This morning we were welcomed to Mohawk territory on the shore of Eagle Lake by David Arquette of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Taskforce, on this our second day of working to build a movement to defend the Great Lakes as a commons, public trust, and protected bio-region.
We then heard stories (‘case studies’) from around the Great Lakes. This included hearing from Charity Hicks of the Detroit People’s Water Board that 72,000 homes in Detroit have been cut off from their water and sewer services because of extreme poverty and the inability to pay those bills. We also heard from Jim Olsen of the FLOW Coalition about the political tactics used to defeat public trust legislation in Michigan and the loss of its legislative champion in the recent US mid-term elections.
Council of Canadians chapter activist Michael Brothers shared a powerpoint presentation about the chapter’s work relating Toronto to Lake Ontario, Ontario-Quebec organizer Mark Calzavara told the Site 41 story to those here, and I spoke about our current campaign against the plan to ship radioactive steam generators on the Great Lakes.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow then connected all of this to the bigger picture of the global water crisis.
More to come.
