earthPoems
Celebration of LifeArchive for Drinking Water
Grandmothers to hold Water Prayers around the Globe on May 18
We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
Ask you to join us:
MAY 18, 2010
CONSCIOUS PARTICIPATION IN HEALING OUR PLANETARY WATERS
OUR MOTHER EARTH NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Along with many peoples all around the globe, and many water prayers this spring, we are calling for a
MASSIVE GLOBAL EFFORT
Our main intention for this healing is to return the waters to their original pure crystalline blueprint, and to add to their abundance for the nourishment of ALL living things on the planet.
Pray in your local waterways, at the rivers or lakes or streams. Or pray with a bowl of water in the middle of the cities.
“We are Water Babies.
Do not to forget to say thank you every day for the water you drink,
the water you bathe in.
Without our Mother water we would not survive.”
Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Takelma Siletz, Oregon
The specific ceremonies being conducted on May 18, 2010:
Grandmothers will be holding Water Prayers in the following places:
African Rainforest, Gabon – Grandmother Bernadette Rebienot
Great Lakes, USA - Grandmother Rita Blumenstein
Mountains of Oaxaca, Huautla de Jimenez – Grandmother Julieta Casimiro
Desert of the American Southwest – Grandmother Mona Polacca
France - Grandmother Flordemayo
Black Hills of North America – Beatrice and Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance
Plains of North America, Montana – Grandmother Margaret Behan
Hood River, Oregon – Agnes Baker Pilgrim
Nepalese Himalayas – Aama Bombo
Brazilian Amazon - Grandmothers Maria Alice Freire and Clara Shinobu Iura
Tibetan Ceremonies in Canada – Tsering Dolma Gyaltong
Mahia, Aotearoa, New Zealand – Ambassador Pauline Tangiora
At the same time, people will be praying at
Nine specific bodies of water around the planet using crystalline energy
· Lake Tahoe, California
· Lake Titicaca, Peru
· Lake MacKay Australia
· Lake Chad, Africa
· Lake Bikkal, Russia
· Lake Kissyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan
· Lake Geneva, Switzerland
· Lake Superior, Minnesota
· Colorado River Complex (Healing and Purification Ceremonies for this vital USA waterway)
“Water reflects the human soul. If you say, ‘thank you’ to water, it will be reflected in the form of beautiful crystals overflowing with gratitude in return.”
Masuru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water
For more information:
www.goldeneagleceremonies.com
Information provided by Dharini Abeyesekera
Lahore’s water contaminated by pollutants
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: A hundred percent of samples taken from Lahore’s water supply and tested in 2006 were found to be contaminated, according to a paper presented at a conference on Pakistan’s water problem held at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.
According to Anita Chaudhry, who teaches Economics at the California State University, the contaminants found in Lahore’s water were iron, arsenic and bacteria.
Four years earlier, only 56 percent of the samples were contaminated. She also said that the average groundwater depth in east Lahore is 100 feet, while it is 40 feet in west Lahore. Access to safe drinking water in Punjab’s urban areas in 2002 was 95 percent against 87 percent in rural areas. Access to sanitation in urban areas was 92 percent and 35 percent in rural areas.
Problems: Chaudhry found that Lahore has no public storage capacity and water supply lasts for a few hours a day and remains highly variable. She also observed a crumbling distribution network with leaks and ‘unaccounted for’ water, nor was there any effective metering of water use.
At least 35 percent of households in urban Punjab have private electric groundwater pumps, Chaudhry said. She found that the costs of decentralised water access could be several times the cost of a centralised efficient water system. Because of dynamic inefficiency, water was being depleted for future generations.
Sewage, she found, is not treated and eventually it seeps into groundwater. She noted that the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established adequate standards for drinking water for physical parameters, bacterial contamination, essential inorganics and radioactive contamination.
Organic contaminants are, however, not regulated on a compound by compound basis. To avoid declining groundwater tables and deteriorating groundwater quality in fresh groundwater areas, and to ensure equal access to this increasingly important natural resource, the water portfolio, she suggested, should be diversified.
There should also be harvesting of rainwater, a reduction in groundwater withdrawals, proper management of wastewater and an appreciation of the constraints on fresh water. Chaudhry said the increase in supply of water is fundamentally a question of ‘reallocation’.
EPA orders companies to set up water treatment plants
By Abdul Manan
LAHORE: Following a recent wave of gastroenteritis cases in Faisalabad, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has conducted high-level meetings with industrialists in Faisalabad, compelling them to follow standards and guidelines of the EPA in order to eradicate the gastroenteritis disease from the city, EPA officials told Daily Times on Thursday.
An EPA spokesman said that the city was facing such problems because of its contaminated water. He added that the EPA, upon inspection, found the city’s water supply to be unhealthy. He said that a water treatment plant was lacking in almost all the factories located around the city. He blamed the industries for disposing their hazardous polluted water into open drains, which had poisoned the sub-soil water.
He said that all industries were given a deadline of six months, in which they were expected to install water treatment plants. He said that any industries that would not comply with the EPA’s orders would be sealed.
He said that all industries were also ordered to remove solid wastes and make arrangements for proper disposal.
He said that all industries had been directed to make sure that the landscape around the factories was such that it would benefit the environment. He said that officials from the Environment and Forestry Department had been instructed to plant trees in nearby areas, adding that the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry had been ordered to establish development funds like those in Sialkot.
Half of Lahore’s Population Drinking Contaminated Water
It may be ironic to some people that the first post at Earthpoems is about an issue as unpoetic as the contaminated water of Lahore. But then who knows what ‘poetic’ is when faced with erosion and decay in one’s city of birth, and so, this issue descends on me like a sad poem of love.
The Institute of Public Health (IPH) reports that faeces is found in about half of the drinking water samples collected from Lahore. Farkhanda Kokab, an Epidemiologist of the IPH, says that some 92 drinking water samples were tested between May 1 and 15, and faeces were found in 43 of them. “The presence of faeces in potable water is very dangerous and alarming. The authorities concerned must take a serious note of it and do the needful” she said.
According to a survey done by the Environment Protection Department (EPD) of the Punjab, a defective sewerage system is causing water contamination by allowing sewage water to mix in with the supply lines of drinking water. As well, it is recommended that the discharge of industrial refuse into the subsoil through holes should be banned to avoid further contamination of ground water.
The (Monitoring) Director of Punjab Environment Protection Department (EPD), Dr Shagufta Shahjahan said that the department had carried out tests on drinking water samples in the Punjab province earlier, and 25 per cent water samples collected from Lahore were found ‘unfit’ for drinking, and that the City District Government and Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) were advised to chlorinate and clean the City’s water supply lines.
Ms. Kokub of the IPH stresses that Lahore’s posh areas are no exception to drinking water contamination. To the citizens of Lahore, she suggests that “the best solution to ensure the cleanliness of drinking water is to boil it”!
An offshoot of this problem is the marked increase in the production and consumption of bottled water. Not only that water is selling almost at the price of milk but that it will soon add to the environmental hazard already clogging the city of Lahore in the form of roadside garbage dumps.
Information provided by Whiz News from Khaleej Times.
