ppjg united nations, WATER Debbie Coffey, IWRM, NEVADA, PPJG, property onwners, PROPERTY RIGHTS, state resources, united nations, vested water rights, water

Debbie Coffey Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved.

PPJ Investigative Reporter/Journalist

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“IWRM is the (planning) process which promotes the co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.” __________________________________________________ At water rights hearings at the Nevada Department of Water Resources, farmers and ranchers of Eureka, Nevada seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Several articles have been written about their plight (links below).

But it seems like something “bigger” is happening. It is, and it’s probably happening to you, too.

After the most recent hearing, I saw a flyer on a bulletin board in the hallway. On it, the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) described a conference about Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The flyer linked IWRM to the Global Water Partnership and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

Does this sound as “American” as apple pie to you? Or does it sound multi-national and make you wonder how this might relate not only to our water rights, but to our constitutional rights here in the U.S.A.?

The conference aims were to explore IWRM in detail from both “US and international perspectives” and ask questions like “Can the USA implement IWRM?” and “How can IWRM best be implemented?”

However, the bigger question should be, do you want your property (and our United States) to be governed by international laws?

So what exactly is INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT (IWRM)?

On the AWRA website, it states “Participants in the national collaboration process spearheaded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers defined IWRM in this manner: ‘IWRM aims to develop and manage water, land, and related resources, while considering multiple viewpoints of how water should be managed (i.e. planned, designed and constructed, managed, evaluated, and regulated). It is a goal-directed process for controlling the development and use of river, lake, ocean, wetland, and other water assets in ways that integrate and balance stakeholder interests, objectives, and desired outcomes across levels of governance and water sectors for the sustainable use of the earth’s resources’.”

So, it’s also about managing the land and “related resources?” Does this mean ALL land and ALL resources? And who exactly will be offering the “multiple viewpoints” that IWRM aims to consider while CONTROLLING the development and use of river, lake, ocean, wetland and other water assets? Who are the stakeholders? Does the “stakeholder” group include PROPERTY OWNERS? What exactly are the “desired outcomes” of earth’s resources and who is desiring these outcomes?

Whatever it is, IWRM wants everybody to do it: “The American Water Resources Association calls on policy makers, planners and managers at national, tribal, interstate, state and local levels to encourage collaborations, policies, programs and plans that embrace Integrated Water Resources Management.”

February, 2010, Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar, (the BP disaster in the Gulf happened with his oversight) signed an Executive Order establishing a water sustainability strategy for the United States called WaterSMART.

What a coincidence! The United Nations has a WaterSMART campaign, and this campaign includes Integrated Water Resources Management.

Doesn’t this seem like something that should’ve been run by Congress before Salazar just declared it a policy? Our tax dollars are paying for U.N. programs to be implemented in the United States. Are we paying for the demise of our Constitution?

A couple of reasons that United Nations programs are dangerous to our Republic is because our U.S. laws could be superceded by international laws, and also because other governments (“members”) and organizations (“partners”) including multi-national corporations (including private water companies) influence and form United Nations policies.

AGENDA 21

The U.N.’s Agenda 21 (Chapter 38) states: “All agencies of the United Nations system have a key role to play in the implementation of Agenda 21.”

It seems that while Americans debate whether global warming and climate change are real or not, and while the U.N. fools people into believing its programs are about protecting the environment, there is one fact that is true for all Americans: Michael Shaw of www.freedomadvocates.com notes that the U.N. programs are about individual rights vs. community rights. The U.S. Declaration of Independence protects the unalienable rights of each individual, but the U.N Declaration of Human Rights states that “Rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations…”

ICLEI

One of the most important organizations to watch is ICLEI (also called Local Governments for Sustainability), established at the U.N. It’s an international association of local governments pushing U.N.’s Agenda 21 (also called Local 21) into many U.S. local governments. ICLEI has a water program. In Nevada, ICLEI USA members include Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Clark County and Washoe County. ICLEI has “Cool Mayors.” In fact, the mayor of Las Vegas is on the Board of Directors of ICLEI USA. Do you think this is “cool” or do you think this is unconstitutional?

On ICLEI’s website, it states that its International Goals are to promote:

Agenda 21,

the Rio Conventions:

Do you think the “Cool Mayors” have read all of the documents relating to all of this?

THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

You might also want to keep an eye on whatever the Army Corps of Engineers is spearheading. The U.S. Army Engineer Institute for Water Resources has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Water Partnership.

The Sept. 12, 2008 Federal Register states that Sec. 2031 of Water Resources Development Act of 2007 requires that the Corps use the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). And “There are many definitions of IWRM. One of the most accepted is that of the Global Water Partnership. IWRM is the (planning) process which promotes the co-ordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems.”

“Equitable”for whom? Who would benefit from this “economic and social welfare?” Could “related resources” be your property?

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a “COLLABORATING SUPPORTER” and “IN-KIND SPONSOR” of the American Water Resourses Association Conference mentioned in the 3rd paragraph of this article. This conference is sponsored by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and ICIWaRM (International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management under the auspices of UNESCO).

GLOBAL WATER PARTNERSHIP

The Global Water Partnership was founded with the support of the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank, to foster Integrated Water Resources Management

NEVADA’S STATE ENGINEER

Getting back to Nevada, Jason King, Nevada’s State Engineer, is on the Board of Directors of the Nevada Water Resources Association (a non-profit corporation). Other Board members include representatives of several mining companies (Barrick, Newmont & Kinross) and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA). The Southern Nevada Water Authority will be presenting a WaterSMART Innovations Conference in Las Vegas in October, 2011.

When I called the Nevada Water Resources Association to ask if it was a subsidiary of or associated with the American Water Resources Association, the woman who answered the phone told me it wasn’t. But guess what? If you go to the Nevada Water Resources Association website, they provide a link to the American Water Resources Association (which then leads you back to IWRM and the U.N.).

Nevada Assembly Bill 419 further threatens the water rights of farmers and ranchers by giving the State Engineer even more authority. Marti Oakley of the PPJ Gazette noted that in A.B. 419, in Section 2, #4: If the State Engineer “believes” the water has been abandoned, he does not have to have evidence or proof. He can end vested water rights. Sec. 3, #7 (b) “says that even private domestic wells can be targeted if they are using too much water. Compared to what? Industrialization?”

TO LEARN MORE

About ICLEI and Agenda 21, http://morphcity.com/agenda-21/iclei for excellent articles written by Cassandra Anderson

Read these two (also excellent) articles by Marti Oakley of the PPJ Gazette:

https://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/just-another-brick-in-the-wall-un-agenda-21-in-us-law/#more-16780

https://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/epa-and-corps-plan-to-seize-control-of-all-water/#more-16645

About the farmers and ranchers in Eureka, Nevada:

https://ppjg.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/chinese-government-money-is-buying-one-of-u-s-a-%E2%80%99s-biggest-mines/

https://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/general-moly%E2%80%99s-mt-hope-mine-let%E2%80%99s-hope-the-%E2%80%9Ceureka-moment%E2%80%9D-doesn%E2%80%99t-spell-disaster/

https://ppjg.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/is-a-mining-company-giving-the-shaft-to-farmers-and-ranchers/

SOURCES:

http://awra.org/policy-statements.html

http://www.nvwra.org/links/

http://www.nvwra.org/directorsstaff/

Nevada A.B. 419 – http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/76th2011/Bills/AB/AB419_R1.pdf

http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/2010_02_22_release.cfm/index.cfm

http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/upload/WaterSMARTOrder.pdf

http://www.doi.gov/budget/2011/11Hilites/DH019.pdf

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/watersmart.html

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/iwrm.html

http://www.unwater.org/members.html

http://www.watersmartinnovations.com/index.php

http://www.icleiusa.org/

http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

www.iclei.org

http://local2012.iclei.org/

http://www.usace.army.mil/CECW/Documents/pgr/15Oct2008_PaulKirshen.pdf

http://www.gwp.org/en/Our-approach/Strategic-Allies/Institute-for-Water-Resources-of-the-US-Army-Corps-of-Engineers-IWR/

http://www.gwp.org/en/About-GWP/History/

http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/private_property/