This Week: Forum on Who Should Control Our Water?
September 21st, 2007
We spend the hour live with Alan Snitow, co-author of THIRST: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water. Snitow produced the film documentary, Thirst, which was aired by PBS.
The show airs live on Friday, September 21 at 4:30 PM on WMUA 91.1FM with live participation from listeners. Please call in to 413-545-3691 with your questions and comments! The show will be re-broadcast locally on September 27 at 8 AM on Valley Free Radio 103.3.
The Friday show will be a ‘forum-on-the-air’ on Local/Corporate Control of Our Water. This is a timely issue for residents of the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Nestle is determining if tapping and bottling a possible 150 million gallons of water a year from an aquifer underneath 1500 acres of Fisheries and Wildlife land in the Montague Plains might be profitable.
Is water to be a human right or saleable commodity? Corporate ownership of water sources has potential for dramatic profits and would mean giving up local control of this community resource to corporate boards which listen to stockholder pressure for profit rather than local community needs and concerns. Will water be the oil of the 21st century?
Snitow’s Book THIRST investigates eight recent high-profile controversies over the corporate takeover of water in the U.S, and illuminates how citizens are fighting back in heartland communities like Stockton, CA, Lexington, KY, Holyoke, MA, and Mecosta County, MI. Political corruption, high stakes financial takeovers, and behind the scenes maneuvering by some of the richest corporations characterize a David and Goliath battle in which local citizens muster creative and often surprising organizing methods to preserve their right to local, public control of this precious resource.
Alan Snitow is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist. His films include “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley”, and “Blacks and Jews”. He was a News Producer for Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU-TV for 12 years. As News Director at the Bay Area Pacifica Radio station KPFA-FM, he won a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award for Best Local Newscast.
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