A joint committee of the House and Senate heard today from a Canadian expert on water issues who said that water shortages will be the biggest problem facing the world in the 21st century.
Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the Council of Canadians, told Vermont legislators that she strongly supports a bill in the House that would make Vermont’s groundwater a public trust.
That’s a legal doctrine that would set up protections against bottled water companies and others coming into Vermont and extracting such large amounts of its groundwater that the state might be left short.
She says several international conflicts have erupted around water issues and that the world is using up it’s fresh water supplies much faster than they can be replenished.