The other day I was talking with a close friend who works in the area of land reclamation and lives on a kind of preserve which is surrounded by wildlife preserve.
Their water comes from a stream they have been nurturing (there is a way to coax streams of water back to abundance over time which is what they are doing among other things). Its source is within nearby national forrest area.
He said that not long ago, they were visited by someone working for the U.S. Government who said that Uncle Sam wasn't going to renew the lease which allowed the preserve to get their water from this stream. This was a cause for alarm since it was their only source of water so they queried what this was about.
The official said that the Bush Administration was selling off national forrest water resources to private companies for their exploitation and, as a result, leases were not being renewed.
Acknowledging that this is coming to me on a relay and therefore may contain the usual inaccuracies inherent with information not coming from the source point directly, I thought I would post this discovery here. Personally I like national forrest land and it seem to me to be the last refuge in our country from the inexorable "forward" motion of commercialization and urban sprawl. I grew up visiting national forests and would like my kids to do the same. Further, while I myself drink bottled "spring water", I object to the fact that the government has found it necessary to first pollute our tap water sufficiently to make it undrinkable and, second, must now sell off public land water rights, rather than confront what it would take treat tap water in a way that doesn't make it nearly poisonous.
Links for more info:
I know it sounds frightening but private companies are not always the terrible bad guy in the story.
Private companies are governed by the free enterprise system which you can control by purchasing stock or by consuming according to your beliefs and better yet asking other people to do so as well. In actual fact it is easier to control the outcome of private enterprise than even perhaps the government.
The chances are this is being done to ensure water resources are protected, no destroyed. No private company worth their salt is going to destroy the system that provides clean water - but you can always find out more about it by asking who is involved and what are their purposes.
All I am saying is that you can be causative especially by learning more about he opportunities the free enterprise system offers how you can get get effectively involved to provide clean clear water for drinking bathing and living and helping to sustain those sources by using the resources of the free enterprise system.
Posted by: Tracy Locke | June 18, 2008 at 03:11 AM