Editorial: Big River Issues Can Also Be Hazardous Diversions

Big controversial river issues like the Upper Mississippi/Illinois rivers proposals and Missouri River water wars divert our attention, sometimes, from less visible environmental issues that may have a huge impact.

One example of such issues would be international efforts to control the distribution of drinking water. Worldwide efforts are reportedly underway by the United Nations, as a result of a two-day Alternative World Water Forum held in Geneva, to gain global control of water resources.

According to The Illinois Leader, “The United Nations will launch its global campaign called ‘Water for Life’ as a result of [the] two-day Alternative World Water Forum.” A global water parliament is expected to hold its first meeting in Brussels next year and would establish the rules to assure the equitable distribution of the vital resource, a report from the Geneva forum indicates.

According to Joyce Morrison of southern Illinois, a nationally recognized advocate for property rights, “A one-cent tax on water, worldwide, has been introduced at the Alternative World Water Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. A plan has been devised to equalize the global distribution of water.”

But closer to home, Morrison says that near the end of the legislative session last year the Missouri Legislature passed HB 1433, a bill “opening the door for metering private wells. It came in the form of a sewage proposal, establishing a watershed in a nine-county jurisdiction.” She said, “Legislators contend they were not given the full bill, where it spoke of ‘volume monitoring’ when they voted. Actions are underway to repeal this bill in full.”

According to Henry Lamb, executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International, the legislators were told … “that they would be helping to protect clean water in a nine-county area.” He said the plan is generically known as “ecosystem management” and it is designed to manage natural resources on an ecosystem basis, rather than on the basis of arbitrarily drawn state and county political boundaries. It transfers authority from elected officials to appointed officials. Ten years ago attempts were made to impose the entire ecosystem management plan on the same area by creating a U.N. Biosphere Reserve for Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. The plan failed because it would diminish private property rights and transfer author to professional bureaucrats. Efforts are now being made to repeal HB 1433. (We remember this attempt.)

Elsewhere, Minnesota legislators are considering HF-0826 (Clean Water Legacy Act) that would establish a 10-year program to evaluate the quality of Minnesota’s surface water. The Act calls for this evaluation (known as TMDL) on any land that contains water, including vernal pools as in the wetlands law. Opponents say the plan calls for citizen monitors “to crawl around everyone’s property looking for impaired waters—defined as any body of water that has pollution levels above the natural background. Natural background means “the natural level existing before the Industrial Revolution.”

The Act establishes $75 million in taxes annually on households ($36 per) and industries ($120 to $600 per) to fund evaluation efforts and another $88 million from a special one-quarter percent sales tax. This money, opponents say, goes into the hands of environmentalists. The legislation, according to opponents, says all public entities (including the University of Minnesota) would put their research facilities and personnel and budgets at the disposal of whoever is doing the [evaluations].” The tax is based on 10 percent of the state’s water being impaired. If it reaches 20 percent, the tax would double. There is concern that the legislation could serve as a model for other states.

Importantly, opponents say, one U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruling states that once waters are determined to be impaired, no development can happen in the ecosystem until they are cleaned up. The ruling does not apply before a ruling of impairment is made. (This could really jump up and bite us!)

(U.S. General Accounting Office has indicated that the U.S. spends hundreds of billions annually on pollution control—a trillion dollars over one 20-year period.)

Are there signs of danger here? Both business and government entities have complained that environment-related expenditures eat away more than 30 percent of their budgets. There is concern that these activities will further hobble economic growth unnecessarily.

Obviously we cannot become involved in every environmental action, but hopefully we can remain alert to them. Our future depends on it.

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