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Franciscans: corporations bilk communities of water supply  By Jeff Hansel ROCHESTER, MN - The Franciscan sisters in Rochester will make community activism a priority in the coming months. Their chief concern? Bottled water. They believe large corporations want to transform water into a product subject to supply and demand, rather than a free basic right. They want residents to help by drinking free tap water from fountains, rather than buying bottled water. The sisters gained a heightened awareness of potential water-supply problems at an Assisi Heights conference last week titled "Think Outside the Bottle." They developed an action plan to try to get major water bottlers PepsiCo Inc., The Coca-Cola Company and the Nestle Company to reduce the number of contracts that they say can victimize communities. "We're going to get the Coke and Pepsi machines out of AssisiHeights," said Sister Betty Kenny, a Twin Cities resident speaking on behalf of the order. Sisters with the Academy of Our Lady of Lourdes, including more than 300 "vowed" and lay members nationally, have purchased small numbers of company shares. "We buy token shares of Coke, Pepsi and Nestle stock so we can go to the shareholder meetings and we can also vote the proxies," Kenny said. "We have some leverage if we are owners of the company." The sisters heard from Corporate Accountability International (www.stopcorporateabuse.org), an activist organization supported by member dues. It says corporations "through water depletion, pollution and gouging ... threaten water supplies around the world." Corporate Accountability spokeswoman Zandra Rice, the conference keynote speaker, said the sisters have already contributed to her organization's effort to stem corporate water bottling that can take over a local community's water supply. Rice said the United Nations estimates two-thirds of the world's population will not have access to safe water by 2025 if trends continue. "Is water a human right, or is water a commodity to be bought and sold for profit?" she asked more than 100 sisters and lay members from around the country who attended the conference. Businesses should pay attention, said Sister Joy Barth of the Rochester Franciscan order. They'd likely change their views -- maybe get out the old-fashioned water pitchers for meetings -- "if they'd look at their budget and see how much they're paying for bottled water instead of tap water," Barth said. FAIR USE NOTICE
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