Talk:Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Water
SHOULD WE MENTION DESALINATION?
SHOULD WE MENTION TAXATION?
We propose a two-tier severance tax for regions that will provide funding for bio-regions while assuring a conservation measure that will reduce water consumptive use. Large water users need to begin to be appropriately charged for withdrawals that lower the water table.
1. We need strong national and international laws promote conservation, reclaim polluted water systems, develop water-supply restrictions, ban toxic and pesticide dumping, control or ban corporate farming, and bring the rule of law to transnational corporations that pollute water systems. Mining and depleting the present underground aquifers must be severely restricted. We encourage the use of wetlands, improving the utilization of updated technologies in treating water for pharmaceuticals and preventing the introduction of nucleotides, mixed waste, nuclear waste and perchlorate into the surface and ground water. We encourage local municipal support for transitioning local economies away from high-tech industry, military bases and national laboratories that withdraw disproportionate amounts of water and pollute public waterways. We support the highest federal standards for the public water supply and federal funding support for water quality including for the local implementation of the highest possible standard regarding arsenic levels of surface and groundwater.
We demand that the U.S. government pass strong laws with effective enforcement mechanisms to assure a safe and adequate supply of water for its citizens and all life within its borders.
3. New forms of international, bioregional, and community organizations, watershed/ecosystem-based, must be created to monitor and equitably distribute the fresh water necessary for all life on our planet. Decisions about water must be based on an ecosystems approach.
(Version 1) These decisions can be reached and considered appropriate when stakeholders themselves participate in the planning. Such planning processes, that are open and inclusive, need to be given the authority of their respective states to establish plans, using the science available, and the demonstrated values held by stakeholders. We support duly-elected regional water authority boards that represent stakeholders and have stakeholders represented on an advisory board. (Version 2) These decisions can be reached and considered appropriate when stakeholders themselves participate in the planning. Such planning processes, that are open and inclusive, need to be given the authority of their respective states to establish plans, using the science available, and the demonstrated values held by stakeholders.
We support the establishment of small, local water management associations to give local people control over the administration and management of their water. Water can only be managed in a sustainable fashion at the local level. The creation of such institutions would promote democracy and give people the opportunity to acknowledge and accept the responsibility all of us have to manage our water.
Cycles of intense drought and flooding have demonstrated the need to reorient our priorities in order to achieve a truly sustainable water policy. Over-development and poor planning have resulted in increasing rain-impermeable areas, which compounds the severity and frequency of flooding and pollution in regions downstream. We must begin to understand and apply a holistic watershed approach to managing our water resources. The principle of bioregionalism (living within the means of a region’s natural resources) should give direction to future water policies. We recognize the disproportional political influences of the timber, real estate and development industries, and work to support family farms, open space, and preservation of the old growth forests.
- FROM SEPT 2009 WATER PAPER FORM THE GPUS ECOACTION COMMITTEE***
Clean and available water is a critical priority which government can and must secure for all people. The threats to our waters are many, from depleted aquifers, to the pollution of surface waters, to the degradation of oceanic waters that have been treated as international waste dumps. There is no time, and no water, to waste
Greens and Green Party Organizations should:
Work together with our neighbors in making decisions on water issues that recognize the stake that future generations have in those decisions; (Future Focus)
Support the rights of indigenous peoples and other nations to maintain clean, affordable water resources; (Personal and Global Responsibility, Social Justice)
Assure that elected officials who make decisions on water use, pricing and quality represent the community of varied users, water specialists and the environment; (Grassroots Democracy)
Acknowledge the diversity of plant and animal life dependent on long-enduring ecosystems and to recognize the necessity of water systems to all life; (Respect for Diversity)
Prevent the usurpation of public rights through privatization of the water resource by multi-national corporations; (Decentralization)
Prioritize affordable drinking water over industrial uses, recognizing that access to water is basic human right; and to consider the impact of all water policy decisions on poor people, impoverished neighborhoods, rural communities and family farmers; (Social Justice)
Prioritize affordable drinking water over industrial uses, recognizing that access to water is a basic human right; and to consider the impact of all water policy decisions on poor people, impoverished neighborhoods, rural communities and family farmers; (Social Justice)
Support local municipal growth policies in the context of existing water supplies, and to maintain a working relationship between urban economic development and local rural agriculture. (Community-based Economics and Economic Justice)
