The U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) is funding an evaluation of advanced technologies to stem chronic river pollution -- in Morocco, that is. The Moroccan river initiative comes to light just as the Bush Administration has proposed massive cuts to river pollution-prevention initiatives across the United States.
According to a planning document obtained by The Peacock Report, Moroccan olive oil producers every day release 2,000 tons of semi-solid waste into or around the Sebou River. Consequently, the USTDA is funding a "feasibility study" to analyze and develop a solution "for the treatment of olive oil waste" that's choking Morocco's Sebou watershed. USTDA -- an independent White House entity -- expects to award a $322,000 grant to a still-unnamed U.S. contractor to conduct the study; however, in the name of global free-trade, U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill for the subsequent clean-up of the Sebou. According to the TDA project document, the U.S-Morocco Free Trade Agreement (FTA) "facilitates financing and eliminates costs associated with the implementation of this project."
Meanwhile, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), the FY 2007 federal budget seeks to slash $200 million from the national Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund. This cut, representing a 22% decrease in funding for that program, would seriously impede efforts by states to modernize local sewage treatment plants, the group says. The budget would eliminate direct grants to localities seeking to install "biological nutrient removal technology" in sewage treatment plants, while also restricting the ability of those localities to tackle problems related to combined sewer overflows.
“It’s hard to imagine a budget more harmful to the Chesapeake Bay and its health,” CBF-Maryland Executive Direc Kim Coble said in a statement. “This is unacceptable, and takes us not one or two, but 10 steps backward.”
The environmental group American Rivers says there is a dire need to modernize many of the water treatment and sewage systems along the Susquehanna River -- the source watershed of the Chesapeake Bay. The group last year deemed the problem critical enough to designate the Susquehanna as the "most endangered river" in the United States, since the water and sewage systems along its multistate watershed fail to protect the river, fail to protect the people who live near the river, and fail to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The group says the problem "will get worse as the area grows -- the population in the Chesapeake Bay watershed is projected to increase by 3 million by the year 2020."
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in the recent past invested tens of millions of dollars on Susquehanna-related projects in areas such as Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where repeated flooding has intermittently wreaked havoc on the region. However, as American Rivers says, the Susquehanna River flows through "early industrial cities" like Binghamton, N.Y., Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, Lancaster, and York, Pa. before reaching the Chesapeake. A significant level of work remains to be done, it says.
The TDA has made it clear why, in spite of the magnitude of unfinished anti-pollution work in the U.S., it is pursuing the Moroccan initiative -- and its motivation has nothing to do with helping Moroccan industry or the environment. As the planning document states, the situation with the Sebou creates “significant opportunities for U.S. exporters of goods and services in the wastewater treatment sector, as the United States is the leader in tertiary wastewater treatment technologies."
In other words, despite its acknowledgment that this industry sector is thriving, USTDA, by its own admission, will subsidize the businesses who happen to sell the necessary equipment to clean up Morocco's mess.
