Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
Editor’s note: This is an Oil & Water Don’t Mix (O&WDM) media release. Twelve organizations and Michigan tribal representatives today (Dec. 7, 2020) called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject the Enbridge Line 5 Straits of Mackinac oil tunnel project. If not dismissed now, the Army Corps risks a repeat of a… Read more »
Growing up in Elk Rapids, FLOW intern Nikki Hayes was fortunate to have a summer job throughout high school working as a dock attendant at the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor. She got to see both the good and the bad of human behavior in environmental stewardship.
In a baffling decision announced November 20, the director of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) dismissed a contested case brought by citizens challenging the state permit issued to Nestlé Waters North America in 2018 for increased water withdrawals from springs north of Evart, in Osceola County’s Osceola Township. The announcement also, in effect, dismissed the more than 80,000 comments EGLE received opposing the permit (only 75 comments were in favor), the testimony of hundreds of citizens opposing the permit at a public hearing in 2017, and the thousands of hours of effort put into the permit challenge by Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC), the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and their allies.
With the shutdown of the Line 5 oil pipelines in sight, past and present FLOW Board Chairs take note of this moment in history, and recognize the results of your commitment in supporting FLOW’s public trust work. Take heart in how far we’ve come and celebrate in the fact that your gifts to FLOW matter, in the past, now, and in the future. From the bottom of our hearts and the bottomlands of your Great Lakes, we thank you for supporting FLOW.
The memorable year of 1970, whose spring featured the first Earth Day, culminated in the creation of the nation’s first consolidated federal environmental agency. Officially born on December 2, 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has overseen significant improvements in air and water quality in the last 50 years. But it has also zigged and zagged according to the philosophy of the President who appoints its chief.
The federal lawsuit Enbridge filed Tuesday is an attack on the State of Michigan’s sovereign title and authority to protect the public trust in the Straits and Great Lakes from Line 5. The federal government can regulate safety, but it can never control the location and use of the State of Michigan’s own public trust waters and bottomlands of the Great Lakes, except as it relates to navigation.
Above photo courtesy of Biden-Harris transition By Skip Pruss History will mark 2021 as the year the United States finally got serious about combating climate change and protecting water security. The Biden administration appears to fully comprehend the depth and gravity of current climate trends and is prepared to take action commensurate with the challenges… Read more »
By Janet Meissner Pritchard COVID-19 has already taken the lives of more than 8,100 Michiganders, and the pandemic is surging in Michigan, with more than 7,000 new cases per day diagnosed in Michigan over recent days. Given this grim context, it is essential for public health to secure access to safe, affordable drinking water for… Read more »
The State of Michigan’s decision to revoke and terminate the 67-year-old easement across the Straits of Mackinac granted to Enbridge for the Line 5 petroleum product pipelines was more than that day’s news—it was an event that will be remembered in the state’s environmental history. The Line 5 shutdown announcement brought to mind the epic fight over protection of the Pigeon River Country State Forest in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Their legal duty under public trust law, and the clear and present danger from the anchor strikes and currents of the 67-year-old dual oil pipelines, left only one choice for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and DNR Director Daniel Eichinger: Revoke and terminate the easement allowing Line 5 to occupy the Straits of Mackinac, as they did on November 13 in a strong and necessary action.
