"Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

Documentary Blue Gold

“The EJM is...a struggle to rethink how we work and live and how we produce and reproduce, with an awareness of the impact of our livelihoods and life-styles on our bodies, communities, and the Earth as our shared life-support system.” (Pena, 2011, Structural Violence, Historical Trauma, and Public Health)


In Environmental Justice, we often talk about low-income communities that are facing problems of contaminated water, often caused by local industrial factories and toxic producers.  As an outsider studying EJ issues, it is fairly easy to see that these companies and factories are creating toxics that are harming the communities, so we are drawn to focus on these issues.  However, I think it is pertinent to take a step back and look at the big picture, and problems that are irreversible.  


If one examines the recent history of the United States and the world, from agricultural advancements to urbanization, it is apparent that many of the problems we face today are a direct result of development.  The problems we examine in environmental justice also involve these issues because many EJ issues are a direct result of the advancements made.  It is not to say that the advancements were made with the issues in mind, but many of those issues were unforeseen and not planned for. 


A major Environmental Justice problem many people are facing not only in the United State and Mexico, but also throughout the world is access to clean, safe water.  Water is essential for life, without it we would perish.  And it is often easy to forget that water is also important for production of items like food and commodities.  If we examines the amount of accessible freshwater in the world, we would find that it is less than 3% of the world's total water supply.  This is not very much water to support our growing populations and increasing need and exploitation of the water sources.  


The water crisis does not discriminate.  It will affect everyone, even those in water rich countries, but it many take a little longer to hit.  This is very much an Environmental Justice issue, as it impacts our communities, lifestyles, and livelihoods. For a full explanation of how the water crisis is increasing, watch Blue Gold. Watch it.     


Read more about the water cycle here:
http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/info/water_cycle/hydrology.cgi


(Title quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)