A new collaboration has formed in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota, calling themselves The Water Reclaimers. This collaboration is made up of people from environmental nonprofits, water quality entities, art organizations, city government, restaurants, and more.

Photo by perpetualstroll, Creative Commons NC, SA from Flickr

Together, the Water Reclaimers represent a wide range of perspectives and expertise on the issues impacting our drinking water. Their goal is to creatively engage people in trusting Twin Cities drinking water that sustains all life. This includes sharing information with about water quality, bottled water, tap water, and water as a commons.

The Water Reclaimers say that You, too, can be a Water Reclaimer simply by learning how to trust our water!

We are proud to use The Commons Mark to indicate our part in a movement to embrace water as a commons. The commons is everything we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished, to future generations. Whether it’s from your tap, a bottle, a spring, the sky or a public fountain, we honor water as a commons.

Currently the Twin Cities Water Reclaimer collaboration includes people from:
•A Single Drop
•Birchwood Café
•Corporate Accountability International
•Eureka Recycling
•Friends of Coldwater Springs
•In the Heart of the Beast Theater
•Minneapolis Councilmember Cam Gordon’s office
•Minnesota Department of Public Health
•Northland Bioneers
•On the Commons
•Saint Paul Public Works
•Saint Paul Regional Water Services
•Twin Cities Public Television
•V Creative

For more information about this collaborative: Contact Rachel Breen at On the Commons or Dianna Kennedy at Eureka Recycling

The victory was organized by Defending Water in Maine and other local organizations, with help from Food and Water Watch of Washington, D.C. “They’re pounding on the door of one community after another,” said Emily Posner with the Defending Water in Maine campaign. “We’re designating water as a part of the Commons, where everyone has the right to use water and no one has the right to sell it for profit. Maine’s economic development should be controlled by the residents of this great state, not by Nestle.”

Photo by Lance and Erin, via Flickr, licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, was pleased by the water district’s decision: “Water should be safe, clean and affordable for all, not a commodity to line corporate pockets or to be taken and peddled as a luxury item. The people of southern Maine have spoken and what they want is control of their own water, not indentured servitude to the corporate water barons.”

She added, “Economically vulnerable towns that may be seduced by the lure of new jobs from new extraction sites need to know that these so-called promises are nothing but lies concocted by Nestle to dupe them into handing over their water.”

A recent analysis by Food & Water Watch, The Unbottled Truth About Bottled Water Jobs, finds that:

• In 2006, the nation’s 628 water-bottling plants employed fewer than 15,000 people
• A typical bottled water plant employs 24 workers, between two and ten of which are local residents
• The average salary for a bottled water worker in 2006 was $41,236, almost $10,000 a year less than the average manufacturing job
• In 2006, bottled water manufacturing had one of the highest rates of workplace injury and illness, with one out of every 11 workers maimed or infirm—a rate 50 percent higher than the broader manufacturing and construction industry.