Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
FLOW senior policy advisor Dave Dempsey recently posted a survey on both Twitter and Facebook asking followers and friends to name their favorite Great Lake and to explain their allegiance. The answers were both quantitative and qualitative.
FLOW welcomed new operations manager Meagan Walters to our team in early December. Meagan’s deep interest and commitment to clean water is demonstrated not only by her studies, but also by her experiences, including as the current president of the Grand Traverse Freshwater Society and prior internships monitoring water quality for the Long Lake Association in Traverse City and providing environmental education to the public at the Grass River Natural Area in Bellaire.
When a book of history you’ve written becomes history itself, this not only makes you feel old, but also gives you a chance, in hindsight, to see how accurate it is. Twenty years ago, in 2001, the University of Michigan Press published “Ruin and Recovery: Michigan’s Rise as a Conservation Leader.” It was a book I’d long wanted to write. Based on 20 prior years of learning the environmental history of Michigan on the job, I attempted to put in perspective the good and bad in the state’s management of its natural resources.
“The statutory deadline for removing this case to federal court passed over two years ago,” said Zach Welcker, Legal Director at FLOW, the Great Lakes law and policy center based in Traverse City. “Enbridge is making a frivolous argument that a federal court’s recent jurisdictional ruling in a separate case should give it another bite at the apple, but the apple is long gone as a matter of civil procedure.”
As anyone who knows Terry Swier could attest, it was her clear-sighted commitment to principle and her conviction, grounded like the roots of an oak tree deep in the soil with branches wide in the sky, that stood behind Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation’s victory over Nestlé. “Who owns the water?” Terry asked, something she would keep asking for the next 20 years. Not Perrier or Nestlé. It belonged to the public.
“I’m thrilled to be surrounded by all of this water and humbled by the opportunity to keep it public and protected for all,” says Zach Welcker, FLOW’s first full-time legal director, who is responsible for building on FLOW’s legal power, policy acumen, and partnerships—especially among tribes, conservation groups, frontline communities, justice organizations, and scientists—to ensure the waters of the Great Lakes Basin are healthy, public, and protected for all.
FLOW’s 10th anniversary in 2021 was more than an opportunity for celebration and reflection. It was also a year of significant progress in our work to strengthen protection of the waters of Michigan and the Great Lakes, using the public trust doctrine as a powerful tool. In July, we hit an organizational milestone when we hired Zach Welcker, FLOW’s first-ever full-time legal director — an achievement many years in the making.
Photo of Grand Traverse Bay by Jerry Stutzman Breaking News: The Traverse City Commission on December 6, 2021, unanimously approved a resolution Proclaiming Water and Sanitation as Basic Human Rights, and that Water Shall Remain in the Public Trust. The resolution was advanced by FLOW and in comments to the City Commission, FLOW Executive Director… Read more »
“Our bodies are mostly water. Water connects us to everything around us that is alive,” says award-winning poet Alison Swan. “The water and the land are inseparable from one another. Stop and think to yourself: How does what’s happening to the land around this water impact the water supply of essentially the world? Because water flows all over the surface and below the surface of earth.”
By Liz Kirkwood Water is life. It is the resource that not only keeps us alive, but also powers everything we do on this small blue planet. Living here in the Great Lakes, we are stewards of some 20 percent of the planet’s fresh surface water. It is an enormous gift and an enormous responsibility,… Read more »
