MA • Water permits generate lawsuits

JUNE 19, 2006 | A water permit issued by the state of Massachusetts to the Town of Hamilton has sparked a series of legal actions.
Hamilton, a town of about 8,300 people in northeast Massachusetts,  faced limitations on water use imposed by the state agency. The town appealed, which in turn led two local environmental organizations,  the Ipswich River Watershed Association and the Essex County Greenbelt Association, to contest that appeal.
The Ipswitch association earlier this year reached agreements after legal action with two other area towns, Danvers and Middleton.

MA • Blue ribbon panel announced

JUNE 8, 2006 | Massachusetts  state Senator Edward M. Augustus, Jr., D-Worcester, said a new "blue ribbon panel" will examine the subject of water rights - including a close look at state rules on water conservation, imposed in 2004, which have met with some criticism around the state.
"Water use in the suburbs is becoming a political issue, " the Boston Globe noted on June 8. "The state Department of Environmental Protection's 2004 criteria to limit water use have prompted the 1,200-member Massachusetts Water Works Association , which includes local water system managers, to declare the rules should be overturned."

TAKING ON THE MEXICO CITY FORUM A guest opinion in the Cook County News Herald of Grand Marais, Minnesota, blasted the approach taken at the March Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City which equated water rights with human rights.
"After the first day of the meeting, however, it became clear that the government and corporate agents were only interested in turning water management into a business opportunity, whereupon the NGOs and activists established an alternative forum intent on identifying access to clean water as a fundamental right . . . If we accept the position that water is a common good, and an inalienable right shared by all people, does that mean that folks in China or France have as much right to Lake Superior’s water as we do?
Perhaps we would be better served if we didn’t use the concept of human rights to justify our control of Lake Superior’s water, but rather, focused on Cibber’s observation that possession is eleven points in the law."