[Marxism] FW: Native peoples lead fight against privatization of Lake Michigan water (USA)

["Richard Fidler" <rfidler@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Great Lakes for sale! Michigan's Odawa Indians lead
anti-Nestle fight

by Brian McKenna April 22, 2006

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/3/2006/1935



If water is the oil of the 21st century, then Michigan,
smack dab in the middle of the Great Lakes, is Saudi Arabia.
And after banging their straws at the Big Dipper for years,
Nestle Corporation has finally succeeded in plunging into
the liquid gold.



On February 28th Michigan Governor Granholm signed a bill
that will, for the first time, permit a multinational
corporation to scoop up given amounts of the Great Lakes and
sell bottled water across the world. For the first time in
history the concept of the Great Lakes as a commons for all
to enjoy has been breached. And NAFTA, as we'll see, might
insure a run on the Great Lakes.



The new Michigan law allows Nestle Corporation to continue
its five-year takings of up to 250,000 gallons per day and
sell them at a markup well over 240 times its production
cost. Nestle's profit from drawing this water could be from
$500,000 to $1.8 million per day. A key proviso is that the
bottles can be no larger than 5.7 gallons apiece.



Nestle had been ferociously fighting in court to prevent
Granholm from exercising her veto power against diversion,
but with her acquiescence to the 250,000 limit, Nestle
dropped its suit.



The irony is that most mainstream environmentalists
compromised with Nestle and the Governor. James Clift the
policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC),
a coalition of about 70 environmental organizations, called
the new law, "a huge step forward for Michigan." Not so says
Dave Dempsey, the former Policy Director of MEC. "I think
Nestle is dancing in the streets." Dempsey is author of "On
the Brink, The Great Lakes in the 21st Century."



NAFTA's Trojan Horse



Few Midwesterners are aware that the ubiquitous Nestle
bottled water filling their shopping carts is really the
peoples' water. How could they know? Nestle calls the water
"Ice Mountain," and they adorn their plastic containers with
a majestic snowy Mountain, even though there are no such
places in Michigan, let alone Mecosta County where it draws
the water from four wells 60 miles North of Grand Rapids.



Truth in advertising might require Nestle to label the
bottles, "Your Great Lakes for Sale Plundered at a 24,000%
mark up."



Under NAFTA's Chapter 11 corporations are protected from
differential treatment meaning that Pepsi could line up
next. Once one corporation gets its foot in the door to
extract a resource there are no restrictions on others to do
the same. If barriers were put up against Pepsi, for
example, they could sue Michigan government for a potential
loss of profits.



For years there has been talk about ocean tankers loading up
the Great Lakes water for the Far East, or a pipeline
diverting the bounty to the dry Southwest which has already
mined the Colorado River. Michigan environmentalists
succeeded in stopping those types of water diversion - for
the moment at least - but they failed to stop this Trojan
horse of privatization on the Great Lakes. Nestle came to
Michigan after former Republican Governor Engler enticed
with a sweetheart $10 million deal to create jobs after
Wisconsin's citizens and tribes kicked them out.



Largest gathering of Great Lakes Tribes since 1764



First Nations people are at the forefront in mounting
challenges to Nestle and the nation state sovereigns along
several fronts. Frank Ettawageshik is Chair of the Little
Traverse Bay tribe of Indians. In February, 2002 the tribe
filed suit against Nestle and Governor Engler in federal
court contending the Ice Mountain project violated the 1986
Water Resources Development Act which protected water as a
public trust. It was later dismissed in June 2002, the judge
claiming the tribes had no right to sue.



Ettawageshik fought on, telling audiences he feared, "soon
there will be bus tours of the sunken ships of the Great
Lakes," if this goes forward. He calls the Lakes, "the white
pine of the 21st century," referencing the logging assault
which felled most of Michigan's forests in the nineteenth
century.



Angry that the U.S. and Canadian governments disrespected
the tribes in its 2001 Great Lakes Charter, where tribes
were treated as "stakeholders" not sovereign nations,
Ettawageshik deliberated with other tribes about a response.
After a while he joined John Beaucage, Grand Council Chief
of the Union of Ontario Indians to form a coalition of more
than 140 tribes to sign the historic Tribal and First
Nations Great Lakes Water Accord.



The organization is called the United Indian Nations of he
Great Lakes (UINGL) and it was officially launched in April
2005 in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The location is historically
significant. It was the largest gathering of Great Lakes
native leaders since the Treaty of Niagara in 1764. That
Treaty grew out of he Royal Proclamation of 1763 which
provided all land west of the Ottawa River as Indian land.



Ettawageshik was influenced by the Water Walkers of the
Great Lakes. In 2003 Indian women began journeys around the
Great Lakes carrying a copper bucket full of water. They
want to recall the traditional Anishnabe role of women as
protectors of water, what they call the lifeblood of Mother
Earth. So far they have completed treks around Lakes
Superior, Michigan and Huron. They begin their walk around
Lake Ontario on April 29, departing from Niagara. "We're not
stakeholders but bonafide owners," Bob Goulais, a
spokesperson for the Union of Ontario Indians, told me. "The
Great Lakes are not for sale."



The tribes are supporting Clean Water Action which is
beginning a petition drive to amend Michigan's Constitution
to stop privatization. "Enshrining Great Lakes diversion
protection in the Michigan Constitution may be the best and
the only way, in the end, to keep our waters from being
privatized and sold off to the highest bidders," said CWA's
David Holtz.



Nestle Votes with Its Feet on March 16th



Nestle claims it cares about Great Lakes preservation but it
was a no show on March 16th when Senators Clinton, Obama,
Jeffords, Levin and other dignitaries assembled at the U.S.
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to hear
testimony from Great Lakes Governors for $20 million to
preserve and protect the Lakes. Yellow perch have declined
by 80% in Lake Michigan over past 25 years due to the zebra
mussel. Raw sewage is a huge problem as are exotics like the
sea lamprey which preys on native fish.



"Some of us joked that the Great Lakes should be in pristine
condition for Nestle Waters to ship it out in millions of
little 12 oz. bottles!" said Mary Lindemann, a tribe
spokesperson. No matter, Senator James Inhofe, Republican
from Oklahoma, said that funding for Great Lakes restoration
is unlikely in these tight fiscal times. The nation has
other priorities.



The story was different that day in Mexico City. On March
16th about 10,000 protesters marched outside the Fourth
World Water Forum in Mexico City, some "armed" with wooden
rifles. Water diversions, long water lines and sewage stink
are propelling outrage. Protesters organized an alternative
forum, a few miles away, claiming that the official summit
is a cover for companies that want to privatize water
services.



Nestle was central to the gathering, sponsoring five grade
school students to the official summit. Two were 12-year-old
girls from Wisconsin, which sits in the Great Lakes basin.
They are part of the American Indian Science and Engineering
Society whose work focuses on the use of rice to clean and
filter water. According to Nestle, they "created awareness
about the spiritual and ecological importance of this
traditional Native American plant." Meanwhile Nestle fights
the Great Lakes Indians tooth and nail in Michigan, while
absenting itself from the Senate Meeting that day in D.C.
Nestle, which brought us the infant formula scandal (in
which hundreds of babies died after Nestle persuaded moms to
forego their breasts in favor of the formula which they
mixed with polluted water) has no shame.



Michigan as Tap and Dump



Picture two trucks passing one another at Michigan's border.
One is taking away tons of Michigan's fresh water while the
other is bringing in tons of Canadian garbage.



That's the reality.



As the estimated 190,000 diesel powered Nestle trucks ship
out Michigan water every year, another 295,000 dump trucks
enter, bearing Canadian trash. In fiscal year 2005 the 11.5
million cubic yards of Canadian mess was equivalent to a
trail of bumper to bumper trucks stretching 1,233 miles
long, each with 40 cubic yards of waste. Thanks to NAFTA,
Michigan governments cannot stem the tide, as privatized
landfills make enormous profits from the commodities in
circulation, against citizen outrage. Michigan's soil and
water are available to capital at bargain basement prices.
Meanwhile the polluted air from all the trucks wafts over
the Mitt, just another social cost shouldered by the lungs
of Michigan's citizens.



In short, the Wolverine state is now host to a neoliberal
orgy of environmental profiteering and pollution.



Tribes represent a counterculture to neoliberalism, putting
forth a public politics that underscores a collective
responsibility to resist capital encroachments.



Michigan Governor Granholm herself called the tribes
"Michigan's original environmentalists," when she signed an
Intergovernmental Accord with them in May 2004. But she
didn't listen closely enough when the tribes told her that
"Preserving the environmental quality and quantity of Great
Lakes water resources for the present and for the next seven
generations is absolutely essential to the Tribes."



Indians are at the forefront of establishing an
anti-corporate discourse and movement. They were at the fore
in Bolivia against Bechtel, on the march against
multinationals in Mexico City, and are now are at the lead
in the Great Lakes. But mainstream environmentalists
typically resemble the nation's Democrats willing to
accommodate and concede, rather than stand their ground.



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