From HuffingtonPost.com

Why is Harper Selling Canada's Fresh Water Supply to French Companies?

Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians

Posted: 10/18/2013 

Prime Minister Harper has just signed the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and Canadians who care about our freshwater heritage should be deeply concerned for three reasons.

First, the massive increase in beef and pork exports that have been negotiated will put a terrible strain on our water supplies. Beef producers can now export close to 70,000 tonnes of beef to Europe and an undisclosed but higher amount of pork. Meat production is highly water intensive. It takes over 15 million litres of water to produce one tonne of beef, for example.

Already Alberta's dwindling water supplies are over-taxed by a beef industry that is rapidly expanding and expected to double its water footprint by 2025, according to an assessment done before this deal was signed. Intensive hog operations in Manitoba are killing Lake Winnipeg, their waste creating nutrient overload that covers over half the lake in blue green algae. To protect our precious watersheds, what we need is more sustainable and local food production, not massive new trade deals that will strain our water sources beyond their capacity.

Second, this deal will give French companies Suez and Veolia, the two biggest private water operations in the world, access to run our water services for profit. Under a recent edict, the Harper government has tied federal funding of municipal water infrastructure construction or upgrading to privatization of water services. Cash-strapped municipalities can only access federal funds if they adopt a public-private partnership model, and several cities have recently put their water or wastewater services contracts up for private bids. If Suez or Veolia are successful in bidding for these contracts (and under the new deal, local governments cannot favour local bidders) and a future city council decides it wants to move back to a public system, as municipalities are doing all over the world, these corporations will be able to sue for huge compensation. Private water operators charge far higher rates than public operators and cut corners when it comes to source protection. Privatization of water services violates the essential principle that Canada's water is a public trust.

The same "investor-state" clause contained in the Canada-EU deal poses the third threat to Canada's water. The rules essentially say that if a government introduces new environmental, health or safety rules that were not in place when the foreign corporation made its investment, it has the right to compensation, which a domestic corporation does not have. For instance, an American energy company is suing Canada for $250 million in damages using a similar NAFTA rule because Quebec decided to protect its water by placing a moratorium on fracking. Moreover, transnational corporations are now claiming ownership of the actual water they require in their operations. Another American company successfully sued Ottawa for $130 million for the "water rights"; it left behind when it abandoned its pulp and paper operations in Newfoundland, leaving workers without jobs or pensions. The new deal with Europe will give large European corporations similar rights, further eroding the ability of governments to protect our fragile watersheds and ecosystems.

The Harper government has gutted every regulation and law we had in place to protect our freshwater supplies. Now this deregulation is locked in as corporations from Europe as well as the U.S. can soon claim to have invested in an environment without water protection rules and sue any future government that tries to undo the damage.

On a planet running out of clean accessible water, this is a really stupid way to treat our water.

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From WestCoastNativeNews.com

One billion litres of contaminated water into the Athabasca River.

DERRICK ON NOVEMBER 4TH, 2013

The "major failure" of a pit at an Alberta coal mine has released one billion litres of contaminated water into theAthabasca River.

The breach at the Obed Mountain Coal Mine has resulted in murky water entering two tributaries, which carried the refuse into the Athabasca and is now visible in the river in the form of a muddy plume, states the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER.)

"Coal mines typically have a pit where the waste and water - coal dust and water - gather. And that pit, the open pit that contains that mixture, failed," Darin Barter, a spokesperson with AER, told Global Edmonton.

"It's our understanding that the water has entered two tributaries in the Athabasca River."

The pit, which is located approximately 30 kilometres east of Hinton, failed during Halloween, stated the AER.

These kinds of incidents are rare, Barter told the Edmonton Journal, adding he was surprised it happened.

An employee at Sherritt International, which owns the mine, told the Edmonton Journal in anonymity the material in the pit is inert and non-toxic to people and wildlife.

But the province isn't taking chances.

Water samples were taken from the plume and are being analyzed by independent labs and will make those results public as soon as they are available, Robyn Cochrane, Alberta Environment spokesperson, told Global Edmonton.

The leading edge of the plume is slowly dissipating and as of Sunday was located between Whitecourt and Athabasca, the Journal reports.

Investigators don't know the actual length of the plume because aircraft needed to make the assessment were grounded due the weekend's heavy snowfall, added the Journal.

Operation at the mine was suspended last year, due to what's believed to be overwhelming economic and market pressures, and is currently undergoing reclamation.
In contrast to the sediment from the Alberta coal mine spill, there's evidence coal ash slurry from power plant spills is toxic: multiple studies show it contains significant levels of carcinogens such as arsenic, and poses "risks to human health and ecosystems."