By Zach Welcker, FLOW Legal Director On February 16, 2023, FLOW (For Love Of Water) and 10 other environmental groups filed an amicus brief asking the Michigan Supreme Court to strike down an appellate court ruling that prevents the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (“EGLE”) from fulfilling its duty to protect Michigan’s… Read more »
Public notice in a local newspaper in October 2017 announced a permit application for a mammoth swine factory near the Oceana/Muskegon County line along Lake Michigan. Called a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), this proposed pollution factory activated our resistance. Reviving Our American Democracy (ROAD) is a White Lake Area public interest group that has worked hard to stop this outrage ever since.
Photo: A harmful algae bloom causing a dead zone in Lake Erie primarily due to excess agricultural nutrient pollution. Editor’s note: Members of the media can reach Zach Welcker, FLOW Legal Director, at Zach@flowforwater.org or (231) 944-1568. Lansing, MI – Eleven environmental groups, including FLOW (For Love of Water) late last week filed an amicus or “friend of… Read more »
What is the “physical integrity” of the Great Lakes ecosystem and why does it matter? In her latest book, Meander: Making Room for Rivers, Margaret Wooster, former director of Great Lakes United and resident of Buffalo, New York, answers the question. Physical integrity is one of three recovery targets in the Great Lakes Water Quality… Read more »
A Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes Photographs and video by Adam Joseph Wells. Story by Donovan Hohn. Produced by Geoff Mcghee. | Sierra Magazine | 03/16/2023 A pipeline carrying Canadian tar sands crude has already leaked a million gallons. These are the resisters dedicated to shutting down Enbridge Line 5. “It’s not… Read more »
This year marks the 50th anniversary of two historically significant steps toward healthy streams and lakes, the U.S. Clean Water Act and the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. But are these silver anniversaries truly green? Let’s take a look.
FLOW has joined environmental allies in seeking to defend the state of Michigan’s new initiative that seeks to curb water pollution by large factory farms. Led by the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), the coalition seeks to intervene in a challenge brought by the agribusiness lobby to the water pollution-control permit in order to raise legal issues on behalf of Michigan residents.
On December 3, the Michigan Court of Appeals released an opinion nullifying a lower court order that had allowed Nestlé to build an industrial booster pump facility to transport 210 million gallons per year of groundwater that feeds headwater creeks in Osceola Township just north of Evart. The decision exposes the Achilles heel of private bottled water industry’s water withdrawals, diversions, and sales throughout Michigan and the country.
The Great Lakes are not and cannot be a “gold mine” for any private person or corporation. They are owned by the State in public trust for each citizen. The Supreme Courts of Michigan, the U.S. and other states have ruled for more than 120 years that public trust bottomlands and waters cannot be transferred… Read more »
