Last fall Beacon Press released a new book about water, Cynthia Barnett's Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis. Barnett's evocative prose and excellent research make this book a fantastic contribution to the growing body of work on water issues in the United States, comparing our experience to the experiences of people overseas.

A quotable and trustworthy source, Florida journalist Barnett focuses on two case studies throughout the book: the Florida Everglades Reclamation Project and the Central Valley Project in California. These two form the central thread of Barnett's argument for a "new water ethic." There are other case studies woven in, like the "Dutch miracle," where flooding wiped out communities and not one life was lost, and the "we need to eat" argument made by agribusiness (when much of water brought to homes in the United States goes to grow grass).  

Coining phrases like "supersized infrastructure," "liquid litter," and the "water industrial complex," Barnett brings water down to an understandable level. For example, in Chapter 5, "Taproot of the Crisis," Barnett discusses American agriculture in its absurdities and in its hope. You will be buffeted by statistics of water policies gone mad and buoyed by glimpses of a future that we can actually make real.  Barnett's book is an engaging, cogent discussion of what is wrong and what could be right about big-picture water-resources management in the United States.

One thing to keep in mind when reading the book: Barnett mentions the human right to water only briefly in Chapter 2 and again when she discusses "affordability" and how to price water in Chapter 9, "The Business of Blue." Barnett points her pen toward the environmental issues more than human rights. She says that human-rights activists believe that water should be free. Not true. Human rights require affordable water, not free water. Yes, we must price water to force society to conserve- but it must be matched with policies, like lifeline water rates, that take into account those who cannot afford high water rates. If not, we will continue to deprive people of water and make access to water a privilege rather than a right.

I recommend the book in its entirety, but pay close attention to Chapter 12, "Local Water." There, Barnett lays out the principles that should guide American water decisions, including our own personal use of water. The new water ethic would require us to do the following:

• Value water, from streams to water bills
• Work together to use less and less, rather than fighting to get more
• Keep water local
• Not make the same mistakes of taking too much from aquifers and streams and paying for the most expensive fixes when solutions that cost less and use less water are possible
• Leave as much water as possible in nature

Let us add the human right to water to this ethic to ensure that the public investment in water benefits all — and not just the select few, in select neighborhoods and select economic sectors. Read Chapter 1 online at Beacon Press and discuss the book with the author on March 4 with UUSC. Barnett's book is the second in recent Beacon Press publications on water, following Fred Pearce's great book When the Rivers Run Dry.

UUSC joins our partners and allies in the Safe Water Alliance in California in celebrating a major achievement in our human-right-to water campaign: four of our five bills made it through the governor's signature and were signed into law on Friday! In his message signing the drinking-water legislation, Governor Brown emphasized, "Clean drinking water is a basic human right." He added, "The bills I have signed today will help ensure that every Californian has access to clean and safe sources of water. Protecting the water we drink is an absolutely crucial duty of state government."

The bills will allow small communities and unrecognized tribes access to state funds to clean up drinking water and put in place drinking-water and sewerage systems where communities are not served. Local authorities will be required to plan for communities in their service areas that have been discriminated against and not served. Water agencies will now give notice of water-quality violations in languages that are appropriate to consumers.

The main proposed human-right-water legislation, A.B. 685, is suspended in the California Senate until the legislature reconvenes. Our coalition partners in the Safe Water Alliance will push forward on A.B. 685 and hopefully bring the bill to Governor Brown by this time next year, addressing the concerns of decision makers and the opposition and broadening the base of support in California. We hope that this time next year we can celebrate A.B. 685 being signed into law!

For more comprehensive coverage of this milestone, check out "Brown signs human right to water bills," an article by Dan Bacher.

On Thursday Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. special rapporteur (SR) on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, presented her report on her February visit to the United States to the U.N. Human Rights Council. De Albuquerque documented significant challenges for the United States in the water and sanitation sector, including discriminatory impacts of water-shutoff policies, lack of access for homeless persons and tribes, and serious concerns about extractive industry practices such as hydraulic fracturing and their potential impact on drinking-water sources.

Acknowledging the complexity of the water and sanitation sector in the United States, de Albuquerque recommends that the country take steps to adopt a federal standard prioritizing access to safe drinking water and sanitation (the human right to water and sanitation), in particular equal access and affordability.

The U.S. response in Geneva today — making a commitment to taking action on the report — was promising. A U.S. government representative in Geneva made the following statement: "We look forward to continuing to work with the special rapporteur to take concrete action to reduce the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation." See the full text of the U.S. statement.

UUSC welcomes the SR's recommendations and the commitment by the U.S. government and looks forward to working with federal, state, and local governments to address the serious gaps in access to safe, affordable drinking water and sanitation.

Each Friday throughout the summer, a UUSC staff member will recommend books or articles about human rights. Today, UUSC Manager for Environmental Justice Patricia Jones recommends Are Women Human?: And Other International Dialogues, by Catharine A. MacKinnon.

One of the leading voices on treating crimes against women as crimes of war, this book is about the long way we still have to go in the field of formal human rights and women's rights. It is five years old, but good as a retrospective on the work of this great voice for women's human rights. 

Each Friday throughout the summer, a UUSC staff member will recommend books or articles about human rights. Today, UUSC Manager for Environmental Justice Patricia Jones shares recommendations from other leaders in the field.

Paul Schwartz is legislative director for Clean Water Action, a leader of the movement for environmental justice and water in our country, and a Unitarian Universalist. He suggests reading the 2009 scientific article “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring a Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” published by a collaboration of researchers and available from the Stockholm Resilience Center.

The article describes the nine planetary boundaries that we must not cross to prevent catastrophic global natural systems change. Climate disruption is only one of the nine — but seven of the nine involve water. See the videos and related web articles.

And if you are a science geek, read the scientific article itself!

Paul Schwartz is a water theologian, in my view, and you can't go wrong by taking his advice on things to read! It is a good thing that Paul; Valerie Nelson of the Water Alliance; the Stockholm Resiliency Center; and colleagues around the world are mapping out potential solutions — real-life, real-time solutions — to avert crossing these thresholds.

On the Water Alliance web page, watch the short and longer videos on the “new water paradigm” they are working on, which impressed the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation during her recent mission to the United States in March. The Water Alliance also has a Restoring the Water Commons report that links the planetary boundaries to the new thinking in water.

While the wave of support for the human right to water builds in California, eyes are also on the nation’s capitol and decisions being made to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protections for drinking water resources and the Clean Water Act. Environmental group American Rivers's fact sheet gives some analysis of the dense legislation on appropriations and how it may impact drinking water sources.

The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 (H.R. 2018) begs the question of just what kind of cooperative federalism we can expect from powerful vested interests that successfully got the legislation through the House of Representatives. UUSC ally Clean Water Action has a campaign to educate voters about H.R. 2018. The EPA’s analysis of the impact of this bill is certainly chilling.

A UUSC supporter reported to us this week that Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted the impacts of the budget debates on water infrastructure — expect 50 percent cuts over fiscal year 2010. This is all bad news to think about while we try and find a clean body of water to cool off in this overheated summer.

On my “to read” list for this summer is Alex Prud’Homme’s book The Ripple Effect. Not a light summer read, and won’t be good news, either. The news coming out of California and the organizations working hard on the human-right-to-water bills is one of the few sources of hope that we can collectively see our way through to protecting our drinking water sources and ensuring everyone has access.

Earlier this month, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that establishes an expert working group to address human rights in business practices. The group will promote the implementation of the recommendations in Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the final report from John Ruggie, the U.N. special representative on this important issue.

Ruggie took up the controversial task of setting out guiding principles for transnational corporations in the field of human rights. The council will appoint five experts at its next session in September; the experts, "of balanced geographical representation," will serve on the working group for three years. The council will also establish a forum to explore human rights in the context of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

Read the full resolution [PDF].