Sludge Watch ==> Canada Needs Water Policy - US & Mexico thirsty for Canada's resources

[Maureen Reilly]

Climate change, severe weather and drought have thirsty nations scouting for 
potential water supplies. With all eyes on Canada, perhaps it's time to 
review the nation's water policy. Unfortunately, we don't have one





The Ottawa Citizen
Sun 06 May 2007
Page: B6
Section: The Citizen's Weekly
Byline: Chris Cobb
Source: The Ottawa Citizen

Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. 
Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle 
close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when 
there is too much of it. People journey down it, people write, sing and 
dance about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every 
day, need it.'

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Green Cross International and former 
president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Water is fast becoming the new oil.

Scientists and environmentalists have long debated the waste and want of the 
world's natural water supply, but now the issue is flooding the public and 
political agenda:

- In January, the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change warned of 
spreading drought in the southern hemisphere and increased but unpredictable 
precipitation in such northern countries as Canada.

- In mid-April, another UN report warned that climate change will make arid 
regions of the world increasingly desperate.

Droughts threaten underground supplies, explains report editor Michael 
MacCracken. "During droughts like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, U.S. farmers 
pumped water from underground aquifers to save their fields through 
irrigation," he said. (An aquifer is an underground layer of rock or sand 
that can hold massive quantities of water.) "Much of that water is now gone. 
We've used up our savings bank."

- In another report issued last month, a prominent group of retired U.S. 
military leaders warned that water shortages will increase mass hunger, mass 
human migration and disease, while instigating wars similar to those in the 
impoverished African nations of Sudan and Chad.

"It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and 
instability, or climate change and terrorism," wrote Gen. Anthony (Tony) 
Zinni, President George W. Bush's former Middle East envoy.

- In Canada, a nation blessed with more natural water than most, the debate 
had a rare public airing last week when it reached an all-party House of 
Commons committee. The issue -- as politicians well know -- riles Canadians 
like no other: The export of Canadian water in bulk to the United States and 
Mexico -- or anywhere, for that matter.

Canada sells electricity and oil to the United States and exports bottled 
water, but it doesn't sell water in bulk -- exporting it elsewhere by tanker 
or pipeline, for example.

It's a complicated issue made more so by the widely held mythology that 
Canada boasts infinite supplies of fresh water. It doesn't.

"Politicians misquote the facts and say we have more water than anywhere in 
the world," says University of Victoria geography professor Stephen 
Lonergan. "It is simply not the case. The renewable supply is not as great 
as people think it is. We have ample supply in certain parts of the country, 
at certain times of the year.

"So water falls often in places where we don't need it ... and at times of 
year when we don't need it ... or where we have no storage facilities."

It is estimated that Canada boasts seven per cent of the world's supply of 
renewable fresh water -- natural water supplies above and underground 
replenished by precipitation. There's never been a comprehensive inventory. 
We only count what we know we've got.

Still, nature provides well for Canada and when it comes to water supply, 
the country places a joint third with China behind Amazon-rich Brazil and 
second-place Russia. The U.S., with 6.4 per cent, is fifth and slightly 
behind Indonesia at 6.5.

And yet more than one billion people on Earth do not have access to clean 
drinking water and more than 2.9 billion are without access to sanitation 
services. It's a massive problem that at least in part is being solved by 
the transportation of water.

n

Yet Canada doesn't have a national water policy and now some observers fear 
the U.S. and Mexico will soon be knocking. Canada's water is publicly owned 
but administered by the provinces. The Harper government says it has no 
intention of exporting bulk water, and yet there is no legislation to 
prevent a province from undercutting that pledge.

The whirling arguments are familiar to University of British Columbia 
forestry professor Peter Pearse. More than 20 years ago, he was one of three 
federally sponsored water experts to spend 22 months and $1.5 million on 
cross-country public hearings devoted to the issue. In the end, the men 
issued a report that urged the government to come to grips with Canada's 
ill-managed fresh water supply.

"People were talking about Canada being on the verge of a water crisis," 
recalls Pearse. "Canada has built more dams and diversions than any other 
country in the world. There was talk about more new megaprojects that would 
involve diverting water from Alberta and British Columbia to the United 
States. So there were huge environmental and political concerns, especially 
around maintaining our strategic position vis-a-vis the United States."

One of the wilder schemes at the time was a plan to transport water by 
tanker to the Middle East. Another bizarre notion called for towing icebergs 
from the North.

(A little-known fact: Canada does export water -- by pipe -- from Great 
Vancouver to Point Roberts, a peninsula of Washington state inaccessible by 
land from the U.S., and to Sweetgrass, Montana, from Coutts, Alta. "It's a 
little neighbourly thing to do," says Pearse. "Obviously the water export 
schemes being discussed at the time were much larger and of great strategic 
significance.")

The 1985 report urged the federal government and the provinces to create a 
national water policy that would anticipate foreign demand for bulk exports 
of Canadian water while considering the complex environmental and ecological 
ramifications of shifting water from one place to another.

Then-Conservative Environment Minister Tom McMillan welcomed the findings 
with enthusiasm and without reservation. "Canadians are paying a high price 
as a country for that neglect," he said.

And then? Nothing.

The government lost interest and in 1990, apparently on the whim of senior 
bureaucrats, the Department of Environment scrapped the Inland Water 
Directorate that was devoted to federal water regulations.

Pearse says he is still mystified that the government suddenly lost 
interest. "Nobody in Ottawa knows where water is any more," he says. "I 
guess governments and priorities change."

n

Water has ebbed and flowed on the agenda for more than a century and is just 
now resurfacing.

Federal responsibility over water currently involves combating pollution, 
overseeing fisheries, navigation and water on federal lands, including water 
supply on some native lands. The provinces hold power over most water in 
Canada, but the federal government has jurisdiction over treaties and 
disputes over rivers and lakes that straddle international and national 
boundaries.

Twenty years after the Currents of Change report, the U.S. and Canada 
continue to forge closer trade and security agreements. The only difference 
now is that Earth -- and by extension, water -- is threatened by climate 
change.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest the U.S. views Canada's water supply 
as a solution to future shortages, say many observers including the Council 
of Canadians, a left-wing citizens' group, plus the federal NDP and Green 
Party.

The groups have a surprising ally in the Conference Board of Canada. The 
business-oriented think-tank recently called on Canada to ban bulk water 
sales before they begin.

"Across North America, the answer to water scarcity is not trade, but better 
water governance and management," said Gilles Rheaume, the board's 
vice-president of public policy. "Canada's fresh water resources are less 
available than we think."

The Conference Board wants Canada to put a price on water, which it says 
will stop wasteful and water-complacent Canadians from using far more than 
they need.

Unlike gas or electricity, Canadian consumers do not pay for the water they 
use, but rather they are charged for the cost of treating and delivering the 
water. Barely half of the country has metered delivery. Canadian industry 
pays nominal amounts, nothing close to the cost of the vast amounts of water 
it uses.

With a handful of exceptions, drinking water and wastewater in Canada is 
publicly managed by municipalities and overseen by provinces. The few 
provinces without water management and treatment policies at the time of the 
Walkerton tragedy seven years ago have them now.

Council of Canadians chairwoman Maude Barlow likes the idea of pricing water 
but worries that doing so will be the thin edge of a wedge that under U.S. 
pressure will lead to bulk water sales.

n

Most water used in Canada is consumed by agriculture and industry; 
households consume around 10 per cent. We cherish water in an almost 
spiritual way, but like all humans with an apparent abundance, we take it 
for granted -- at least until it poisons us, as it did in Walkerton, or 
until it disappears, as farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan well know.

But perhaps we should no longer assume it will always be there. To 
understand why, a short lesson on Las Vegas is useful. About 1.8 million 
people live in greater Las Vegas -- 600,000 of them in the city core. Six 
thousand more arrive every month, attracted by plentiful jobs, low taxes and 
scorching sunshine. The people of Las Vegas, annual rainfall 10 centimetres, 
consume about 870 litres of water per capita each day, which makes them 
North America's top water guzzlers.

At least 70 per cent of residential water is used to irrigate lawns, fill 
pools and wash cars. Housing and hotel developers want more water to 
accommodate the bulging population and the 40 million-plus visitors who come 
to play each year.

Some developers have lamented that Vegas -- with 60 golf courses in the 
region -- is seriously "undergolfed." Since 1999, Las Vegas has paid 
residents $2 a square foot to dig up their lawns and surround their houses 
with "drought tolerant" plants and "water smart" landscaping. The initial 
response was promising but interest has waned. None of this would matter if 
Las Vegas, an entertainment centre in the desert, had any water of its own. 
But it doesn't.

Sin City is one of the more egregious examples of what water 
conservationists, environmentalists and political activists call 
unsustainable water consumption. In simple terms, they are sucking up finite 
supplies of water -- in the Vegas case sharing the Colorado River with six 
other states and drawing the rest (12 per cent of its annual consumption) 
from groundwater.

People in dozens of cities and towns in Nevada and Arizona have been living 
in a drought region for several years. And although California is the 
world's innovator in water conservation and re-use, it too might also be 
looking for new water supplies within 10 or 20 years.

Canadian water activists such as Maude Barlow and Green Party Leader 
Elizabeth May fear the United States and Mexico, and even other thirsty 
southern nations, view Canada as a potential supplier.

In many parts of the world, water is a commodity sold and transported by 
profit-making corporations across international borders, either by container 
ships or pipeline. The dilemma for Canada and Canadians, say Barlow and her 
allies, is this: Do we privatize water management, fix a price and trade and 
transport it elsewhere to irrigate the lawns of Las Vegas or to grow crops? 
Or do we keep it exclusively under public ownership with strict, 
non-commercial rules of sharing?

Aware of our deep attachment to water, politicians of all stripes 
deliberately ignore the subject or do their dealings out of the public eye.

Water is not specifically part of the North American Free Trade Agreement 
(NAFTA). Because it was not excluded or included as a tradable commodity, 
international law experts argue over whether the U.S. or Mexico could use 
NAFTA to claim Canadian water.

There is deep suspicion at the Council of Canadians and among the NDP and 
Greens that water is part of the hidden agenda of the Security and 
Prosperity Partnership (SPP) -- the so-called Three Amigos Accord signed 
more than two years ago in Waco, Texas, by leaders Paul Martin, George W. 
Bush and Vicente Fox.

Last week, the NDP succeeded in getting the first open discussion of the 
accord at an all-party House of Commons committee. NDP Trade critic Peter 
Julian, who pushed to get bulk water exports on the agenda, says the 
discussion was just a start.

"We must have a debate in this country," agrees Barlow who is the co-author 
of Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water and is 
now at work on a second book on the subject.

"What's the right thing to do in sharing our water? Do we hand it over to 
corporations? Polls show that the vast majority of Canadians believe our 
water is a public trust and should be left here and not commercialized.

"If we start exporting water for commercial purposes," she adds, "it will go 
to the places that can afford to buy it and not the places that need it. It 
will go to allow Americans to be horrible water guzzlers, have their 
million-plus swimming pools in California, water their golf courses and have 
their Las Vegas-type cities in the desert.

"If you're really helping people in need, that's different. But if you're 
helping sustain a way of life that is not sustainable, I deeply disagree 
with it."

In other parts of the world, especially in the Middle and Far East, there is 
a brisk business in water, both within and outside national boundaries.

"There is a lot of hesitation about trading water because its ritual 
purities exempt it to a certain extent from the market," explains Stephen 
Lonergan, an international expert in water trading.

"There is an African saying I like: 'We don't go to water ponds merely to 
capture water, but because friends and dreams are there to meet us.' Water 
is a social phenomenon and giving up our water is giving up our sovereignty 
and our livelihood."

Lonergan notes that Turkey is sending tanker water to Cyprus and Israel. "It 
is economically feasible now if distances aren't too great. But as the price 
of water increases, its transportation over longer distances becomes more 
economically viable. All of this will continue to add pressure on Canada to 
share its water supply, but there will continue to be resistance against it 
in this country even though it could generate huge amounts of money."

Mexico is also a significant player, says Tim Downs, an environmental and 
water specialist at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. "I don't 
think it's an exaggeration to say the U.S is running out of water," says 
Downs. "Piping water from Canada would definitely be on my list, but the 
competition for water along the Mexico-U.S. border is also huge.

"Because of NAFTA, there has been a rapid growth in population and in 
industrial production along the border," says Downs. "Groundwater in that 
region is being depleted but more people are being attracted there because 
of economic growth. In some places population growth is four per cent a 
year, which suggests a doubling of the population in less than 20 years.

"Water is interwoven into Canada's culture," he adds, "but if the price is 
right, I can envisage a scenario where people could be encouraged to export 
a portion of their water."

Retired public servant Frank Quinn, who was research director for the 
Currents of Change team, still favours fixing a price on water as a 
conservation measure but is optimistic bulk exports won't happen.

It's logical, he suggests, that before approaching Canada, the United States 
will bring water down from Alaska which, according to the U.S. Geological 
Survey, holds one-third of all available U.S. water and is the only 
jurisdiction in North America that allows sales of its bulk water.

"Alaska would be happy to do that," he says, "but it won't be free."

Quinn also expects the U.S. to make significant conservation strides before 
it seriously contemplates importing from Canada -- an expensive uphill 
journey all the way for pipelines.

David Feldman, who heads the political science department at the University 
of Tennessee, says no country can say "never" when it comes to selling a 
portion of its natural resources.

"When you have a transboundary resource," he adds, "you can say adamantly 
that you won't sell or mortgage your national resources, but if climate 
changes, and the value of the resource increases with demand, some political 
groups might be willing to sell.

"People have to talk about this openly now so they don't get blindsided by 
rushed, shortsighted decisions."

Feldman says that in principal he has no problem with the United States 
buying Canadian water under two conditions:

1. There are protections for people who may not be able to afford to buy it.

2. The water isn't used for unsustainable lifestyles.

"So it's not inherently bad to have markets to buy, sell, trade water," he 
says, "but we have to have ways of protecting both the resources and those 
who are less well off. There will be demands among some groups in the U.S. 
to sustain the same level of water use that we have now and increasingly 
they will look covetously towards Canada and say, 'You have water and we 
don't, so here's the deal,'" Lonergan agrees.

"I don't mind the transfer of resources like water," he says, "but I don't 
like to see it go to support unsustainable activity. There is no way, for 
instance, that a million people should be living in Las Vegas."