Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
Nancy Langston is an interdisciplinary ecological historian and visual artist whose work fuses storytelling, visual art, and environmental history to grapple with the unsettling contradictions of climate change in the boreal north. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Michigan Technological University, and she is working on her 6th book, Reindeer on the Run (Yale University… Read more »
The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week a national ban on trichloroethylene (TCE), a groundwater and soil contaminant confirmed at over 300 sites in Michigan. The move will save Michigan taxpayers millions of dollars in future cleanup costs and protect public health. “EPA’s action is critical to public health and the environment,” said FLOW executive… Read more »
The law that protects the quality of America’s more than 170,000 public drinking water supplies is 50 years old as of Monday, December 16. While the Safe Drinking Water Act’s results have been mixed, its purpose and impact have become ever more relevant over the past five decades. The potential impact of unsafe drinking water… Read more »
This month, Michigan House Rep. Rachel Hood (D-81) and Rep. Donavan McKinney (D-14) introduced important bills (HB 6273, 6274), based on FLOW’s model legislation, that would impose a $0.25 per gallon royalty on bottled drinking water extracted from Michigan’s publicly-held water resources (including groundwater), and create a Water Trust Fund. The Fund would use the… Read more »
Michigan public beach advisories were up during the 2024 season compared to 2023, with the difference likely due to the timing and intensity of storms that washed polluted runoff into rivers and lakes. A total of 127 advisories and closures were reported for 106 beaches in thirty-eight counties, by twenty-eight local health departments in 2023…. Read more »
FLOW, Great Lakes Business Network, and Sierra Club File Joint Amici Brief in Nessel v. Enbridge Lawsuit, Dismantling Enbridge’s Allegations and Defending State Sovereignty Contact: Carrie La Seur, FLOW Legal Director carrie@flowforwater.org (231) 944-1568 Traverse City, Mich. – On December 2, 2024, For Love of Water (FLOW), Great Lakes Business Network (GLBN), and Sierra… Read more »
Contact: Carrie La Seur, FLOW Legal Director carrie@flowforwater.org (231) 944-1568 Traverse City, Mich.— The nonprofit law and policy center For Love of Water (FLOW) and its allies Detroit Riverkeeper, Friends of the Detroit River, the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, have successfully petitioned for a Public Health Assessment for… Read more »
By Carrie La Seur FLOW Legal Director — When I ask them how they feel about the Pine, their local waters – , people who’ve lived in Gratiot County, Michigan all their lives – remember childhood summers spent swimming in the mill pond behind the dam at Alma. That’s not possible anymore. Fall rains and… Read more »
The current chair of Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission (NRC), Tom Baird is a retired attorney who was born and raised in Grand Rapids, practiced law in Lansing, and currently lives in Elk Rapids. Throughout life his passions have been conservation and the environment. This led to various roles as board member of FLOW and in… Read more »
What is the “lame duck” session in Lansing? Lame duck is a legislative session that begins after a November election but before new members take the oath of office in January. ‘Lame duck’ refers to the fact that many legislators voting in November and December are retiring or were defeated and are considered lame ducks…. Read more »
