Water Rights Activists Blast Istanbul World Water Forum as “Corporate Trade Show to Promote Privatization”

Sunday was World Water Day and marked the close of a week-long gathering held in Istanbul, Turkey to discuss water policy at a time when over a billion people lack access to clean water and 2.5 billion people lack water for proper sanitation. Activists from the People’s Water Forum, an alternative formation representing the rural poor, the environment and organized labor, slammed the official event as a non-inclusive, corporate-driven fraud pushing for water privatization and called for a more open, democratic and transparent forum...

Speak out to ban unregulated imported swordfish

The Marine Mammal Protection Act bans fish imported from foreign countries whose fishing practices harm and kill more marine mammals than allowed by U.S. standards, but the law is not being enforced. Urge the National Marine Fisheries Service to ban imported swordfish until foreign fishing vessels employ the same measures to protect marine wildlife that are required of U.S. fishermen.

Take Action Now: http://www.nrdc.org/action/

Setting Annual Catch Limits for U.S. Fisheries: An Expert Working Group Report, 2007

Solutions to Overfishing; we'd like to keep eating!

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=30769&category=150&WT.srch&source=google

Stop Palin's Attack On Beluga Whales

Center for Biological Diversity

Governor Sarah Palin won't give wildlife a break. Last week, she announced the state of Alaska will sue to strike down Endangered Species Act protection for the imperiled Cook Inlet beluga whale. This rare white whale's population has already plummeted from thousands to just 375 in the last two decades. They will certainly go extinct if Palin has her way.

Our lawyers and scientists are already in court to block Palin's anti-polar bear actions, and we'll soon jump in to save the beluga from her reckless campaign to promote oil & gas interests. But we also need to build a groundswell of public support. Please help us now to protect beluga whales by sending a letter asking the Obama administration to oppose Palin's lawsuit.

Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants

Bottled water contains disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication
October 2008



Authors: Olga Naidenko, PhD, Senior Scientist; Nneka Leiba, MPH, Researcher; Renee Sharp, MS, Senior Scientist; Jane Houlihan, MSCE, Vice President for Research

The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket's Acadia brands, at levels no different than routinely found in tap water. Several Sam's Choice samples purchased in California exceeded legal limits for bottled water contaminants in that state. Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Instead, the industry hides behind the claim that bottled water is held to the same safety standards as tap water. But with promotional campaigns saturated with images of mountain springs, and prices 1,900 times the price of tap water, consumers are clearly led to believe that they are buying a product that has been purified to a level beyond the water that comes out of the garden hose.

To the contrary, our tests strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted. Given the industry's refusal to make available data to support their claims of superiority, consumer confidence in the purity of bottled water is simply not justified.

Laboratory tests conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories found that 10 popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in 9 states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand. More than one-third of the chemicals found are not regulated in bottled water. In the Sam's Choice and Acadia brands levels of some chemicals exceeded legal limits in California as well as industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria...