Ventura investigated the siphoning of Lake Superior for China and for Nestle's international bottled water industry.
Around 1999-2007, water levels began decreasing so dramatically that it was referred to as the Incredibly Shrinking Lake Superior. There has been such an impact on shipping because of it that freighters have had to lower the amount of ore that can be hauled and the Army Corp of Engineers were asked to dredge harbors. Global Warming was promoted as the cause but that was a lie and melting glaciers would increase the water levels of the Great Lakes, not decrease them.
2003 was declared by the UN to be the International Year of Freshwater -- the year we occupied Iraq, land of the Tigris and Euphrates freshwater systems. Tajikistan pushed for that initiative at the UN -- also the International Decade for Action “Water for life” 2005-2015, and the President of Tajikistan has proposed 2012 as an International year of water diplomacy.
This is an excerpt from the so-called "University for Peace", The Peace and Conflict Review, Volume 5, Issue 1 - ISSN: 1659-3995 on Current Trends in Water Management in Central Asia that shows the direction they're heading:
"The mere fact that water originates in a country does not give it the full right to become the sole owner of the water. The upstream countries have to realize that it is universally acknowledged that the absolute sovereignty of upstream countries over available water resources is inadmissible under international law. In this respect, the Preamble of the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (UNECE 1992) states that transboundary waters shall be used through the elaboration of agreements between countries bordering the same waters."
In Ventura's investigation, a native American appealed to him for help on the Great Lakes water issue and this is an excerpt from an article that goes into more detail and background (such as NAFTA) on that:
If water is the oil of the 21st century, then Michigan, smack dab in the middle of the Great Lakes, is Saudi Arabia. And after banging their straws at the Big Dipper for years, Nestle Corporation has finally succeeded in plunging into the liquid gold.
On February 28th Michigan Governor Granholm signed a bill that will, for the first time, permit a multinational corporation to scoop up given amounts of the Great Lakes and sell bottled water across the world. For the first time in history the concept of the Great Lakes as a commons for all to enjoy has been breached. And NAFTA, as we'll see, might insure a run on the Great Lakes.
The new Michigan law allows Nestle Corporation to continue its five-year takings of up to 250,000 gallons per day and sell them at a markup well over 240 times its production cost. Nestle's profit from drawing this water could be from $500,000 to $1.8 million per day. A key proviso is that the bottles can be no larger than 5.7 gallons apiece.
Nestle had been ferociously fighting in court to prevent Granholm from exercising her veto power against diversion, but with her acquiescence to the 250,000 limit, Nestle dropped its suit.
The irony is that most mainstream environmentalists compromised with Nestle and the Governor. James Clift the policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC), a coalition of about 70 environmental organizations, called the new law, "a huge step forward for Michigan." Not so says Dave Dempsey, the former Policy Director of MEC. "I think Nestle is dancing in the streets." Dempsey is author of "On the Brink, The Great Lakes in the 21st Century."
NAFTA's Trojan Horse
Few Midwesterners are aware that the ubiquitous Nestle bottled water filling their shopping carts is really the peoples' water. How could they know? Nestle calls the water "Ice Mountain," and they adorn their plastic containers with a majestic snowy Mountain, even though there are no such places in Michigan, let alone Mecosta County where it draws the water from four wells 60 miles North of Grand Rapids.
Truth in advertising might require Nestle to label the bottles, "Your Great Lakes for Sale Plundered at a 24,000% mark up."
Under NAFTA's Chapter 11 corporations are protected from differential treatment meaning that Pepsi could line up next. Once one corporation gets its foot in the door to extract a resource there are no restrictions on others to do the same. If barriers were put up against Pepsi, for example, they could sue Michigan government for a potential loss of profits.
For years there has been talk about ocean tankers loading up the Great Lakes water for the Far East, or a pipeline diverting the bounty to the dry Southwest which has already mined the Colorado River. Michigan environmentalists succeeded in stopping those types of water diversion - for the moment at least - but they failed to stop this Trojan horse of privatization on the Great Lakes. Nestle came to Michigan after former Republican Governor Engler enticed with a sweetheart $10 million deal to create jobs after Wisconsin's citizens and tribes kicked them out.
Largest gathering of Great Lakes Tribes since 1764
First Nations people are at the forefront in mounting challenges to Nestle and the nation state sovereigns along several fronts. [cont.]