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"We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. _________________________________ MOVE to AMEND
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How Limousine Liberals, Water Oligarchs and Even Sean Hannity Are Hijacking Our Water Supply
OPS_admin | Nov 19, 2009 | Comments 1
A group of water oligarchs engineered a disastrous privatization scheme to make a fortune out of California’s most precious natural resource. A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they’ve pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without causing much public outrage. The amount of power and control they wield over California’s most precious resource, water, should shock and frighten us — and it would, if more people were aware of it. But here is the scary thing: They are plotting to gain an even larger share of California’s increasingly-scarce, over-tapped water supply, which will surely lead to shortages, higher prices and untold destruction to California’s environment.
California is in year three of a fairly nasty dry spell. And some very powerful forces are not letting this mini-crisis go to waste, fiercely lobbying Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein, paying off corporate shills like Fox News’ Sean Hannity and capitalizing on people’s fear of drought to push a massive waterworks project that will pump more water, build more dams and keep sucking the state’s rivers dry. The fearmongering schtick goes like this: California is on the brink of a water crisis of cataclysmic proportions, with a life-or-death struggle just around the corner, pitting small farmers who want to save their livelihood against big city elitists who care more about the environment than they do about American jobs. But in reality, this drought hysteria is nothing more than political theatrics, a scare tactic backed by big agribusiness to strong-arm California voters into building a multi-billion dollar system of dams and canals that would not really help small farmers — of which there are very few anyway — but would deliver more water to corporations, subsidize their landholdings, fuel real estate development and enable large-scale water privatization. At its core, it is a war waged for water by California’s megarich on everyone else.
The leader of these recent water privatization efforts in California is a Beverly Hills billionaire named Stewart Resnick. Stewart and his wife, Lynda Resnick, own Roll International Corporation, a private umbrella company that controls the flowers-by-wire company Teleflora, Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful, pesticide manufacturer Suterra and Paramount Agribusiness, the largest farming company in America and the largest pistachio and almond producer in the world. Roll Corp. was ranked #246 on Forbes’ list of America’s largest private companies in 2008 and had an estimated revenue of $1.98 billion in 2007.
Filed Under: Water
California’s water delivery system was built when the state’s population was 16 million and there were no environmental regulations limiting resource exploitation. The population is now 36 million, headed towards 50 million in the next 20 years, and we’re saddled with overlapping, exacting regulations. The water crisis is real. It has removed hundreds of billions of gallons of annual water supply from Southern California and the Central Valley, and it’s causing water rates to skyrocket and is forcing mandatory conservation measures on homes and businesses.
There is no privatization effort. Public agencies operating under “sunshine” laws are leading this effort, led by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. There is no significant private water conveyance system in the state – all are either federally or state owned, i.e., publicly owned. There are no “new dams” in the recently passed legislation – at most one new reservoir, more probably it will be groundwater storage. No rivers will be sucked dry because the entire concept’s success hinges on the successful restoration of the Delta – without that, it won’t be possible under today’s environmental laws to continue to pull water from it. Even then, the plan is to never exceed established withdrawal levels; there is no plan, and no way, to extract more.
There are plenty of small farmers throughout the Central Valley. When was the last time you visited there? I have traveled there and I’ve seen them and talked to them. They are not myth, and they need water if they are to continue to grow YOUR fruits and vegetables.
Resnik is one guy with one large ag operation, but he hardly is some Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. He’s a relatively small player in California water – just another agricultural water user, albeit a big one. Farm operations, while they got a pathway to a more reliable water source in the recent legislation, were powerless to stop provisions requiring monitoring and reporting on groundwater levels, new conservation requirements on farms, and new provisions to prosecute illegal water diversions – so where’s his mighty power? (I am totally with you on Fiji Water though; there is no place for bottled water in our system any more.)
The water crisis is real. The fix is complicated and expensive. Without it, the California economy will crash and crash hard, with very real and very human pain and suffering. To learn more about water follow www (dot) twitter (dot) com (slash) LPAwater.