Clean Water

Excerpt from our platform

Water is essential to all forms of life. The Green Party calls for an international declaration that water belongs to the Earth and all of its species. Water is a basic human right! The U.S. Government must lead the way in declaring water a fundamental human right and prevent efforts to privatize, export, and sell for profit a substance that is essential to all life.

We face a worldwide water crisis. According to the United Nations, more than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025 as much as two-thirds of the world's population will be living with a serious scarcity of water. Multinational corporations recognize these trends and are moving fast to monopolize water supplies around the world. They argue that privatizing water is the best way to allocate this valuable resource, and they are scheming to have water declared a human need so that it can be commodified and sold on the open market ensuring that the allocation of water will be based on principles of scarcity and profit maximization.

We do not agree. With water sold to the highest bidder, the rich will have plenty while the poor will be left with little but polluted water. Short-term profits will preclude any concern for long term sustainability. We must stop this privatization before the infrastructures become so established that it will be impossible to avoid a disaster of epic proportions.

Jesse Johnson, Mountain Party of West Virginia 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate


 

Many manufacturing and agricultural practices, especially animal confinement, degrade water quality. Colonialism intensifies disputes over withdrawal of water from the Blue Nile. Hydro-power from dams intensifies climate change, compromises habitat, and poisons animal and human life.


MADISON, WI – The Wisconsin Green Party supports regulations to limit the amount of cancer-causing PFAS chemicals in our water. These so-called “forever chemicals” are clearly linked to life-threatening diseases, and even tiny trace amounts can cause deadly harm to human and animal health.

We call on all Wisconsinites to submit public comments to the Department of Natural Resources by the deadline of Tuesday, January 11th, supporting the strictest possible rules to reduce the amount of PFAS in our water as close as possible to zero.


PHILADELPHIA – The State Committee of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) has agreed to oppose the spread of fracking brine on rural PA roads. Meeting virtually on September 18, more than 20 elected delegates from county Green Parties achieved consensus on a letter to the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) demanding a ban on use of such waste materials.

Falls Township Auditor Jay Sweeney of Wyoming County, had requested the Green Party to take such action. Sweeney said, "I submitted the request for GPPA to sign on to the letter demanding an end to the spread of radioactive frack wastewater on our PA roads because this industry continues to be the biggest threat to the environment of rural PA and worldwide. The Green Party holds environmental wisdom as one of its Four Green Pillars."


  • Stands in Solidarity with Maryland Green Party

FALLS CHURCH, VA – The Green Party of Virginia (GPVA) stands in solidarity with our comrades and allies in Maryland who are resisting the Del-Mar fracked gas pipeline being constructed along the Delmarva Peninsula. If this pipeline is completed it would further entrench our reliance on fossil fuels, and increases risks of environmental damage to Virginians on the Eastern Shore.

The GPVA is committed to stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure in Virginia, and instead push for a 100% renewable energy system. The GPVA has stood alongside countless activists, landowners, and workers to successfully oppose the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. We continue to stand in solidarity with those fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline. We will oppose any attempt to extend additional fossil fuel infrastructure into the state and will work with those already opposing this project on the Delmarva Peninsula, including the Maryland Green Party.


  • Opposes Grab by Oil and Gas Industry for More Political Power, Protection for Fracking

  • Endorses Proposal 2 to Give Protection Against Warrantless Searches of Electronic Devices

Grand Rapids, Mi – The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) urges a NO vote on Michigan Proposal 2020-1, which would tie the state's operating budget to continued oil and gas drilling -- including fracking. GPMI also calls for a YES vote on Proposal 2020-2, which would block warrantless searches of electronic devices.


Operators flare off a well in southwestern Pennsylvania. Credit: Bob Donnan

PHILADELPHIA – It has taken slightly more than a decade for hydraulic fracturing to entrench itself in PA, forming a beltway of 10,000 wells that arc from the southwest to the northeast. Colloquially referred to as fracking, the process involves drilling and pumping high pressure chemical-laden water and sand deep into underground shale deposits to release and capture gas and oil. Over the years, it has become evident that economic prosperity has fallen short of original promises, while alarming reports of public health decline, potent greenhouse gas leaks, and environmental devastation have bubbled to the surface.


The latest podcast from Clearing the FOG

Residents of Newark, New Jersey learned last year that their water was poisoned with high levels of lead, something the government failed to inform them about even though it knew about it in June 2017. When people learned of the problem, the government first denied it and then tried to blame homeowners and downplayed the severity of the impacts. Then, the city offered half-hearted solutions.


Uwchlan Township, Chester County, PA – All three statewide candidates of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) toured a portion of Sunoco's Mariner East Pipeline at the invitation of the Uwchlan Safety Coalition on Tuesday, September 18 (see video at the bottom of the page). Governor and Lieutenant Governor hopefuls Paul Glover and Jocolyn Bowser-Bostick and U.S. Senate candidate Neal Gale met with homeowners and community members negatively impacted by drilling and operations in Chester and Delaware counties.


In November of 2015 I launched my radio show, The Offensive Feminist with Jenny K on Cave Radio Broadcasting. This happened to coincide with the public disclosure of lead found in the water of Flint, a story which I followed for all 100 episodes before going on hiatus in January of this year. As I followed the news on the breaking Flint Water Crisis, I noticed discrepancies and contradictory information being shared in the news.


It has been four years too long since the residents of Flint were forced to drink poison in order for a pipeline to be built. High levels of lead are still being found across the city, including in local public schools, yet this is not being reported widely across the state. When Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz signed the order to switch residents over to the Flint River for drinking water in 2013, he was fully aware that the city’s water treatment plant could not properly treat water as shown in documents for the KWA pipeline beginning in 2009.