Wall Street Vultures Are Set to Get Rich From Water Scarcity. December 9, 2020

 

Nick Martin December 9, 2020 The New Republic For the first time California water futures will be traded on Wall Street. Utility companies and agribusiness will be the main purchasers of these water futures, while vulture capitalists rush to find increasingly scarce water for giant water users. According to a November 26 United Nations report more than 3 billion people are experiencing water shortages. , Image of Ossie Michelin photograph of water defender Amanda Polchies.   Bloomberg reported on Sunday that California water futures are now officially on the Wall Street markets, with the United States–based CME Group heading up the 2021 contracts connected to the state’s billion-dollar water market. The “commodity” was most recently going for $496 per acre-foot with the main purchasers of the futures—which were first announced by CME in September—expected to be large-scale water consumers, chiefly utility companies and the states’ Big Ag corporations. (California is home to the largest agriculture market in the nation.) “Climate change, droughts, population growth, and pollution are likely to make water scarcity issues and pricing a hot topic for years to come,” RBC Capital Markets managing director and analyst Deane Dray told Bloomberg. “We are definitely going to watch how this new water futures contract develops.” We’ve officially reached a new phase of the Mad Maxification of America.  “Mni wiconi”—Lakota for “Water is life”—is not just a snappy slogan popularized by the Standing Rock movement. It’s a fact of human existence. The move to sell water futures in California stands as a foreboding indicator of the transformation of water from basic right into a luxury good. It’s a frightening expansion of a reality that already exists for poor, Black, Latinx, and Native communities across the country, from Flint, Michigan, to Navajo Nation. Welcome to the future. Back in 2012, MIT News profiled the head of the company Sourcewater, which at the time had introduced the idea of creating an online exchange for gas and oil companies to quickly and easily source and purchase the water necessary to keep up with the rampant domestic fracking boom. These companies needed water but didn’t want to pay a ton for its transportation; Sourcewater helped them accomplish that. And because American businesspeople have been conditioned to bow down to middlemen who help drive down costs, Sourcewater was viewed as a success story. Read through the MIT News piece and you’ll find all the circus-like twists necessary to justify the company’s purported innovation. “Reducing the amount of truck travel via the new online marketplace also brings environmental benefits,” the outlet wrote of a company created to help facilitate fracking.  One year after Sourcewater’s big breakthrough, in 2013, the federal government supposedly finished its part of a pipeline called the Mni Wiconi, designed to pump water from the Missouri River to tribal citizens and rural communities in western South Dakota. Up to that point, due to both the theft of Lakota lands and four subsequent damming infrastructure projects in the mid-twentieth century, many on the Oglala Lakota reservation, as well as those living on the Rosebud and Lower Brule reservations, had been forced to rely on fresh water deliveries by truck.  Yet, even after the pipeline system was in place, it remained ineffective in spreading water to the tribal citizens in need, according to a 2019 reportfrom High Country News: “In reservation towns and villages, the new pipeline water is fed into old community water systems—some of which date to the 1960s, with pipes made of potentially hazardous asbestos-cement. The Mni Wiconi’s builders pledged but failed to replace those antiquated systems.” But for the 15 majority-white communities in the areas, as well as local white ranchers—whose county carried an annual per-capita income three times that of the Oglala community—the water pipeline worked just fine: “All the water flowing through Mni Wiconi pipes to those users is from the Missouri River, and their pipeline connections are funded by fees they pay to a not-for-profit, the West River/Lyman-Jones Rural Water System.” The same year that High Country News published its feature, Sourcewater hauled in a tidy $7.2 million Series A investment and joined the space race of companies looking to provide satellite images of potential water sources to their extractive industry clientele. These stories are the same kind of nightmare fuel as the new water futures market; it’s just they’re rarely paired together in mainstream coverage. The growth of companies like Sourcewater and CME, which exist to make a quick buck on the world’s emergencies and ill-fated economic pursuits, or austerity regimes like those that oversaw the crisis in Flint, are different faces of the same disaster: A future in which a select few hoard a necessary resource and relative like water is actually already here. That might be the scariest part about any of it. [Nick Martin@nicka_martin is a staff writer at The New Republic.]

Grants and Loans. Do you know the difference?

 

Can You Get the Help You Need From Grants or Loans?

Are you looking to get help paying for your education? Does your non-profit organization need financial assistance to complete a community project? The government offers financial help, but you may not know what’s available and where to find it.  There are two main types of help offered by the government: grants and loans. Use this quick guide from USAGov to explore the difference between the two and find out how to apply.

Situation Awareness: As of 6am 12/11/2020. COVID-19 Washington, D.C. and Nationally.,,,Nevada parking garage into a wing for COVID-19 patients.

 

COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS)

Case and Fatality Counts (as of 6AM)

 

Jurisdiction	Cases		Fatalities
DC	24,098	+244	708	+4
MD NCR	96,963	+1,280	2,166	+9
Charles	4,945	+59	108	+1
Frederick	8,226	+152	147	+0
Montgomery	37,738	+544	958	+2
Prince George’s	46,054	+525	953	+6
VA NCR	83,868	+934	1,320	+8
Arlington	7,097	+35	164	+2
City of Alexandria	6,012	+62	82	+1
Fairfax HD	35,796	+440	648	+3
Loudoun	11,420	+150	151	+0
Prince William HD	23,543	+247	275	+2
NCR Total	204,929	+2458	4,194	+21

Sources: DC Health, MDH, Prince George’s County Health Department, VDH

 

Metric	United States		Worldwide
Cases	15,616,378	+224,182	69,664,639	+693,980
Fatalities	292,190	+2,740	1,583,242	+11,866
Recoveries	5,985,047	+95,151	44,963,147	+491,607

Source: Johns Hopkins University

 

National Capital Region

·       Montgomery County: Effective Tuesday, December 15 at 5PM, a new executive order will restrict restaurant service to outdoor dining (prohibited between the hours of 10PM and 6AM). Carry-out delivery and drive-through service will be allowed to continue, indoor sports gatherings to a maximum of 10 people. Retail establishments changed to one person per 200 square feet of retail space, not to exceed a maximum of 150 persons.

 

·       Virginia: Effective Monday, December 14 through January 31, officials have enacted universal mask requirements, a curfew from 12AM to 5AM, and a reduction in social gatherings (from 25 to 10 people).

 

United States

·       Nevada: As cases surge in Reno, a hospital has turned its parking garage into a wing for COVID-19 patients.

Parking garage becomes hospital wing in Reno Nevada (Source: CNN)

 

·       Nationwide: The practical effectiveness of consumer-grade masks available to the public is, in many cases, comparable with or better than their non-N95 respirator medical mask counterparts.

 

·       Nationwide: Supply Chain Organizations have requested that cargo transportation workers be on the priority list to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, as they are working to prepare for vaccine distribution. Timely access to the vaccine will minimize the potential for supply chain disruptions, delays in vaccine distribution, and further adverse economic impact.

 

·       Nationwide: The Department of Defense plans to administer its initial allocation of 43,875 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to uniformed service members, civilian employees, and select DoD contract personnel as authorized in accordance with DoD regulation. Prioritization schema includes those providing direct medical care, maintaining essential national security and installation function, deploying forces, and those beneficiaries at the highest risk for developing severe illness from COVID-19.

VACCINE QUESTIONS: Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition. Saturday, December 19, 2020: 4:00 - 6:00PM, special guests with expertise on COVID-19 and the vaccine to answer any questions

This week will be a special Black Boston COVID-19 meeting where we will host special guests with expertise on COVID-19 and the vaccine to answer any questions we have. We will also be hosting members of the Black Directors' Network to participate.

Join Zoom Meeting

ID: 84078143956

Password: BBCC2020

‪(US) +1 929-205-6099 [Enter 84078143956]

During our following meeting time on December 19th, we will host a public forum for community members to hear the answers to many of the questions we asked and to ask their own questions that do not come up during this week's meeting. The link will probably not be the same for this community forum. We will send that information out as soon as possible.

Thank you to those who participated in last week's meeting to provide suggestions on how to handle engagement with the community about vaccines while maintaining our commitment to not try to convince people to take it. Instead, to provide quality information so people can make an informed decision. 

Please join your fellow BBCC members in our online community where we share information, resources, and events. Thank you for your time and commitment.

Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition

info@blackbostoncoalition.org

BlackBostonCoalition.org

Bid Opportunity. Water Security. NOTE: Notification was rather short with the deadline date provided.

 From DevelopmentAid

. Please find below to open tenders accepting bids. Tender #1. Increasing Water Production from Laasdhure Aquifer and connecting to existing system at New Geed Deeble Pumping Station Project activities Project: Assessment of Ground Water Sources Potential and Possibility of Surface Water Sources for Hargeisa City. Deadline: 23 Dec, 2020 Location: Somalia Category: Consulting services Status: Open   More information here: https://www.developmentaid.org/#!/tenders/view/615002/increasing-water-production-from-laasdhure-aquifer-and-connecting-to-existing-system-at-new-geed-dee    Tender #2. Increasing Water Production from Laasdhure Aquifer and connecting to existing system at New Geed Deeble Pumping Station Project activities Project: Somaliland Urban Towns Water Tariff Study   Deadline: 23 Dec, 2020 Location: Somalia Category: Consulting services Status: Open   More information here: https://www.developmentaid.org/#!/tenders/view/615005/increasing-water-production-from-laasdhure-aquifer-and-connecting-to-existing-system-at-new-geed-dee

 

 

DevelopmentAid is a leading, innovative membership organization providing comprehensive information services for the international developmental sector.