechtel Corporation. Citizens suddenly found themselves unable to afford to buy water and were even legally prevented from collecting the rainwater that fell on their roofs. Those who claimed the right to sell the public water and those who claimed the right to own it ushered in this deal without the input of the citizens who would be affected. The laws, as defined by international trade agreements, made this taking of the commons completely legal. When tens of thousands of people hit the streets to demand that their water return to public hands, the Bolivian government was forced to cancel the contract with Bechtel. The same international laws seem poised to force the Bolivian people to pay Bechtel $40 million for lost future profits.

I use the example of Cochabamba to illustrate a fundamental point: privatization of public resources occurs when decisions are made in an undemocratic fashion and when the law favors the “right” of corporations to profit over and above the right of communities to preserve their resources. It becomes a question less about water than about control. Here in Vermont, we must ask, Who will decide the future of our water and how will those decisions be made?

Steve Kerr, project manager of Montpelier Springs Water Company and former Vermont Secretary of Agriculture, commented that, “No matter how much you follow the rules, there are people that are going to throw a wrench into the gears.” The rules, which he is happy to follow, work very much in his favor. They consist of regulatory laws that very narrowly frame the coming debate and jurisdictional boundaries that place decision-making authority in the hands of a few.

Under regulatory law, the authority to approve this project lies with a handful of appointees to the Agency of Natural Resources and the District Environmental Commission. Their permit approval proceedings are framed to regulate the quantity of withdrawal and mitigate environmental damage but not to address the fundamental question of whether MSWC has any right to take public water for private gain. Citizen input on the project will be limited to addressing narrow questions of how the project will proceed rather than whether it should proceed at all. When framed in this way, it is no surprise that 98% of permits are granted.

In a democracy, jurisdiction over a project of this fundamental importance should instead reside directly with the citizens of Montpelier and East Montpelier whose access to water will be put at risk. At very least, their elected representatives on the City Council and Select Board should decide whether this project serves their long-term interests after an open and extensive public debate. Mayor Hooper’s comment at the May 23rd City Council meeting highlights this fundamental flaw, “the use of water resources and the removal of water out of one watershed and putting it somewhere else is a huge issue. But, we don’t have jurisdiction over that.”

Recent developments in New Hampshire demonstrate where attempting to regulate corporate water withdrawal will lead. In May of 2001, USA Springs Inc. filed a permit to withdraw over 400,000 gallons per/day from the aquifer shared by the towns of Barrington and Nottingham, NH. The citizens organized and were successful in having the permit rejected twice only to see it come back a third time in 2004 and be granted. They challenged it in the NH Supreme Court and lost. Despite the fact that groundwater had been declared in public trust, the court ruled that USA Springs’ “need” for the water trumped the desire of the towns and its citizens to maintain their common resource sustainably for the benefit of all.

The citizens in neighboring Barnstead, NH watched this unfold and recognized that their water would be no more protected by traditional methods of organizing. They took a different approach, which began with the belief that, as citizens in a democracy, they were the governing authority and that an issue as fundamental as their water supply is too important not to make democratically. The end result of their 2-year campaign was the Barnstead Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance, which prohibits corporate water withdrawal for use or sale outside of the town. It was overwhelmingly voted into law at town meeting in 2006 and remains unchallenged to this day.

This significant action by the brave and empowered citizens of Barnstead has gotten the attention of communities nationwide and provides an effective model of real groundwater protection. Similarly, the way this story plays out in Montpelier and East Montpelier will be watched closely, setting the precedent for future water withdrawal projects by the major bottling operations here in Vermont. In the end, it is not about Montpelier Springs Water Company and it’s not even really about water. It is about democracy and the right of the people to decide.

Rick Scharf is the co-founder of The Vermont Alliance for Locally Initiated Democracy. VALID is committed to helping the citizens of Montpelier and East Montpelier decide the future of their water democratically rather than through the regulatory process. Interested citizens are encouraged to attend an informative organizational meeting on Tuesday, July 10th at 6 pm at the Kellogg-Hubbard library.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 4:43 am and is filed under News, Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.