We asked Michigan-based water activists Nadia Gaber and Jim Olson what they are working on and what they are thinking about now. Gaber is a medical anthropologist and member of We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective. Olson is an attorney and Founder and President of the organization FLOW (For Love of Water).
What are you working on now?
Nadia Gaber: The People's Water Board Coalition is working hard to make sure policymakers remember that people need access to safe and affordable water at home in order to wash their hands regularly and stem the spread of this coronavirus. We the People of Detroit has been fielding a lot of media inquiries into the nature of the racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates, and again emphasizing the ties to longstanding inequalities in access to basic public goods. Most vitally, water.
Jim Olson: [At FLOW], we hope to address the right to water in addition to the duty of creating funding to address emergency health and water access needs. This funding could be placed in an emergency trust fund allocated for those in most need to remove affordability barriers in Detroit and elsewhere. The law would require bottled water companies, like Nestlé, Dasani, and Aquafina (who get water for free or a negligible fee) to obtain a license and pay a royalty for the privilege to sell sovereign, public water of the State.
What are you thinking about now?
Nadia Gaber: I write and think about the relationship of public trust to public health, and how legacy racial and environmental injustice erode both. This has been a new window into that—one that's very immediate, even intimate. As an activist and ally, I am thinking about what kinds of support I can offer from afar, whether it be money, time, media outreach, friendship, grocery deliveries, research, or teaching.
Jim Olson: I’m thinking we must endure, help wherever we can, and use this time to carry forward the change that has been needed but out of reach for a long time. We depend on health, environment, and the commons first; and on the economy second. No matter what it costs to make the shift, we must dig deep to make sure it happens. This is the only way to honor the lives lost and those who have suffered so much.