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We provide Socially responsible financial planning and investing advice that allows you to build a positive financial future for yourself, within the context of a better world in which to live. Through meaningful investment in companies that share your commitments to equality, justice, environmental protection and more, you can do well for yourself while doing good for all.

Fairtrade and Green America’s shared mission of sustainable business 

By Margot Conover, External Relations Manager, Fairtrade America

What makes business better? Discover how people are taking business beyond profits to help people and the environment. When you seek out sustainable products, you’re not just supporting better business, you’re supporting your community and the world. 

By choosing Fairtrade certified products or companies from the Green Business Network, you are supporting sustainable businesses and growing the green economy.

Fairtrade shifts power to farming communities

Small farmers play an essential role in keeping us all fed, but they are under growing pressure from - among other things - unfettered globalized trade, climate change, land grabs, and conflict. Beyond the borders of the US, cooperatives have played a key role in helping the small farmers find an edge in the market. By organizing themselves, they can have a stronger voice and greater chance to create a better future for themselves.

Collective, democratic empowerment is at the heart of Fairtrade, just as it is central to the spirit of the green economy movement. Franz Van Der Hoff, one of the founders of Fairtrade said, "The best way to put the human back into the globalization process is to look from below, to be democratic, to see where the majority is at." For Fairtrade farmers, this begins with smallholders getting organized.

Fairtrade's approach is rooted in people coming together and building organizations that grow into viable businesses, develop greater bargaining power, and contribute to the fabric of their communities. 

Fairtrade's experience shows that when farmers and workers organize themselves, they can achieve startling results. The COAGRICSAL coffee cooperative in Honduras began with 22 farmers sitting under a fig tree deciding to sell their coffee together in 1994. Now 700 members sell nearly 4,500 tons a year, employ more than 100 staff and benefit 1,500 families. And that story continues among many of the cooperatives among the 1,200 Fairtrade certified producer organizations.

When conscious consumers buy a product with the Fairtrade label, they're connecting to those same farmers through a global, inclusive movement that is slowly but surely empowering small-farming communities to take greater control of their lives and futures.

Fairtrade empowers farmers to invest in their communities and protect local ecosystems

Fairtrade works all over the developing world to help them organize and invest in their communities. Here are five ways how:

1. To participate in Fairtrade, farmers must organize themselves into an association, like a co-op For small-scale farmers and workers, this gives them market power they could never hope to command on their own. Better ability to negotiate in international commodity markets helps break intergenerational poverty cycles that drive children or workers toward exploitative situations and contribute to environmental degradation. Then, like Zeddy Rotich, a Kenyan coffee farmer, they can invest in desperately needed services like climate change adaptation and mitigation.
 

2. Fairtrade Standards allow producers and farmers to benchmark their own path toward a more sustainable economy, and social and environmental development. Each association designs its own development plan, which must be approved by the members of the co-op. The Standards also set the basis for individual empowerment because all members have a voice and vote in the organizational decision-making process, including how the Fairtrade Premium is spent.
 

3. The Fairtrade Premium is an extra sum on top of the selling price that farmers and workers invest in projects of their choice. The Premium - globally worth more than $108 million a year - is about more than money. The decision-making process in developing projects helps foster participation, cooperation and dialogue. The farmer members are the ones who know what's most needed in their communities. They're the ones who have to live with the consequences of unfair trade and who will benefit most from a more equitable global system.
 

4. Fairtrade empowers a business to ensure its supply chains reflect its business's mission and values. For example, founded in 1998, Divine Chocolate is the only Fairtrade chocolate company that is also co-owned by cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo, a co-operative of over 85,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana, receives the largest share (44%) of Divine’s distributable profits. This gives the farmers more economic stability, as well as the increased influence in the cocoa industry itself. Fairtrade supports Divine’s mission is to grow a successful global farmer-owned chocolate company using the amazing power of chocolate to delight and engage while also bringing people together to create dignified trading relations, thereby empowering producers and consumers.
 

5. Through the Fairtrade label, consumers have the power to hold businesses accountable. The label means that all the ingredients in a particular product that can be Fairtrade are Fairtrade Certified. For consumers, this provides a clear, direct link to the international Fairtrade system, since products bearing the Mark have met the social, economic, and environmental criteria for ethical supply chains and sustainable business. 

Celebrate Fair Trade Month with Green America This October

•October is also Non-GMO month! Did you know that Fairtrade prohibits the use of GMO seeds on certified farms? Check out Green America’s work to get GMOs and genetically engineered crops out of our food system and pushing for safe agricultural practices. 

•This Halloween, purchase these Fairtrade and organic chocolates and candies instead of scary GMO-filled candy or chocolate made from child labor.

•Want to share the Fairtrade story at your business? Fairtrade America provides support and materials for retailers wanting to showcase Fairtrade producer stories and educate their customers on how certifications support ethical supply chains. 

•Celebrate Fair Trade Month this October by hosting a Fair Trade Bake Sale. Raise some dough for a cause you care about (like Green America!) - all while supporting ethical farming practices by using Fairtrade ingredients. Delight your friends, coworkers, and neighbors with your tasty, sustainably-sourced creations and change lives. You can even win Fairtrade prizes, like a year’s supply of chocolate!

Whether you're shopping your everyday needs or in the market for something special, it's always important to support sustainable business and buy from companies that share your values. Look for Fairtrade certified products or explore the Green Business Network to buy from companies and sustainable business that you can trust.

Writer’s bio:

Margot Conover, the External Relations Manager at Fairtrade America, works to empower consumers to make supply chains fair and safe for farmers and workers in the Global South. She represents Fairtrade America at the Child Labor Coalition. Margot has worked in sustainable development since 2010, including spending two years in Ecuador working with fair trade and organic sugarcane, cocoa and coffee cooperatives. In her free time, she manages a community permaculture orchard and serves on the Produce Marketing Association’s Women’s Fresh Perspectives committee. Margot received her MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and her BA in Political Science from Christopher Newport University, and currently lives in Washington, DC in a big house with five roommates, a dog, two cats, and a vegetable garden.

Although Flint, MI, has become the poster city for America’s issue with contaminated water, it is only one of many communities experiencing threats to its water supply. Perhaps because they don’t completely trust their tap water, Americans are buying bottled water now more than ever. According to the Beverage Marketing Corp., Americans drink more bottled water than carbonated drinks—bottled water became the largest beverage category by volume in 2016 and continues to dominate the market.

But whether your local water has contamination issues or not, bottled water isn’t a long-term answer to safeguarding our drinking water. 

Water filters are better for the environment. And even in communities facing serious contamination issues, water filters can help. As Environmental Working Group (EWG) senior scientist David Andrews, Ph. D., notes, “Ultimately, removing [contaminants] from drinking water should be tackled by municipalities, water utilities, states, and Congress working together. Until that happens, the best option is using filters.” 

Follow these three steps to ensure your drinking water is as safe as it can be. 

Step 1: Don’t Drink Bottled Water

Most bottled-water advertising touts the water’s purity, often showing clear streams and mountain springs in the background, but 24% to 60% of bottled water is just municipal or tap water—sometimes, but not always, put through extra filtration.

In fact, a 2008 investigation conducted by the EWG found that ten major bottled water brands, including Walmart’s, sold water that contained the same chemical contaminants found in tap water. 

Since bottled water is also a packaged product, it’s regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which, in some respects, has looser guidelines than the EPA. For example, the FDA requires bottled water to be assessed for coliform bacteria—a gastroenteric infection-causing pathogen—once a week.  The EPA tests public tap water for this same pathogen 100 times a month.  

Bottled water also leads to grim circumstances for both the environment and society. Approximately 80% of all single-use water bottles become litter. It takes three liters of water to make a plastic bottle that will hold one liter of water, and it takes over 1,000 years for that bottle to biodegrade, states EarthWatch.

In addition, a recent study conducted by the University of Minnesota for Orb Media found that 93% of 11 bottled water brands sampled showed traces of microplastics.

In other words, there are risks to your health and the environment when consuming bottled water. But what if your tap water has contamination issues? 

Step 2: Check the Contaminants in Your Household Water Supply

Here’s the good news: water filters offer people an active role in improving their water quality—without the plastic waste. Plus, you’ll save money: According to Home Water Research, a family of four can save an estimated $1,416.16 per year by using a basic pitcher-style filter system over buying packs of bottled water.   

But at the end of the day, buying a filter that doesn’t remove the contaminants in your area is not going to protect you. 

To improve your tap-water quality, you have to know the specific challenges facing your local water supply.

A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that in 2015, over 76 million Americans were served by water systems that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. Violations included health-based offenses, improper monitoring, and failure to inform about violations.  

If you’re on municipal water: To find information about the water quality in your community, you can start by finding your local water authority’s annual water quality report (also called a Consumer Confidence report), which should be mailed to you and is often published online.

These reports will tell you where your water comes from, as well as what contaminants are in it and how levels compare to EPA maximum thresholds. 

However, “EPA limits are not health limits, nor do they imply that the water is safe. EPA limits are political,” says James McMahon, owner of Sweetwater LLC, a company that provides consulting and products for air and water purification.

For a more robust look at your local water, visit the EWG’s new online Tap Water Database, which lists the most recent contaminants found in 50,000 water systems across all 50 states. A major benefit of the EWG database is that it calls out contamination levels that are considered dangerous according to scientific health research, not EPA standards, as well as listing their known or suspected health effects.

For instance, if you look up Washington, DC, the EWG database reveals that carcinogens like chloroform, chromium, dichloroacetic acid, and trihalomethanes continue to be a threat to public health. 

Testing your own tap water is an extra precaution for those who already receive reports from their city or local water authorities and may not be necessary for all people. However, the EWG does recommend that those who live in homes with lead-based pipes or who have received reports with lead detected in their area do a lab test.  

If you’re on well water: Keep in mind that if you access water from a private well, your local government does not test your water, so you will need to lab test it for coliform bacteria, nitrates, dissolved solids, pH levels, and other suspected contaminants. You can find a lab to do a state-certified test on the water in your home by consulting the EPA’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Laboratory Network.

Step 3: Find the Best Filter 

Now it’s time to choose a filter. These come in a vast variety: plastic pitchers, built-in refrigerator filters, faucet filters, plumb-ins, and sports bottles.

“Different filters work best on different contaminants, so there is no such thing as the best filter for everyone,” says EWG’s Andrews. 

There are many resources to help you find the filter that’s right for you.

If you’re concerned about treatment chemicals: You may just want to filter out the chemicals that municipalities use to treat your water—most often chlorine and chloramine. (You can call your water treatment facility to find out which it uses.) A simple carbon Brita pitcher can remove chlorine, but combination carbon/KDF adsorption filters offer more all-around protection, especially when installed in showers and faucets or as whole-house systems. Chloramine can only be removed by a catalytic carbon filter. 

The above filter types can be found on Green America's Green Pages or your local hardware store. 

If your water has one or two contaminants: A smaller filter, such as a fridge, under-the-sink, or countertop filter may meet your needs. NSF International is a public health organization that certifies water filters for safety and effectiveness. Visit NSF’s online database to find a filter that will remove the contaminants you’re most concerned about. The EWG’s updated Water Filter Buying Guide allows you to search for water filters by cost, effectiveness, and the removal of specific contaminants. 

If your water has several contaminants: You’ll want a multi-stage filter that can hit all of them. For example, Sweetwater sells custom filters and multi-stage filters that combine KDF and carbon absorption with ultraviolet light. You can also consult EWG’s Buying Guide to learn about different filter technologies that are considered the most effective at removing contaminants. 

Look for certification: Look for labels from the National Sanitation Foundation, Underwriter Laboratories, and the Water Quality Association, which all test water filters to determine they meet safety standards and remove contaminants as claimed by the manufacturer. 

Which Water Filter Should I Choose?

Here are the different filter types:

Carbon: Carbon bonds with and removes contaminants from your water. Pitcher filters like Brita are usually carbon filters. Best for: Chlorine. Some types will also remove asbestos, lead, mercury, and VOCs (check packaging). Catalytic carbon filters, which are enhanced, will also remove chloramine. Cons: Quality can vary widely. 

Ceramic and Mechanical: Water seeps through tiny holes in ceramic or mechanical filters that block contaminants. Best for: Cysts and sediments. Cons: Won’t remove chemicals. 

Deionization: An ion exchange process removes ions from water. Best for: mineral salts and other ions. Cons: Won’t remove microorganisms or non-ionic contaminants like trihalomethanes and VOCs. 

Distillation: Heats up water until it evaporates and then condenses it back into water. Best for: Minerals, many bacteria and viruses, and chemicals with a higher boiling point than water. Cons: Won’t remove chlorine, trihalomethanes, and VOCs. 

KDF: Uses oxidation/reduction to remove contaminants. Best for: iron, chlorine, mercury, lead, hydrogen sulfide, and some microorganisms. Cons: Won’t remove sediment, VOCs, or all microorganisms. 

Ozone: Often paired with other filtering technologies. Best for: Bacteria and microorganisms. Cons: Won’t remove chemical contaminants. 

Reverse Osmosis: Pushes water through a membrane that blocks contaminants. Best for: Arsenic, fluoride, hexavalent chromium, nitrates, and perchlorate. Cons: Uses a lot of water and energy. Won’t remove chlorine, trihalomethanes, or VOCs.   

Ultraviolet: Uses UV light to kill bacteria. Best for: Water with bacterial contamination risks. Cons: Won’t remove chemicals.

This section was adapted with permission from the Environmental Working Group’s Water Filter Buying Guide.

Updated March 2024.

About one percent of all water on Earth is drinkable. Drinkable water plays a huge role in our daily lives, from brushing our teeth to cooking our food. The US Geological Survey reports that the average American uses between 80-100 gallons of water per day at home. However, saving drinkable water is imperative to ensure clean, accessible water for generations to come. 

Try water conservation at home, and make it a part of everyday family practice. Here are some simple tips to help you reduce your water use:  

13 Ways to Save Water

1. Shower for five minutes: The average shower in America is eight minutes long. The EPA estimates that average shower heads use 2.5 gallons of water per minute—that’s 20 gallons of water per shower. Take three minutes off of your shower to help reduce water.
   Daily savings: 7.5 gallons
    
2. Drive less: It takes about ¾ of a gallon of water to refine and transport the gas used to drive one mile. The average person drives 37 miles per day. You can walk to a place you normally drive, or carpool instead of taking two cars.
   Daily savings: About 1.5 gallons walking two miles instead of driving. 
    
3. Insulate your hot water pipes: You will get hot water faster, while avoiding wasting water while it heats up. If a heating contractor installs the insulation, expect to pay labor costs of about $2.50 per foot for small size pipe to about $4 for larger pipe. If you would like to install it yourself, stores like Home Depot sell foam insulation for about $2 per 6 feet. Daily savings: 2.5 gallons running the shower for one minute before getting in. 
    
4. Clean walkways with a broom: Use a broom instead of hosing off outdoor walkways. You’ll save about 30 gallons for every five minutes you don’t use the hose. The average homeowners can save more than 3,000 gallons a year by sweeping and not by washing.
   Daily savings: 8 gallons. 
    
5. Install water-saving shower heads: Installing low-flow faucet aerators automatically pauses a running shower once it gets warm, until you’re ready to use it. A low-flow, water-saving shower head can reduce water usage for an average family by 2,900 gallons a year, according to the EPA. You can find these at your local hardware store, with prices ranging from $20 to $200, depending on functions and settings.
   Daily savings: About 2 gallons.
    
6. Minimize use of kitchen garbage disposal: Garbage disposals use about eight gallons of water per day. A better way to dispose fruit and vegetable scraps is to compost them for the garden. Reducing use of the garbage disposal can save 50 to 150 gallons of water per month.
   Daily savings: 1.5 to 5 gallons
    
7. Recycle indoor water and use for plants: Instead of pouring a cup of water you no longer need down the drain, give it to your plants! It saves time and water so you don’t have to use a garden hose. 
    
8. Wash full loads of dishes and laundry: These are the two appliances in your home that use the most water. Only washing with full loads of dishes or laundry saves 15-45 gallons of water in the washer, and 5-15 gallons of water in the dishwater.
   Daily savings: 7-21 gallons (assumes daily dishwasher use, plus one load of laundry per week). 
    
9. Don’t run the water while brushing your teeth or shaving: Two to three minutes without the water on while brushing your teeth can save 2-3 gallons of water each day. Instead of having the water on while shaving, fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of water to rinse your razor. These two adjustments can save 180 gallons per month.
   Daily savings: 2-6 gallons.
    
10. Avoid unnecessary flushing of your toilet: Throw tissues and other bathroom waste in the garbage can or compost pile, which doesn’t require gallons of water. The average person flushes five times a day, so that water use can really add up. You know what they say—if it’s yellow, let it mellow. The toilet is one of the most water-intensive fixtures in the house. Do you need to flush every time?
    Daily savings: 4 to 28 gallons, depending on how old your toilet is.
     
11. Fix leaks in your home: On average, leaks account for 14 percent of indoor water use. Leaks can go unnoticed for years, so proper inspection and maintenance of appliances can help prevent them. Your bathtub and sink could leak one drip per second, wasting more than 3,000 gallons per year. Outdoor irrigation systems can leak 1/32 of an inch in diameter, which can waste over 6,000 gallons of water annually.
    Daily savings: ~24 gallons.
     
12. Defrost frozen foods in the refrigerator instead of with water: Defrosting food in the fridge keeps it at a safe temperature, as opposed to having it sit in warm water, where harmful bacteria can grow. Plan ahead by placing frozen foods for the next day in the refrigerator overnight, which could save 50 to 150 gallons of water a month.
    Daily savings: 1.5 to 5 gallons. 
     
13. Choose tap water over bottled water: It takes about 1.5 gallons of water to manufacture a plastic bottle, which are almost always made from new plastic.
    Daily savings: 6 gallons (assumes recommended daily water intake of eight eight-ounce glasses).           

And one More: Food choices

Agriculture accounts for 92 percent of global water consumption. There are three main ways to save and protect clean water through your food choices: waste less food, eat less meat, and choose food grown organically—preferably through regenerative carbon-farming practices. 

Food waste: Americans waste 40 percent of the food we grow. Worldwide, we waste 1.3 billion tons of food, which also wastes 24 percent of the water used for agriculture, or more than 45.7 trillion gallons of water, according to the World Resources Institute. Our Winter 2016 Green American on food waste is full of tips and resources to help you waste less food. 

Eat less meat: Pound for pound, raising meat requires a lot more water than growing grains and produce, according to the GRACE Foundation. For example, a pound of beef requires 1,800 gallons of water, while a pound of corn only requires 147 gallons. So eating less meat saves water.  

Production of cattle feed is also closely tied to algae blooms, which have contaminated US water sources to the point where entire cities have had to temporarily switch to bottled water. These are caused by microcystis bacteria, which feed off of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorous, largely from fertilizer run-off. Some strains of microcystis are toxic, threatening human health. 

Dr. Don Scavia, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Michigan and former top scientist at NOAA, points to row crop, industrial-scale corn production as one of the largest driver of nutrient pollution: “About 40 percent of the corn produced in the US is used for animal feed,” he says. “So, if there was less meat consumption, the demand for corn would go down, and, therefore, less corn would be produced. It is also worth noting that another 40 percent is used for ethanol production.” 
In addition, confined animal feedlot operations (CAFOs), which house most animals raised for meat in the US, contribute significantly to water pollution in the US. CAFOs in the US produce 300 million tons of waste per year, and 13 percent more manure per year than human waste production, according to the US EPA. Instead of being treated at sewage plants, that waste sits in manure lagoons or is sprayed on fields as fertilizer. The National Institutes of Health report that lagoon leaks and the use of manure as fertilizer sends pathogens, nutrient pollution, antibiotics, hormones, and heavy metals into our water systems. 

Buy organic: Green America’s Center for Sustainability Solutions helps foster sustainable supply chains in the food industry, in part by encouraging more markets for organic farmers in the US. The more organic farmers, the less chemical pesticide and fertilizer run-off from the ag industry. The Center’s Carbon Farming Network also encourages farmers and businesses to adopt practices that regenerate  soil. Through regenerative farming, the world could produce up to 58 percent more food, reduce water pollution, and help reverse the climate crisis, because healthy soils contain living microorganisms that break down carbon and pollutants—and healthy soils retain more water. 

There are “more than 2.5 million miles of pipelines across the US and 18,000 places where they cross under rivers, streams, and lakes,” according to American Rivers. That’s a big concern because accidents happen, and when they do, they often leak poison into US drinking water. In 2015, the Poplar oil pipeline spilled nearly 50,000 gallons of oil into Montana’s Yellowstone River, contaminating water supplies and harming wildlife habitat. 

Green America works with a coalition of allies to fight pipelines nationwide, from the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota to the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline in Pennsylvania, the Keystone XL Pipeline stretching from Canada to Texas, and others. 
One thing we love about this coalition is that it brings together a broad swath of people from all walks of life. One of them, Paul Gierosky, is an engineer and business owner who identifies as a conservative. When the Nexus Pipeline—a natural gas pipeline that would run from Ohio to Ontario—was proposed for his area in northern Ohio, Gierosky reached across political lines to help lead his community in opposing it.  

Green America’s Tracy Fernandez Rysavy talked with Gierosky about his efforts against the pipeline. 

Green American/Tracy Fernandez Rysavy: How did you end up becoming an anti-pipeline activist? 

Paul Gierosky: Three years ago, [my wife and I] received a letter from a company called Nexus Gas Transmission, which is owned by Enbridge Energy of Alberta, Canada, and DTE Energy, which is the power generation and distribution company for eastern Michigan. And it says, “We’ve got great news for you! We want to build a 36-inch diameter natural gas pipeline carrying 1.5 billion dekatherms per day 15 feet from your bedroom window!”

And I said, “Over my dead body.” 

Northeast Ohio, where I live, is slated to get 100 miles of this pipeline. So, I contacted my neighbors and people throughout Medina County. We created a media outreach plan, had meetings with county leaders, and created a nonprofit. We’ve raised money, hired attorneys, fought lawsuits in public courts. Now we have a case in federal court that’s attempting to expose the abuse of power and law by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC]. 

That’s a five-minute summary of three years.

Green American/Tracy: You describe yourself as a conservative, so what’s it like working with environmentalists, who are often liberal, on this issue? 

Paul Gierosky: I just came in from our garden, where I picked tomatoes, chard, and beans grown without pesticides. My wife and I pull the bugs off with tweezers. This whole labeling of people, being something or another is all about party politics, about the establishment. You can call me a conservative. I’m proud of it. I believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and a strong national defense. But, I am also concerned about our environment, failing public schools, and the conditions in our inner cities.

We’re close to Oberlin, OH, and the university there is really, really, really liberal and part of our coalition. I’ve gone over there many times, and I find the students asking the same kinds of questions I do. At the end of the night, they go, “We want the same things. We just go about it differently.” 

Green American/Tracy: What are the impacts that you fear from the Nexus Pipeline?  

Paul Gierosky: With interstate natural gas pipelines, there are no safety setback standards. They can literally build it arm’s length from your bedroom window. [According to] the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, PHMSA, there have been 6,000 reportable pipeline incidents in the US.  

In all the [government] regulations, there’s nothing about how close to a house or a school or a church or a nuclear power plant they can build these things. The pipeline companies have lobbied relentlessly to keep out everything like that. 

Not having [safety setback standards] is a violation of my Constitutional rights. I’m an engineer besides being a businessman; it makes no sense to have pipelines between houses and within 25 feet of them. Why do we have seatbelts in cars? Because we know there are going to be accidents. Well, we know there will be accidents with pipelines. 

Green American/Tracy: You mentioned FERC “abuse”?   

Paul Gierosky: The whole FERC process is an elaborate charade. The company picks the project, the company plans the route, FERC collects a whole bunch of data to cover their ass, and they approve the routes and get eminent domain to route it. 
I didn’t believe that when I started. I thought, “Here’s a federal government agency that we paid for with our tax dollars that’s going to listen to us. So we have to respect and use the process.” 

We never tried to stop the Nexus. Our approach was to reroute it. We said it ought to be going out in the country, away from populated centers where it could have a disastrous effect on people’s lives. 

We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars having a fully engineered route proposed. The company dismissed it out of hand. We really thought that because our pipeline route was safer, was less impactful to the environment, that FERC was going to force the company to adopt it. But they didn’t. FERC dismissed it, too.

Every pipeline project proposed has been permitted by FERC. None have been denied. This violates our due-process rights. It’s not a legitimate, real, good-intended process. 

Green American/Tracy: How has eminent domain—the right of the federal government to take private property for public use—been an issue in Ohio with Nexus?  

Paul Gierosky: Companies use eminent domain as a hammer over your head. For three years, they’ve been holding that over us. 
Thousands of miles of pipelines have been built without the use of eminent domain. But those are pipelines that have been only within a state. Intrastate pipelines are regulated by state authorities and public utilities, not the federal government. But Nexus crosses state lines into Canada, so it’s regulated under FERC. Congress passed the Natural Gas Act in 1938 and, later, attached eminent domain authority to it for FERC without restriction.  

The Nexus pipeline is an export pipeline. We’re shipping our natural resources to Canada. We have a foreign Canadian company that’s the lead developer. So it’s planning to use eminent domain to take our property to export product to Canada that Canada doesn’t even need. We import gas from Canada, so why the hell does FERC have the legal authority to give away eminent domain authority to a private company that clearly has no public use?

Green American/Tracy: What’s the status of the pipeline now?  

Paul Gierosky: FERC issued its third permit for the Nexus pipeline in November 2016. From that point, it had 90 days to go through an evaluation process before the commissioners would issue a certificate, but there was a long delay because one of the FERC commissioners resigned in February, leaving FERC without a quorum. They needed three to conduct business, and after the resignation, there were only two. 

During that intervening period, we fired up a team of attorneys, and on May 12th, we filed our federal lawsuit in the District Court of the Northern District of Ohio, which is pending before Judge John Adams. (I love that name.) We’re requesting that the judge issue a stay to stop FERC from issuing a certificate on Nexus until the merits of our case can be heard. 

In August, the Senate confirmed two Trump nominees to FERC, restoring the quorum. They didn’t waste any time issuing the certificate. The court has not yet ruled on our complaint. I suspect the judge now has his justification to dismiss our case. We will see.

Green American/Tracy: Have you had any victories yet?

Paul Gierosky: Oh, yes! In common pleas court, a judge denied the company the power to use Ohio revised codes, laws created in Ohio, to survey property without homeowners’ permission.

Here’s why that matters: The company sends a letter and says, “Good news! We want to build this monster through your front yard. Please sign here, so we can come survey your property.” 

And you deny, deny, deny. Then they send letter again and say,”If you don’t send it back, we’re going to take you to court.” So, when you tell them to go you-know-what, they file a lawsuit, which usually names a whole bunch of property owners who have denied them access. They did that here in 11 counties. 

Can you imagine this? In some counties in Ohio, judges have granted temporary restraining orders, and police have accompanied surveyors and held property owners at bay while their property was seized. They can cut down trees, take data, dig holes, take soil samples. And they give you no results. How does that comport with the fifth amendment? How about if they come and tap into my brain and seize my intellectual property?

Anyway, we fought that here in Medina County—94 people got sued and were dragged into court. It’s been going on for over a year. A couple of weeks ago, the court said, “You know what? The courts have been in error in applying Ohio revised code. So we’re denying the company this right to do that.” 

This is precedent-setting. Now the company is appealing it, because if this goes into effect, it changes the whole dynamic. If they can’t survey your property, they can’t come up with a route. 

Green American/Tracy: How do you stay hopeful you can stop Nexus’s current route and FERC abuses?

Paul Gierosky: Because I’m a marathoner. I ride my bike 100 miles for fun. And we’re not alone in this process. There are 200 organizations—Green America is part—that have called upon Congress to hold hearings into FERC’s abuse of power and law. Every two weeks, we have a conference-call strategy session. We come up with plans, have Senate call-in days, draft legislation, etc. 

Why am I hopeful? Because I’ve yet to meet anybody who says what we’re doing is crazy or wrong. I just know we’re right, and this process should be changed.

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In partnership with a national coalition of anti-pipeline groups, Green America has been pushing back against FERC’s abuses, particularly through calling, e-mailing, and lobbying members of Congress to act on this matter. We also sent a letter to FERC in May asking it to reject the Eastern Panhandle Pipeline Expansion Project, which is still pending. 

To keep informed about Green America’s work to stop pipelines and end FERC abuses, visit our Climate programs page and sign up for our free e-mail newsletter.

On April 1, 2016, Native Americans from across the country gathered at Sacred Stone Camp in Cannonball, ND, to protect the Missouri River.

They ran to draw attention to their opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a proposed crude oil pipeline that would stretch 1,172 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. Activists worry that a spill could be catastrophic for communities along the pipeline, as it runs underneath the Missouri River, which provides drinking water to ten states and 28 tribes. Spearheading the massive campaign against the DAPL are the Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation lies half a mile from the pipeline route, and who are gravely concerned about the DAPL crossing ancestral burial sites on their traditional territory.

Danny Grassrope, a 25-year-old Kul Wicasa Lakota, was not among the activists then. He didn’t know what DAPL was or that people were protesting it. He was living in McLaughlin, SD, a small town on the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Reservation. Mostly, he was getting drunk every night. 

“I grew up in an alcohol environment,” he says. “I didn’t know it was unhealthy for me. I didn’t know it was going to affect me in the way it did.” 

His alcohol consumption grew so bad that Grassrope was kicked out of class one day for arriving drunk, and he ended up dropping out of college. 

“I guess that’s where I started to get lost. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I didn’t want to be nothing.”

A former high school and college runner, Grassrope still ran to keep in shape. And he’d pray when he ran: “I was asking, ‘God, just let something come my way so I can feel a part of life.’”

In April 2016, weeks after the start of the Standing Rock encampment, Grassrope saw a flier on Facebook for a run—564 miles from Cannonball, NC, to Omaha, NE, over eight days—to raise awareness of the fight against the DAPL. An old friend of his, Bobbi Jean Three Legs, was organizing it with a group of Native youth called ReZpect Our Water (ReZpectOurWater.com). He decided he wanted to take part.

“They were running through [my hometown] Lower Brule, so I texted Bobbi Jean and said ‘I’m going to run with you,’” says Grassrope.

Danny Grassrope at Standing Rock, photo by Sarah Stacke. Above: The young runners of ReZpect Our Water, courtesy of ReZpect Our Water.

That run changed his life. The group covered 40 to 80 miles in relay each day, while bearing signs and shirts to promote safe water and advocate against the pipeline. As they ran through reservations and towns, runners stopped to make speeches about the importance of stopping the pipeline and invited locals to run with them. 

Grassrope ran 10 to 15 miles per day with the group, which grew and shrank each day as they were joined by school children, community members, and tribal elders. Eleven runners made it from start to finish.  

“I have been running with them since,” says Grassrope. “I started to know the cultural side of who I am, and the spirituality we have as a people. It was just mind-blowing, that I was meant to be something. I was meant to be here.”

After the run to Omaha, he visited the Sacred Stone camp and then participated in a 22-day relay, organized by ReZpect Our Water and People Over Pipelines, from the camp to Washington, DC, last summer, in which hundreds participated and 40 runners made it all the way to DC. After that, Grassrope moved to Sacred Stone Camp for seven months, and he wasn’t alone. Activists started pouring into the camp after the DC run, when in the previous months it had been a much smaller movement. 

Grassrope remained at Standing Rock until the water protectors were evicted at the end of February 2017. While there, he helped form the International Indigenous Youth Council, which advocates for Native youth to be fully educated and integrated into the struggles of Native people, which he says adults often try to shield them from.

“When I grew up, I didn’t know that we were conquered people. I knew there was war, but I didn’t get the message of what our people went through,” he says. “I know the teachings of historical trauma and why [alcoholism is a problem for Native communities] now, but I didn’t then.”

Since last summer, ReZpect Our Water has been working to amplify Native voices through social media and by organizing people in their hometowns for clean water. The group is also planning new prayer and healing runs. 

Grassrope says the runs can be used anywhere Native people are being threatened by development, to raise awareness and build community: “Hopefully, it ripples, the movement keeps going, and other people in other towns start running like this.”  

You wouldn’t think that here in America, there would be entire swaths of the population without proper sewer systems, resulting in raw sewage seeping into their yards and water tables. You would be wrong. 

You would also probably hope that the substandard living conditions caused by the lack of affordable and failsafe sewage systems wouldn’t hit communities of color the hardest. But you’d be hoping in vain.

And you probably wouldn’t imagine that those same communities of color would do everything they could to get on the right systems, recommended by their municipal governments, and still have major problems with sewage leakage. And then would end up being legally prosecuted for it. However, that’s sadly true, too. 

It’s a difficult series of scenarios to picture unless you live with it. Catherine Coleman Flowers has lived with it every day for the past 17 years. While working to promote equitable economic development in Lowndes County, Alabama, she discovered that people were being arrested for not having adequate sewage treatment systems, resulting in spills on their own property and others’. So she went to work trying to come up with a solution. And she’s still working. 

Today, Flowers is the founder/CEO of the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise CDC Inc. (ACRE), a community development corporation that works for water and sanitation equity.  It’s not a glamorous topic, but it’s oh, so necessary to tackle—for clean water, community dignity, and human rights.

A Widespread Infrastructure Failure

Lowndes County sits in the middle of a region in Alabama known as the “Black Belt,” both for its rich, dense clay soils and for the fact that 74 percent of the population is made up of Black citizens. If you want to visit Selma, AL—the site of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where Martin Luther King, Jr. marched with Rep. John Lewis and other civil rights activists to call for African-American voting rights—you have to go through Lowndes County. 

That bridge is named for a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, which should tell you plenty about the state of racial justice in the region over the years, thanks to the legacy of slavery and virulent racism. The county itself earned the name “Bloody Lowndes” due to violent white suppression of civil rights activism, according to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).  

While local and state governments brought basic infrastructure like good sewage systems to affluent, primarily white neighborhoods decades ago, many Black and low-income homes in Lowndes County just got running water in the 1990s. In addition, more than 35 percent of homes in the county have failing systems, and 15 percent have nothing but outhouses or a pipe that runs from the house to the woods.

Rural areas commonly aren’t within reach of municipal sewage systems, so households need to turn to septic tanks to control sewage. However, Flowers says that the clay soils in her region are “very good for growing crops,” but they’re terrible when it comes to burying on-site septic systems. 

How a septic tank works, in brief, is that it acts as a mini-water-treatment facility. The tank holds water long enough for solids to sink to the bottom, forming a sludge. The tank contains the sludge and allows water to exit to a drainfield area, where it sinks into and is naturally filtered by the soil. 

Dense clay soils, unfortunately, won’t absorb the water quickly enough, so much of it just sits there until it backs up. 

“Septic systems inevitably fail because of the soil,” says Flowers. “And when they fail, “[the wastewater] ends up coming back through a bathtub or sink. Or people go out working and come back to a house full of raw sewage.”

The problem has gotten so bad that a newly released study from Baylor College of Medicine found that 34 percent of Lowndes County residents have tested positive for hookworm, an intestinal parasite that’s usually associated with the most impoverished corners of the developing world. The parasite enters the body through the soles of the feet and causes 
anemia, weight loss, fatigue, and impaired mental function. 

A home in Lowndes County, AL, with sewage seeping into the back yard after a septic tank failure. Courtesy of ACRE.

Unequal Protection, Unequal Prosecution

Both Black and white households in Lowndes have to deal with the problem of leaking sewage—and the health risks and drinking-water contamination that come with it. But the problems of the Black families are often compounded by unequal treatment by local authorities.

“The state should have some accountability; they’re recommending septic systems to residents that just simply don’t work,” says Flowers. “But when those systems fail, the state ends up prosecuting people for not complying [with the law].”

It’s a pattern Flowers has seen over and over again, but only for one segment of the community, she says: Business owners get their problems taken care of or at least patched, while Black residents get fined or arrested—even when they’ve tried in good faith to take care of the issue themselves. 

Many households have been fined up to $500 a day after their septic systems fail. But there’s no good alternative for replacing them—Flowers says there are currently no septic systems that will work adequately in clay soils. 

“Compound this with the fact that the climate is changing, and we’re getting more rain,” she says. “Whenever it rains, we can anticipate a septic system will fail because the ground is saturated with water. So the tank fails more quickly, and the sewage comes back into the house.”

In addition, at around $6,000, the tanks are often too expensive in the first place for many low-income households.  

Despite the Sisyphean nature of the problem, people have even been arrested for lack of compliance. Flowers cites the example of Bishop Ira McCloud, pastor of the Jesus Christ Church of God the Bibleway of the Apostolic Faith in Brundidge, AL. 

The church’s septic system failed shortly after it had purchased its current building. And in the summer of 2014, an adjoining property owner complained to the health department after sewage from the church started flooding his property. 

Municipal sewer lines ran directly behind the church’s property. “But instead of allowing church to connect, the state went the other route and prosecuted,” carting the pastor off to jail, says Flowers. “The pastor was a Black man who had never been arrested before.”

Bishop McCloud was cleared of all liability in court in 2015 due to a corporate loophole. While the prosecuting lawyer claimed that the church refused to connect to the municipal system because it couldn’t afford to, Bishop McCloud noted that money isn’t the problem—it’s the lack of basic, commonsense help coming from the government that is.

“It hurts for the city to have a line right behind the church that I’m not allowed to connect to,” McCloud told the Troy Messenger. “I’m in the city limits, but I’m not allowed to connect to the city sewage, and that’s not fair. No pastor wants this for their church.” 

After the case against him was thrown out, McCloud successfully hired an attorney to sue the city so it would allow his church to connect to the municipal system. 

Hope for Equitable Solutions

Today, Flowers and ACRE work on two fronts: They help set up residents on sewage systems—preferably a municipal system, but barring that, they’ll install doomed-to-fail septic tanks as a Band-Aid solution. And they assist people targeted by unfair prosecution over their sewage situations. 

While much of ACRE’s work takes place in Alabama, Flowers says the problems in Lowndes County also occur across the country, so she travels from state to state, drawing attention to their sewage issues, too. In fact, that’s why she’s currently working on a book, documenting the sanitation issue around the country, from California to Mississippi to New Jersey. 

“It’s America’s dirty secret,” she says. “It’s an issue of inequality, of the negligence of rural communities.”

She’s also hoping to team up with a major entity like the Gates Foundation—which in the past has funded water treatment in the developing world—to hold a “wastewater challenge,”asking inventors to come up with a septic system that truly works in clay soils. 

“Flint, MI, raised the bar quite a bit. When people talk about Flint, it was flawed infrastructure. We’re talking about flawed and no infrastructure,” she says. “Even after 17 years, I’m still hopeful we can find something that’s affordable, that takes into account climate change, and that works.”

Take Action

The Alabama Center for Community Enterprise CDC, Inc. (ACRE) works for water and sanitation justice in Alabama and across the US. 334/269-1803

Join Green America’s “Toxic Drinking Water” webinar.  This fall, Green America is conducting a webinar on the water-related topics discussed in this issue of the Green American. Catherine Flowers will be one of our featured speakers.

The Delaware River isn’t the most glamorous river. There aren’t songs written about it, like the Shenandoah or the Mississippi. It’s named for one of the smallest and least populous states. Yet, the watershed provides drinking water to 13-19 million people every day and is fed by water in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. In fact, the watershed is more than five times bigger than the state it is named for, at about 14,000 square miles.

As Tracy Carluccio puts it, the river does a lot of hard work. It keeps Carluccio busy, too, as the deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN), a nonprofit that organizes local citizens to monitor the river’s water quality, fights polluters in court, and works with legislators to make laws that are good for the river. Riverkeeper ably demonstrates that communities have an important role to play in protecting their own water sources.

When Storytelling Leads to Change

DRN stewards the Delaware River watershed through the help of lots of community volunteers. The organization runs a hotline, which locals use to report pollution incidents, threats like construction, or other water-related concerns. 

Once they call in to the hotline, many people embrace the chance to find out how healthy the water is firsthand. Staff members organize groups of community volunteers to test the water all along the river and along hundreds of miles of tributaries for contamination. They also train locals to be active witnesses to would-be polluters, keeping an eye on factories or construction projects near the river, for example.

In addition, DRN volunteers are part of tracking the health of the river in other ways. One project monitors horseshoe crab spawning on a New Jersey beach, while another monitors salt runoff of roads in the winter. Others test known healthy sources that are threatened with new development—such as a factory slated to be built near a creek—so DRN’s lawyers can more easily make the case for protecting them. The network also works with dozens of smaller watershed groups to help them collect data and achieve their goals.

If the data they collect indicates a portion of the river is in trouble, DRN takes action, working with scientists to identify important trends, with attorneys to sue polluters, and with community members to pressure legislators to create laws and allocate funds to clean and protect waterways. 

Delaware Riverkeeper volunteers help clean up the banks of the river. Courtesy of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network

Volunteers also take part in plantings to rebuild polluted or eroded riverbanks in the watershed. There’s a lot of work to do, and fortunately, many people to do it—Carluccio estimates DRN has worked with 500 volunteers in the past five years, with about 200 active today.

“Once people understand the connection between them and their watershed, the Delaware River, and how they might be affected by something, they’re going to get engaged,” she says. 

Carluccio has noticed an increase in interest in clean drinking water since the election of President Trump, as many fear he could dismantle federal protections on clean water. Under Scott Pruitt, the EPA has already taken aim at a 2015 amendment to 1972’s Clean Water Act, which expanded the Act’s scope to also protect small creeks and streams.

DRN claims 70 victories in battles to protect the watershed, which include: preventing the US Army from dumping 1,200 tons of VX nerve-agent waste in the river, stopping the construction of a hazardous waste incinerator less than a mile from the river’s edge in New Jersey, and securing a moratorium that has prevented drilling and fracking for shale gas in the Delaware River watershed since 2010.  

People Power Against FERC

Carluccio says that when DRN is engaged in communities, stories just come out of the woodwork. Volunteers often talk to Riverkeeper staff about the different environmental issues they are facing in their community.  

That’s how Maya K. van Rossum, the director of DRN, started to get tuned in to the problems of pipelines in 2010, as the issue became prevalent in Pennsylvania during the state’s fracking boom. People were showing up to DRN events and calling the hotline to talk about how pipelines carrying fracked gas posed a threat to their drinking water and land.

There is a moratorium on fracking in the Delaware River basin, but as natural gas fracking expands in Pennsylvania, the stakes are rising to protect water downstream. 

As Pennsylvanians started to fight against pipelines, van Rossum joined a coalition of over 200 organizations—including Green America—fighting pipelines around the country.

The coalition purposefully has no name, says van Rossum, because on petitions and other documents, it’s more powerful to list out every group that’s involved. In 2017, DRN compiled a 455-page dossier on behalf of coalition members slamming FERC, the federal agency that permits interstate pipelines, for irresponsible pipeline permitting. The group has participated in coalition lobby days on Capitol Hill, in a public hearing on FERC’s abuses, and in organizing people to sign onto letters urging legislators to hold FERC accountable for its actions.

Because of advocacy by DRN and the anti-pipelines coalition,federal regulators are exercising jurisdiction over the PennEast pipeline project and conducting their reviews independent from FERC.  

In all of DRN’s work, van Rossum stresses the importance of “people-power,” the impact a large group of people can have when they lend their voices to a cause that’s important to them. Even if your community isn’t being affected by pipelines or polluted water, she says, you can still make a difference.

“Every time everybody has added their voice, they have helped [create] a movement that can no longer be ignored by the Senate or by Congress. We will win. But we need every voice to get there,” she says. 

Take Action 

Learn more about the anti-pipeline coalition at StopThePipelines.org. 

There are over 300 Riverkeeper, Bayoukeeper, Baykeeper, Creekkeeper, and Waterkeeper organizations around the world, organized under one umbrella as the Waterkeeper Alliance. (Though they operate similarly, the DRN is not affiliated with the Alliance.) Together, the groups patrol and protect more than 2.5 million square miles of rivers, lakes, and coastal waterways on six continents. To find a local Waterkeeper group or start one in your area, contact the Alliance at 212/747-0622 or info@waterkeeper.org, or search their database.