O₄FFDEM Watersheds, February 2, 3 & 4 sessions

Multi-hands written presence proposal

• Water Creative Sessions – Exposing The Invisible (Investigation) & Hack₂O (Hacktivism)

Friday Meeting

Attendees

• apc.org
• exposingtheinvisible.org
• https://www.masteson.com/
• hack2o.eu

We have agreed on a joint commitment: we will continue to meet, exchange information, share facilities and organize or take part in events together.

Notes

Initial group sharing of personal topics/interests

• During COP 28 the Water pavilion meeting was only ~ 55m². A very huge and important topic set in a very small room.

• Sillicon Factory (ST Micro) in Grenoble, France, are expanding their factory, doubling the already huge water consumption for building electronics components

• Find some ways to bring other topics or same topics with a new different narrative.

• Since 2 years Water became an important / major topic within different “communities” (tech, journalists, media, Activists, etc). But There’s still some lack of “specific approach” cover and diffusion/spread.

• Make water a “thing”, like (violation of) privacy or fossil fuel are

• APC have members working in Niger Delta. One of the main challenge is to make members collaborate between themselves

• Journalist goes, then splits stuff up and go away and never come back

• Citizens and DIY movment on monitoring air and water with sensors

• If want to change things you need to raise awareness

• Organizing / grouping our struggles around watersheds - replacing usual colonial/state boundaries

Watersheds sessions Saturday 3 February 2024

Attendees

• APC
• Tactical tech
• Activists team from Strasbourg (issue about Water and industrial wastes storage + Mining project with silicium + On going project around Hydrogen Sulfure)
• Belgium Activism group “Acteurs et actrices des temps présents”. Solidarity between Watersheds
• Getting the Brussels, collective fighting against prison for people without papers
• Petites singularités
• PhD student trying to educate herself in critical thinking
• Hack2O project / chemical aspect and water quality / water access + electrification / mining project (lithium) / indigenous communities
• Programmer and activists
• Journalist and Media producer / COP 28 working in the middle East
• Exposing the Invisible / Investigative journalist
• Germany in research lab on machine / anti-racist movement / climate change movement

Some concerns

Militarization: how much water to build military stuff (microchips / computer / weapons / telecommunication infrastructure) → Grenoble Valley.

• People can’t see the water level decreasing

In Gaza Wests banks there is no safe drinkable water and it’s illegal to collect rain water.
→ 1. Controlling resources
→ 2. Deprivation

Saudi Arabia is developing technics to make rain and that affects others communities and other lands / region.
→ Maybe start mapping where those kind of things happens

Personal stories

• France and reusing our own cleaned water in your own system. It’s an obligation to use water infrastructure provided by others
• This idea of controlling what happens, and this amount of power is one of the main story
• Access to water for swimming and legal responsibilities and using this kind of case to keep people away from a place.

Concerns, stories and questions about water issues, as shared in the group

• Sainte Soline and the megabassines

• Polluted water in Brittany

  • https://troubled-waters.eu/
  • https://splann.org/?s=algues&sentence=1&post_type=enquete%2C+elemenquete%2C+replay%2C+post%2C+page

• Kibera’s polluted water and privatized water sold.

• An organization in the Gers (?)

• Stocamine, soon to be polluted phreatic layer (Stocamine: The never-ending story of Alsace's 'toxic waste dump').

• Toxic wastes and former chemical in Romania. Data are collected only every 20 years on site by the state. Other sources as for example those done by activists are not considered by the state or local administration because «not scientific»

• Gold mines in Guyana polluting water with lead or mercury.

• Sea beds exploration. International Seabeds Authority, a gathering of governments from around the world deciding who can explore where in the seabeds for future exploitation. One observational chair is there and occupied by Ocean Archives.

• Lack of transversal work between journalists, scientists, and activists. How to connect those communities ?

• Knowing who is doing what where and connecting those people, is an issue.

• Mines and toxic wastes, polluted sites, how to collect data ? Sending hairs of people or water samples to get test material for investigate water quality. Where to send them ? What testing can I do at home ?

• What are the red-flags people can start to investigate about ? Factories ? Cultures ?

• Financial investigations about water suppliers, contractors, shareholders. Is an OSINT group specialized on the water topic already ? Follow the money sounds like a good track.

• Once investigation is done how to communicate about it ?

• Bring the stories to existing medias.

• New mines for the ‘green leap’ to electric, lithium mines in Portugal and many other places for batteries

• Palestinians forbidden to collect water in the West Bank https://oxygen.offdem.net/t/water-in-palestine/349

  • In France collecting water for consumption is not allowed as well, even though for completely other reasons

• Cloud seeding: maps countries which are doing that

  • concerns about changing in weather patterns and mining required for the practice

• is there space in this conversation for addressing the rise of sea level?

• What will we do together in 2024?

External resources: organizations, initiatives, campaigns focused on water issues

• Wearewater.org (foundation, has a film festival on water as well: About | We Art Water Film Festival)

• appropedia.org

• Ocean Archive (TBA21): https://ocean-archive.org/ part of TBA21 Foundation (Spain)

• La Terre Au Carré: La Terre au carré par Mathieu Vidard sur France Inter (podcast on environmental issues in France)

• Paloma Morritz (Blast info: https://www.blast-info.fr/)

• Map of initiatives around water issues: Hack2o.eu - uMap (map curated by Hack2O)

• An investigation on how agriculture in the EU pollutes the waters: https://troubled-waters.eu/

• Susana: an informal network of Partners and individual Members who share a common vision on sustainable sanitation and who want to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Sustainable Sanitation Alliance

• Oxford water network(research projects): https://www.water.ox.ac.uk/

• Activist group in France: https://lessoulevementsdelaterre.org/en-eu

• Investigative group in France, focusing on pollution: rhttps://splann.org

• https://www.globalwaters.org/

• Passage of Water: “In collaboration with artist Yiyun Kang and NASA, learn about freshwater availability and engage with possible solutions to avoid a water crisis”: Passage of Water by Yiyun Kang - Experiments with Google

• Global Atlas of Environmental Justice https://ejatlas.org/ (“documents and catalogues social conflicts around environmental issues. It is an online interactive platform coordinated and managed by a team of researchers and activists.”)

• Stop Micro: Collective mobilizing against ST Micro a chip/silicon factory near Grenoble/FR https://stopmicro38.noblogs.org/

• Book: Green Zone - Energy cost of the US Army

Practical activities

1. Listing activists / investigation groups

2. How we can connect people who are interesting in water investigation / How a certain topic negativity affect people

3. What kind of tools to share knowledge between different groups / how do you share works?

Discussion exploring possible shared criteria to approach/investigate water issues - 3 February 2023

These notes are from an OFFDEM group discussion that explored whether it is possible to put together some shared criteria or frameworks that can help us approach and discuss water-related issues when looking at problems we want to investigate and expose.

We are trying to evaluate if there is shared criteria in which to discuss water matters.

Trying to find out areas in which water is impacted.
This is limited to fresh water.

Existing frameworks:

• UN created a framework for government, Integrated water resource management

• Planetary boundaries (many boundaries but one of them is fresh water)

• Waterfootprint Network

Criteria:

Availability/Access - But is the water polluted or used for what?
Quality - How polluted is the water?
Impact

Questions around water:
There are qualitative questions around water.

1. For example how much do you have to walk to get water? If it’s two miles then it’s more, if it’s more?
2. Other questions are how much does it cost (not financial) to get clean water? This is entwined with point 1
3. How much impact is it on others if you get water? Consider the indirect impact?
4. What is the amount of water required to do …? Water footprint. (Not a great idea because the purpose of what you do affects whether the footprint is negative or positive, maybe considering water usage on water cycle is more pertinent - i.e. using water to grow food is not comparable to using water for cooling a server, even if they use the same amount)
5. What is the societal effect of changes to current system?
6. How much competition is there for water?
7. What is the effect on living things?

Other ideas and questions for investigation or clarification

Small group 1

Talking about many water issues around the planet.
How to connect different communities, because connecting them is an issue.

How to collect data? Sampling and where to send samples.

What are the red flags where people can start to investigate.

Is there any OSINT groups related to Water issues and data.

Listed few resources

Many personal stories from the group help to find case on water issues

What we will do together in 2024?

Small group 2

• Is there an equivalent of Carbon emissions for water? Is there some kind of metric. Water footprint, but we cannot use that as a measurement, what is the impact on the water cycle?

• Sometimes the answers vary from place to place, for example maybe walking to water is better for society.

• Water is not a human centrism issue?

• The term cost is problematic because it is capitalistic

• We should think about how to help people as they struggle, how do we work together actually or continue working?

  • what are the questions being posed by the groups which are already in this struggle for/around water?

• It’s not a question of water consumption, it’s water pollution or water removed from its cycle. Water management?

• What breaks the permanent life that comes from water?

• Measuring impact in cycle of water, pollution, social aspect?

• We should focus on the struggles. Sometimes the framework can help people to start investigation on water. The complaint is there but maybe water questions can be a starting place. The purpose of the framework is bridging the struggles.

• It’s not us asking question, but what struggles should ask these questions.

• If we treat water as a commons, then we can ask the question, how are we misusing these commons? We are talking about fresh water, there are different types of regeneration of water that is important to look at.

• What is the issue with seeding the clouds with rain?

• How can we fight mining in the moon?

• Most people will not relate to that?

• Landgrabbing map for example makes it very evident what has been taken, that shows what the problem is for different communities.

• We can try and use the framework to categorize the different situations we know about and linking it to the mapping group?

• We can try and categorize the different types of water problems.

• Tracking chemicals as a way of accountability - which industry is responsible for the pollution

• Is there an OSINT group(s) working on water issues?

Proposed next steps

1. Structure a framework draft
2. Group struggles by the issues based on the framework draft
3. Try connect groups with similar struggles/issues
4. Refine the framework
5. Repeat

map → highlight the struggles → empower → show solidarity → connect

investigate → communicate → stygmatize water abuse everywhere

Chemical regulation in EU

Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 18, 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive 1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/ EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC

Consumers continually tend to raise their expectations about product safety, but nearly all experimental protocols for chemicals have remained almost unchanged for more than 40 years. The European Union introduced the regulation known as Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) by legislation in 2007. New products have been systematically evaluated in the European Union and the United States that includes Regulations, political and societal aspects, toxicity limits 97% of the main chemicals in use and more than 99% of the chemicals produced by volume, but were not necessarily adequately addressed. Hartung estimates that data for 86% of chemicals are missing and the REACH process aims to correct this. The regulation affects 27,000 companies, which are required to provide information on the toxic properties and uses of 30,000 chemicals, following a pre-registration phase in 2008. Expecting the REACH form to be an important tool to emphasize toxicology

Hartung T. Toxicology for the twenty-first century. Nature 2009;460(7252):208
12.

Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC, 396, accessed from EUR-Lex Document 32006R1907 ; 2006 & 2024.

Watersheds session Sunday 4 February 2024

Here we try to list websites / associations / hactivist groups from different countries / different regions of the world that make it “easier” to make an “Access to Information Act” request"

Europe

Access to information is a fundamental right in the EU

Greater transparency can help us address the EU’s troubled waters. Access to information about the state and quality of our water bodies is the first step towards ensuring clean and safe water for all. Information can also help us hold accountable those who are responsible for water pollution and related wrongdoing.

One of the best ways to file requests for information across Europe is to use civil society-led platforms.

Above list is provided By https://troubled-waters.eu

You can easily file a request to information using one of these platforms in the following countries:

• Austria, using FragDenStaat.at

• Belgium, using Transparencia

• Croatia, using Imamo pravo znati

• Czech Republic, using Info Pro Všechny

• France, using MaDada @madadafr

• Germany, using FragDenStaat.de

• Greece, using arthro5A.gr

• Hungary, using Ki Mit Tud

• Netherlands, using de Woo-Knop

• Romania, using Ia Statul la Întrebări

• Sweden, using Handlingar

Methodology and more informations
https://troubled-waters.eu/methodology

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Escazú Treaty − Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean | Observatory on Principle 10

Other resources

• Johannesburg Principles on national security, freedom of expression and access to information (1996) Johannesburg Principles on national security, freedom of expression and access to information - ARTICLE 19

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License

This document is under Free Art License 1.3 (FAL 1.3) By OFFDEM O₄ 2024 attendees