Clean water a basic human right
To the editor:
I would like to first share some information from the Bangor Daily News Op-Ed of Jan. 30, 2014, page A7.
Susan Davis of Liberty, Maine, is a biologist and former Maine Department of Environmental Protection water quality standards coordinator. Susan wrote in her Op-Ed, “By Maine DEP’s own admission, even with extreme vigilance, metallic mineral mining will contaminate ground and surface waters of Maine. That’s why the mining rules just finalized make such astonishing allowances for decades-to-generations of waste treatment before water quality standards must be met.” She also said about Maine mining laws recently submitted to the Maine Legislature, “Substantive changes omit citizen groups from voicing their concerns.” She went on to say, “Mining rules will not be submitted (as in the past) to the U.S. EPA. For federal review compliance with Clean Water Act requirements for water quality standards.” Susan concludes saying, “These rules and the laws that spawned them risk a corruption of all that is best about our state. They should be rejected by the Legislature.”
Here in Aroostook County we are lucky to have clean water, fish, wildlife and a beautiful environment. In the west in Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and California, there are 40 million people who get their water from the 1,450-mile Colorado River. They have had a 14-year drought, nearly unrivaled in 1,250 years, according to the New York Times, Jan. 6, 2014, page A1. Next year, they may ration the Colorado River water to these people. Perhaps some of these people might choose to move their businesses and families to northern Maine, if we protect our groundwater and environment.
Author Cynthia Barnett wrote in Orion magazine, July-August, 2013, “On both sides of the 100th meridian, that divides the moist East from the arid West, the communities that have most dramatically changed their water futures have done so by expanding the work of water conservation to all people. Water management in the 21st century requires a sort of democratization.”
In Sojourners magazine, Nov. 2013, authors Maude Barlow and Wenoah Hauter wrote, “It’s time for an integral, holistic natural water policy, including the establishment of a Federal Water Trust Fund. Instead, we face the cannibalization of our public utilities private corporations … Because water is fundamental to life and human dignity, the United Nations has recognized access to safe water and sanitation as a basic human right. Involving private enterprises in water operations can conflict with the human right to water. It is up to the consumer groups, civil society and faith communities to stop corporate takeover of public water systems established for the common good to ensure universal access to safe water.”
Please voice your concerns to your Maine State Representative and Senator on behalf of us all, future generations and our northern Maine environment. Ask them to vote to strengthen our mining laws with oversight by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and citizen input.
Carol McKnight
Presque Isle
