Small Town Community Life and the Water Barons
by Jim Wilfong
I worked in Washington, DC for President Clinton as an Assistant Trade Secretary. I worked on trade issues for the Bi-National Commissions. Whenever I was sent to the developing world, I had a national security section in my briefing book covering the lack of drinkable water. It made me think about my home state of Maine and how lucky we are to have such clean and abundant water. However, clean water is not free.
Since 1970, Maine people have invested many billions of dollars, publically and privately, to have a clean, livable environment. Much of that investment has been made in cleaning up and protecting Maine's fresh water. Potable water is plentiful in Maine. It is our most important resource. After all, water is life.
I was raised in a rural farming community in Western Maine. I went to a one-room eight grade school and we knew everyone for miles around and there was a high degree of trust between us. It was a quiet but full life for a rural farm child. We were not wealthy but we were rich in community. Even if you didn't have lots of money at least you were safe, lived in a clean environment and swam in clean water. For most Mainers that was more than enough. Those were the days before water sold for more than gasoline or wine and beer. Those were the days before the water barons arrived. Before greed set in and without so much as a thank you to Maine communities they took our water and changed our way of life.
Our particular community is located over a small ocean of trapped glacial water. A very fortunate thing until folks in the cities and the suburbs thought it was cool to consume bottle water. Now we have the worlds largest bottle water company, Nestle, "fowling" our nest. Here is how and what the large multi-national water barons do:
- They slide into your community and your state long before you realize they have arrived. They immediately begin to undermine and contaminate the political process. Spreading money around and co-opting your public officials.
- When there is a water problem they make sure they get their water first. The citizens come second and need to know their place; after all, the Baron is providing jobs for the locals.
- They will drive through your neighborhoods hauling water 24/7 interrupting the peace and quiet.
- They hide behind their contributions to environmental groups and pretend to be great "stewards" of the resource.
- They pursue a divide and conquer strategy in the local community causing political fights and mistrust in a formerly close small town.
- The barons stake out claims on large aquifers with the idea of long-term benefits and profits at the expense of the communal ecology.
- The barons suck up all the tax breaks that they can as they rumble out of town with your water. All nice and legal of course!
The water giants have done all of this and more in Maine. Our own leaders have aided them. They have little sympathy or interest in our commitment to our way of life. They think, eventually we will give in to them and quit but I know we won't give up without a fight. I take strength from Senator Robert Kennedy who in 1966 delivered an inspiring speech before a group of young students in Cape Town, South Africa, to whom he encouraged; "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of resistance." We will not give up without a fight!
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by Jane Houlihan
