The Wellington Water Watchers celebrated
not just a year of existence, but a year of triumph last Tuesday night as
members gathered at Norfolk United Church for the group’s first AGM. The WWW started making waves last summer
(pun intended) by coming out strong against the Aberfoyle Nestle Bottled Water
plant’s application for a five-year renewal of their contract.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of the
Environment announced that they would only be renewing Nestle’s contract for only
two-years and part of the new contract is the requirement for better monitoring
of the Mill Creek, from which Nestle pulls it water. As well, the Ontario government
is considering making the Galt-Paris moraine protected land. “We’ve had some
real successes and we have some really ambitious plans too,” WWW Board member
James Gordon told the crowd.
Amongst WWW’s ambitious plans is to expand
its “Klean Kanteen” program. The stainless steel canteen is free to everyone
when they buy a membership in the WWW, which includes over 750 Guelph and area residents.
But now, the group is looking at putting their canteens into the hands of every
kid in the county as part of an overall campaign to promote tap water over
bottled.
Two other components of the plan are
“Emergency Use Only” and “L’Eau Municipal.” The former is a guerrilla promotion
gimmick wherein WWW is encouraging members to really enforce the idea of
bottled water being reserved for emergency purposes; bottled water being of
primary importance in situations where the tap water’s been compromised. The
second part, “L’Eau Municipal,” will be a campaign working with local
restaurants to push the serving of tap water over bottled in their establishment.
Basically, the group is going to throw
their focus on reversing the trend, pervasive in this generation, that carrying
around and drinking water out of a plastic bottle is cool. Beyond that, the
notion that bottled water is cleaner and safer than what comes out of the tap
is a popular myth that WWW wants to dispel. One member held up a plastic water
bottle and said that he considers the contents “plastic water” and reinforced
the toxic effects these bottles have on our environment.
The evening was rounded out with a speech
by activist, author and Blue Planet co-founder Maude Barlow, who had high
praise for the group she calls part of a growing movement of “water warriors” and
that WWW is an example she cites in her speeches worldwide. She reinforced the
need to protect water from encroaching elements who want to see its
commoditization, particularly NAFTA. Barlow’s speech was followed by a
screening of the new documentary FLOW: For the Love Of Water.
Greens got a plan
Following-up to my interview with Elizabeth May in
last week’s Echo, here are some details of the Green meeting at Guelph
Youth Music Centre on May 26. The main point of the event was a
kind of rally to garner local support and get May into the next televised
leaders debate in the eventual Federal election.
Drawing on history, May hopes that if
Guelph Green candidate Mike Nagy were to make it to the House of Commons via a
by-election, than a sitting Green MP would force the hand of all those keeping
May out of the debate. The same strategy worked for Preston Manning when, as Reform
leader, he was invited to the 1993 debates after Deborah Grey was seated in a
by-election in Alberta.
May also spent the day canvassing in Guelph
neighbourhoods along with Nagy and former Green leader Jim Harris. Harris
remains a consultant for the Green Party and participated in the event by
enthusiastically getting members to commit to 40 hours of campaigning for Nagy
when the writ is dropped.
Still no sign of that happening though.
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