News Article: A Message of Harmony and Water

“Eureka Springs is the home of the National Water Center and continues to inspire us in our efforts to heal the waters,” says the home page of the organization, of which Harmony is the coordinator.


“Eureka Springs was founded on the belief that there was healing for human ills to be found in the pure, clean spring waters which flowed freely from deep inside the earth. The community’s century-long history is based on that beginning, and at least a part of the attraction to today’s visitor or new resident relates to that heritage of belief in the life re-creating properties of the waters.”

Lovely County Citizen, Wednesday, April 5, 2006

By Dale McCurry
Eureka Springs, AR – Local water steward Barbara Harmony spoke at the International Gathering of Water Experiences held in Mexico City in mid-March. The conference was a prelude to the fourth World Water Forum. More than 11,000 industry leaders, government ministers and non-governmental groups representing more than 100 countries attended the forum and/or events held in conjunction with it.

Harmony said that all who gathered were aware that 1.1 billion people on earth lack access to safe drinking water. An average of 4,700 people die every day due to lack of potable water.

The World Water Forum is held every three years. The last one, in Japan, was attended by 25,000 people, she said.

“A lot of the forum, itself, is about trying to sell big water systems to communities,” Harmony said, explaining why there were a lot of opposition and alternate events.

“The water issue is changing,” Harmony said. “It just can’t be that the dollar is the bottom line. When Bolivia tried to privatize water, there were lawsuits and counter-suits and, finally, national elections pivoted on taking back control of the water.”

In 1999, following World Bank advice, Bolivia granted a 40-year privatization lease to a subsidiary of the Bechtel Corporation, giving it control over the water on which more than half-a-million people survive. Immediately the company doubled and tripled water rates for some of South America's poorest families, according to a story at www.corpwatch.org.

The Side Shows
The International Gathering of Water Experiences, where Harmony was a keynote speaker at the invitation of Mexico’s Minister for the Environment, Claudia Sheinbaum, was held at the Palacio de Mineria.

“The purpose was to generate an inclusive space of reflection, analysis and debate centered on the challenges societies are facing around the management and use of water,” Harmony said.

Her address, “Sacred Water,” began: “My purpose here today is to talk about the change in consciousness that I believe must occur for us to share water and use it wisely.” She spoke about Eureka Springs’ experience in attempting to manage its water resources in a karst environment.

A karst environment, Harmony explained, is a system of limestone terraces comprised of sinks, ravines and underground streams.

The Long Run
Harmony also spoke at Espejo de Agua (Mirror of Water), a 5-day event held in the park in front of the Anthropology Museum.

Hopi runners bearing sacred water, including water from Eureka Springs, ran to the gathering from Arizona. Their journey took 15 days.

In Mexico City, they were greeted by Aztec dancers in huge colorful feather headdresses, Harmony said. “The spirit of the alternative gathering was reflected in the Hopi’s T-shirts that read: ‘Water sustains all life. Her songs begin in the tiniest of raindrops, transform to flowing rivers, travel to majestic oceans, thundering clouds, and back to earth to begin again. When water is threatened, all living beings are threatened.’”