Reports

A Practical Guide to Take Back the Tap at Your Next Event and Avoid the Waste, Expense and Environmental Problems with Bottled Water

Americans are consuming more imported fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen and canned produce, and fruit juice than ever before. An examination of U.S. consumption of produce that is commonly eaten as well as grown in America found that over the past 15 years Americans’ consumption of imported fresh fruits and vegetables doubled, but border inspection has not kept pace with rising imports, and less than one percent of the imported produce is inspected by the federal government. Food & Water Watch studied fifty common fruit and vegetable products like fresh apples, frozen broccoli, fresh tomatoes, orange juice and frozen potatoes.

Over the past few years, food safety alerts about dangerous tomatoes, canned chili, peanut butter and beef have made Americans uneasy at the grocery store. Even before this summer’s warning about salmonella-tainted tomatoes and jalapenos, three-quarters of Americans were more concerned about food safety than they were five years ago.

RWE’s short, uneasy U.S. experiment is a cautionary tale for all concerned — water companies, regulators, elected officials and citizens alike. The American Water experience raises the question: Should a resource so essential to life be controlled by multinational, for-profit corporations, or safeguarded by the public with strong local oversight and accountability measures?

Over the last 20 years, the dairy industry has been transformed at all levels, from the cows that produce its raw materials to the cooperatives that secure its prices and the processors that turn milk into finished products for consumers. Massive mega-dairies, whose herds may receive antibiotics and growth hormones to boost production, ship milk across the country to be mechanically separated and resold as everything from ice cream to industrial protein concentrates. Consumers no longer know where their milk comes from — or what is actually in many of the dairy products they consume.

Aqua America is the second largest publicly traded water and wastewater corporation based in the United States. It has pushed its way to the top through a strategy of aggressive acquisitions and drastic rate increases. Aiming to make several dozen acquisitions a year, the company targets smaller systems to avoid a citizenry armed with resources to fight the takeover. And it pursues systems in states that have fast growing populations, corporate friendly regulatory environments and considerable investment needs. Of course, all of this is done with an eye toward its bottom line.

Why Public Funding - Not Privatization - is the Answer for U.S. Water Systems. From maintenance problems in Atlanta and sewage spills in Milwaukee, to corruption in New Orleans and political meddling in Lexington, the recent history of water privatization in the U.S. is marred by underachievement and failure. Faulty Pipes chronicles these stories, explains why privatization has failed, and advocates a national water trust fund as a solution.

The poorest people of Johannesburg, South Africa saw some measure of hope with a judicial reaffirmation of the country’s constitutional right to water in April 2008. However, their fight is not over because the powers arrayed against them have appealed the decision.

The 2008 global food crisis is compromising the survival of 860 million undernourished people and threatens to push a hundred million people into extreme poverty, erasing all of the gains made in eradicating poverty in the last decade. Record high prices have put food out of reach for the poorest people in the developing world, many of whom already spend more than half their income on food. Growing food insecurity is undermining tenuous civil stability in at least 33 countries, about one sixth of United Nations member countries.

Costly Returns: How Corporations Could Profit from Inflating the Already High Cost of Repairing the Nation’s Crumbling Water and Sewer Infrastructure