Cool People Care | World Water Week.

I was doing some preliminary research about water shortages in the areas where food riots have broken out recently. In the US news media, the severe droughts in Africa and Australia have gone on for so long that they rarely make the news except to add color and depth to other stories about food shortages, grain prices, or genocide in the case of Darfur.

In the course of my reading last night I kept coming across one name, over and over. That the person with that name ended up as today’s post. She is the Australian Labor Party’s Senator for South Australia, Penny Wong.

She has been a member of the Australian Senate since 2002 and Ms. Wong is the first openly gay member, and the first Asian-born member, of an Australian cabinet or ministry.

Ms. Wong was born in Sabah, Malaysia to a Malaysian Chinese Hakka father and an Australian mother. She moved to Australia when she was eight and settled in the Adelaide Hills. She won a scholarship to Scotch College and obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Law Degree (with Honors) from the University of Adelaide. She began working for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) while she was still studying and continued working with the union after she was admitted to the Bar. In 1995-1996 she worked as a ministerial advisor to the Carr government in New South Wales, concentrating on forest policy. She later returned to Adelaide to practice law.

Wong ran for the Senate in 2001, and was selected for the top spot on the ALP’s South Australian ticket. She joined the Senate in 2002. Since December of 2007 she’s been Australia’s current and first Minister for Climate Change and Water – a new cabinet position created in 2007.

Its her work in the role of Minister for Climate Change and Water that kept Senator Wong’s quotes and proposals popping up in my research. But it was another statement of hers that caught my attention. She is one of only two openly gay people in Australia’s parliament but she has not allowed her sexuality to act as a distraction while she works for her professional and political goals.

In a written statement to the Sydney Star Observer she said:

“It seems that public figures are becoming more prepared to be open about their sexuality. This demonstrates an increased confidence in the community that people can be openly lesbian or gay and still be successful in their chosen field – a credit to years of advocacy by very brave people. That advocacy has enabled many lesbian and gay public figures to focus on their chosen fields, rather than automatically becoming spokespeople on sexuality issues. I believe this reflects maturity, diversity and strength among the lesbian and gay community.”

Last December, Penny Wong played a central negotiating role for Australia during the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Bali where she co-chaired the Ad-hoc Working Group meeting. Out of that meeting a deal was struck, despite protests from the United States, to cut emissions between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. Although, as usual, the USA refused to agree to binding targets, this agreement effectively put the United States government on notice.

Until December 2007, Australia stood with the US in refusing to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol. That changed when the new Rudd government in Australia followed through on a campaign process to join in the climate framework.

Since her appointment as Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong has spent the first quarter of 2008 working to create a Federal plan to draw the various Australian states together in a unified plan to address water shortages and long term sustainability for both rural farm communities and more urban and suburban communities.

As part of that plan, Wong announced yesterday that next month’s Federal Budget will contain plans to spend just under $13 billion on water projects over the next 10 years. In a major speech she delivered yesterday, titled “Water for the Future“, she addressed the issue of trying to solve Australian water problems this late in the game.

Water reform is not just some abstract policy exercise – and Commonwealth funds will depend on it being realized. Our reform agenda directly impacts on our everyday lives.

• By removing barriers to trade in water, we will allow markets to operate much more effectively in allocating water between competing uses, improving water use efficiency, and delivering water to its highest value uses. These benefits flow right through to the supermarket shelf.
• By ensuring that economic settings work to promote affordable and timely investment in secure water supplies, and ensure that alternative water supplies and water-efficient technologies can compete on a level playing field. This will also provide customers with an appropriate financial reward for their water conservation efforts.
• By improving water security in remote communities, including remote indigenous communities, we are confirming the basic right to drinking water.
• And by making sure our water planners have best available information on available water resources and the likely impacts of climate change, we avoid problems of poor planning, over-allocation and under-investment, and we minimise the likelihood of costly water shortages into the future.

Unfortunately, years of inaction mean this reform has become urgent. Further delay will only make reform more difficult and more costly. As is the case in many areas of reform, the longer we delay, the bigger and more costly the problems become.

You can read this and her other speeches and editorials at Penny Wong – Media releases and Speeches.

Much of the work Wong and the Australian government has done can be used to address problems that are just now getting attention here in the United States. Water rights have long been an issue in the American west and if the recent drought in the South East is any indication, they may be an issue all over the nation before long.

With the collapse of the housing market, many towns and cities will suffer huge shortfalls in funding from property taxes. The lack of money will delay or entirely eliminate water projects all over the country. This long term problem will only be addressed when the US Federal Government recognizes that problems of this nature go beyond state boundaries and that it must step in to provide guidance and structure to ensure that water is available in the future.

We need someone like Penny Wong to head a project like that for the United States. We haven’t had a President or high level Federal official ask Americans to think about their lifestyles and think about where they can conserve and where they can eliminate waste entirely since Jimmy Carter left office. Hopefully our next President won’t continue the delusional idea that Americans can shop their way out of crisis.

 NEW DELHI – A leading environmental research group based here has asked Coca-Cola to consider shutting down a bottling plant in the drought-stricken state of Rajasthan, saying that the plant is depleting scarce water supplies.

Back in 2006, Coca-Cola commissioned a report from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi.    

TERI was formally established in 1974 with the purpose of tackling and dealing with the immense and acute problems that mankind is likely to be faced with in the years ahead

•    on account of the gradual depletion of the earth’s finite energy resources which are largely non-renewable and
•    on account of the existing methods of their use which are polluting

Over the years the Institute has developed a wider interpretation of this core purpose and its application. Consequently, TERI has created an environment that is enabling, dynamic and inspiring for the development of solutions to global problems in the fields of energy, environment and current patterns of development, which are largely unsustainable. The Institute has grown substantially over the years, particularly, since it launched its own research activities and established a base in New Delhi, its registered headquarters.

Now TERI is heavily focused on research into sustainable development.

The report and investigation were commissioned in response to response to reports that pesticide residues had been found in Coke’s products produced in Rajasthan, a state in North West India.  In August of 2006, another Dehli based group, the Center for Science and Environment, disclosed results of tests of eleven Coke and Pepsi products.  Their findings indicated that the product testng revealed pesticide ash high as 24 times the recommended limit.

Coca-Cola has 49 bottling plants in India.  The TERI report looked at six of them.  Their study found no pesticide residue at those six plants and determined that the water used at the plants "generally meets the government regulatory standards."  The study, however, did not stop there.  They went on to highlight  conditions at the Kaladera plant in Rajasthan specifically.   The findings included a statement that the Coke plants ongoing operations in the area "continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around it”.  

TERI’s report recommended that Coke should either find alternative water supplies, relocate or shut down the plant.    Water shortages in Rajasthan have gotten so bad that The Keoladeo National Park, home to the world-famous Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, may lose its world heritage status owning to falling water levels and disappearing migratory birds that are bypassing the region as a result of lower water levels in the man-made Bharatpur Lake.  Ironically, this lake was made from a  depression left after soil was extracted to built the Ajan Dam earthen dam to save the town of Bharatpur in 1760. 

Among major tourist attractions in the area is the Bird Sanctuary where numerous migratory birds, from as far away as Siberia and Central Asia, spend their winters before returning to their breeding grounds.   Lower water levels have resulted in fewer birds wintering over. Members of India’s Parliament have also pointed out that many of the local birds have also started avoiding the park because it has become nearly arid. 

The New York Times reports that Atul Singh, chief executive of Coke’s India division, said the company was not considering shutting the plant.   What struck me about Coke’s response was this quote from Singh:   “The easiest thing would be to shut down, but the solution is not to run away, If we shut down, Rajasthan is still going to have a water problem. We want to work with farming communities and industries to reduce the amount of water used.”

If one looks at this objectively, its clear that Coke’s plant is converting good, clean public water into a sweet beverage that isn’t a tenth as useful to people as the original water.  A report of the Expert Committee on Integrated Development of Water Resources (Link to PDF) in June 2005 points out that India, with 16 per cent of the people but less than 3 per cent of global fresh water resources is in a precarious position in a world that has become increasingly aware of shortage of fresh water.   In India, reliable access fresh water is a particular thorny problem because the fresh water that is available is not spread evenly among regions and fluctuates greatly based on the time of year.  Even in the context of India as a whole, Rajasthan is at a disadvantage.  This large but dry state suffers from a disproportionately poor availability of water when compared to its potential large consumption needs in the form of people, animals and agriculture. 

The population growth in Rajasthan is among the highest in India. Demand for water from new consumers such as industry, tourism and recreation, as well as sanitation and environmental purposes, has been growing fast.  The supply, however, has not grown. The primary source of water in the state comes from the scanty and uncertain rainfall that comes to the region for just two months each year.

Accepted international standards deem countries and regions with per capita annual water supply of 1,000-2,000 cubic meters (cum) as water-stressed. If the supply is under 1,000 cum per person per year, a situation of water scarcity is said to exist. Inadequate water becomes a serious constraint to human well being and economic growth in the event of such scarcity.  In Rajasthan, the available water has already fallen to 809 cum per person per year (in 2005).  That 809 cubic meters is the amount available per person PERIOD.  In gallons, 809 cubic meters comes to 21864 gallons.  To put things in perspective for Americans,  21,864 gallons of water would be enough to produce about eight pounds of beef using the lowest estimation of water used by US agricultural production methods.

The report puts the idea of "natural" water sources being exploited to create a sustainable a solution in perspective with:

Rainfall in large parts of Rajasthan is not only inadequate but also varies sharply from year to year. Consequently, droughts are now almost a normal occurrence. Hardly three or four years of the state’s 52-year existence have been totally drought-free. Most of the rest of the years witnessed large number of districts affected by a paucity of rains. Fluctuations in rainfall influence both surface water and ground water availability.

This is a region where Coca-Cola has put up a plant that uses fresh water to produce cavities and other sugar related problem in a nation with a ballooning diabetes problem.  And this is a region where Coca-Cola’s local chief executive says The easiest thing would be to shut down, but the solution is not to run away, If we shut down, Rajasthan is still going to have a water problem. 

This is not a situation like the droughts that have hit Georgia and other South Eastern US states.  The water problem in Rajasthan will not be solved if people don’t water their lawns or take shorter showers.  They are already importing all the water that they can from neighboring states.  Georgia’s recent drought is something people living down there see as a once in a lifetime event.  In Rajasthan the years with enough rainfall are the ones that stand out in the memories of those old enough to recall them.

In a situation like this, sometimes the answer is to just shut down and walk or run away.  With 48 other plants in India I am sure they can make up the production.   Water that keeps people alive needs to come before a soft drink manufacturers convenience. When people are surviving on less water per year than the Coca-Cola executives back in Atlanta use to water a golf course for a week it is time to step back and recognize that people living in borderline desert regions can’t grow crops on sweet beverages, even if they do have Electrolytes.