Crisis in the Sundarbans 100% Pcw Paper Volume 14 , Issue 2
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CLEAN WATER • THE BLUE PLANET’S FIRST RESPONDERS • CITIZEN ACTION Waterkeeper Alliance WATERKEEPER 180 Maiden Lane Suite 603 New York, NY 10038 ® WATERKEEPER RECLAIMED. CANNOT BE MEASURED IN MEGAWATTS | CRISIS IN THE SUNDARBANS 100% PCW PAPER VOLUME 14 In partnership with , ISSUE ® Waterkeeper Alliance, BIONIC 2 strengthens communities while cleaning up our Marine Environments. 2018 VOLUME 14, ISSUE 2 $5.95 ® ® Waterkeeper Alliance’s Ocean Plastic Recovery Initiative mobilizes a vast network of Waterkeeper ® Organizations and Affiliates around the globe to establish recycling infrastructure and plastic recovery efforts to stop plastic pollution from entering our oceans. This network operates recycling facilities where recovered plastic is consolidated, sorted, and baled. BIONIC® acquires the processed plastics in exchange for a donation calculated at the baled commodities' fair market value that will provide much-needed support of the Waterkeeper Organization or Affiliate's ongoing work to protect and preserve their watershed. WATERWATER IS THE IS THE UNIVERSAL UNIVERSAL SOURCESOURCE OF OFLIFE. LIFE. United Unitedas one aspowerful one powerful force, Waterkeeper force, Waterkeeper Alliance Alliance fights forfights every for individual’s every individual’s right right to drinkable,to drinkable, fishable, fishable, swimmable swimmable water, freewater, from free man-made from man-made toxins andtoxins pollutants. and pollutants. As a committedAs a committed Waterkeeper Waterkeeper Alliance Alliance partner partner for nearly for 20nearly years, 20 Johnyears, Paul John Mitchell Paul Mitchell SystemsSystems® is proud® is toproud join thisto join passionately this passionately dedicated dedicated organization organization in their inongoing their ongoing fight tofight keep to the keep earth’s the earth’sprecious precious waterways waterways clean for clean our forchildren, our children, and our andchildren’s our children’s children.children. The future The of future this beautifulof this beautiful planet isplanet in our is hands—treated in our hands—treated with care, with it care,will it will nourishnourish our souls our for souls generations for generations to come. to come. TRUCKS HEADING TO THE RAMPAL POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION-SITE The image above was taken just before the scheduled start of construction of the Rampal power plant in March. Bangladesh and India are jointly undertaking the $1.7 billion project, slated to be completed by 2019-20. It is estimated that the plant could produce 38 million tons of highly toxic coal ash over the course of its operational life. Lynne Buchanan is a fine art photographer who specializes in work on the environment. Her book, Florida’s Changing Waters: A Beautiful World in Peril, will be published by George F. Thompson Publishing in 2019. Volume 14, Issue 2 Waterkeeper Magazine 55 CONTENTS Volume 14 Issue 2 46 28 34 40 NEWS & UPDATES FEATURES 12: GHOSTBUSTING IN 28: I AM THE RIVER, THE RIVER IS ME SAN FRANCISCO BAY New Zealand’s Whanganui River is the first waterbody on earth to gain the same legal protections as an individual. The river’s Maori people, who have 14: THE LITTLE PATROL been fighting for the designation for 150 years, saw it that way all along. BOAT THAT CHANGED 34: THE SCOURGE OF SALMON FARMING THE WORLD Maule Itata Coastkeeper Rodrigo de la O battles a massive salmon aquaculture scheme along 30 miles of Chile’s magnificent Maule coast that would endanger its 20: BALTIMORE BANS beauty, marine life, and human communities. FOAM FOOD CONTAINERS 40: HEALING WATERS 24: PEOPLE BEFORE SWINE Six Pennsylvania inmates learn to look at the natural world like a Waterkeeper, BARONS and to change their lives in the process. 46: OUR LIVES CANNOT BE MEASURED 26: SPILLING THE TRUTH IN MEGAWATTS ABOUT ETP’S FILTHY The 1,320-MW Rampal coal-fired power plant being built near Bangladesh’s most PIPELINES AND FILTHIER LIES treasured region, the Sundarbans, threatens millions of the country’s people and its future. 4 Waterkeeper Magazine Volume 14, Issue 2 LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, times greater than that of original construction. This expense Cáceres, who championed efforts to protect the Gualcarque River of updating aging dams often exceeds the profit from the electricity from large-scale development projects such as the proposed Agua MARC YAGGI they generate. Zarca hydroelectric dam, was murdered while participating in a peaceful protest. In March 2018, the president of the company FREE FLOWING RIVERS INITIATIVE planning the Agua Zarca dam – a former Honduran military intelligence officer – was arrested for her murder. These worldwide negative impacts on waterways and communities Globally, according to The Guardian and Global Witness, spurred Waterkeeper Alliance to adopt a “Free Flowing Rivers approximately 200 environmental advocates were killed in both Initiative,” which opposes construction of new dams and diversions 2016 and 2017. It has been reported that most of these advocates or supports mitigation of their impacts where there is no other option, died while opposing mining, dams, logging, and the activities of and advocates for removal of dams wherever possible. The initiative agricultural interests. While many of the killers were never brought is designed to connect and support battles against dams wherever to justice, reliable sources report that most of them were hired by they are engaged. Below are a few of the most urgent examples: governments or corporations. In Southeast Asia, the Mekong River basin is being threatened by a spate of proposed mega-hydropower dams, including eight in HOPE FOR THE FUTURE China, nine in Laos and two in Cambodia, where Tonle Sap Lake Waterkeeper Senglong Youk is leading efforts to opppose them. Still, a number of factors help point to a better future. “Climate- These new dams would threaten the largest inland freshwater fishery friendly” energy sources are becoming more abundant and cheaper PHOTO BY KATE BENKERT (USFWS) in the world, which provides food and economic security to 60 than traditional ones. New technologies and management practices after the removal of the elwha dam in washington state million residents of those countries, as well as Burma and Vietnam. are dramatically increasing water conservation and mitigating — the largest dam removal in u.s. history — the elwha In the Middle East, Waterkeepers Iraq has joined a coalition of mismanagement and waste. Governments are responding to river is thriving. Iraqi and international groups in the “Save the Tigris” Campaign, citizen demands by shelving dam projects. As noted above, citizen which promotes the restoration of the Mesopotamian Marshlands resistance led Peru to enact a moratorium on dams. In 2016, after emissions is just shy of all emissions from Brazil, which is seventh of southern Iraq and opposes destructive projects such as the Ilisu years of opposition from a network of communities and advocates, on the list of greenhouse-gas-emitting countries. Other studies LET OUR RIVERS Dam on the Tigris in Turkey and the Daryan Dam on the Sirwan River, including Futaleufú Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance, the show that 79 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions from reservoirs an upper Tigris tributary, in Iran. electric company Endesa relinquished its plans to dam the Futaleufú are methane, which is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide In Canada, Grand Riverkeeper Labrador’s Roberta Frampton- River in Patagonian Chile. in accelerating climate change. RUN FREE: Benefiel is one of the grassroots leaders in voicing concerns about The most powerful and exciting factor pointing to hope for the Dams have long flooded people out of their homes. Studies Nalcor Energy’s $12-billion Muskrat Falls dam because of its future is that groups are organizing and working together to oppose A GLOBAL LOOK AT HOW DAMS ARE estimate that nearly 80 million people have been displaced production of methylmercury, a neurotoxin linked to heart problems, new dams and diversions, fight for mitigation of dams’ impacts, by dams globally. It is rare to find a case study that shows DESTROYING OUR WATERWAYS neurological damage to children, and also makes fish consumption and advocate for their removal. In Sweden, where virtually all a displaced community reaping all the benefits promised to dangerous and threatens traditional foods for First Nations’ power is now generated from fossil-fuel-free sources, Älvräddarnas There are many issues affecting the waterways that more than 340 them; in reality, they are more likely to face a long trail of broken communities. Waterkeeper, Swedish Baltic Rivers Waterkeeper, and others keep Waterkeeper Organizations patrol and protect in 44 countries. But promises. For example, according to the Geneva-based Internal In California, Yuba River Waterkeeper Melinda Booth is working fighting to eliminate dams, and last year, after seven years of protest, one issue is so pervasive that it affects rivers and their fisheries in Displacement Monitoring Centre, the Manwan Dam built by to stop the proposed 275-feet-high Centennial Dam in California’s a county board announced that it would remove the ancient sawmill nearly every corner of the world: hydropower dams. These dams are China on the Mekong River displaced more than 7,000 people, Sierra Nevada foothills, which would flood the last six miles of dam on the Emån, one of Sweden’s 16 Baltic salmon rivers, restoring sometimes touted as “clean energy,” but it is abundantly clear that who never received enough compensation to build