Today, March 22nd, is World Water Day. It is no surprise that corporations have attempted to co-opt this event. One example of greenwashing that SourceWatch has targeted is the Starbucks-run "www.worldwaterday.net," which many environmentally-minded individuals may mistake for the official UN World Water Day website. Since SourceWatch first identified the misleading page, www.worldwaterday.net now routes viewers to www.waterday.org, where the Starbucks connection is not apparent. (A cached version of the original page's privacy agreement can still be viewed here). Please bookmark our new water clearinghouse on Sourcewatch to find regular updates about this precious and essential natural resource, including news about the dangers of Halliburton's hydrofracking process that is being challenged by citizens opposed to ruining drinking water supplies through efforts to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale in New York and elsewhere.

Here are some highlights regarding the 1,300 page bank reform bill released by U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CN) yesterday.

(NOTE: Visit the SourceWatch Portal on Toxic Sludge)


Fifteen years ago, the Center for Media and Democracy in my book Toxic Sludge Is Good for You first exposed the deceptive PR campaign by the municipal sewage industry that has renamed toxic sewage sludge as "biosolids" to be spread on farms and gardens. Unfortunately, the scam continues to fool more people than ever, even in San Francisco which is often dubbed the country's greenest city.

I suspect that Bay area celebrity chef Alice Waters would never dump sewage sludge onto her own organic garden, nor serve food grown in sludge in her world famous natural foods restaurant Chez Panisse. The mission of her Chez Panisse Foundation is to create "edible schoolyards" where kids grow, prepare, and eat food from their own organic gardens. But Francesca Vietor, the new executive director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, is at the same time actively promoting dumping toxic sludge on gardens in her role as Vice President of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.