Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
A new climate action plan released by Michigan Governor Whitmer is attracting both praise and calls for faster action from environmental organizations. Announced September 23, the Governor’s plan calls for a carbon-neutral Michigan economy by the year 2050. That makes Michigan the ninth state to commit to a carbon-neutral economy.
Starting Tuesday, Sept. 29, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) will host four online public hearings and receive public comment on the expected wetland and wastewater impacts of constructing and operating Enbridge’s proposed, roughly four mile-long oil tunnel under the Great Lakes. The tunnel would house a new Line 5 pipeline… Read more »
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.
By Jim Olson In the coming weeks, Liesl Clark, the director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)—and ultimately, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—will make the final decision required by state law on a Nestlé water bottling permit to remove another 210 million gallons of groundwater a year virtually for free from… Read more »
Nothing defines Michigan more than water. This begs the question, why is Michigan the only state in the union without a statewide septic sanitary code? This question came to the fore last year when Kalkaska County decided it wanted to get rid of its “point of sale” septic ordinance.
Most Michiganders don’t know that September 14-18 is Septic Smart Week — and that an estimated 130,000 septic systems in our state are failing. In many cases that means sewage and associated microorganisms are reaching groundwater, lakes and streams.
The reviews are in—and they’re very, very good. The first novel by Sally Cole-Misch, The Best Part of Us, is attracting favorable reactions from the critics. The Michigan Daily calls it a “captivating celebration of nature that pushes us to consider our connections to the Earth.” Reader’s Favorite calls the novel “a lush and lovely… Read more »
By Jim Olson The citizens of Toledo, Ohio, desperate to end the continuing plague of toxic algal blooms covering the western one-third of Lake Erie, in February 2019 passed by referendum a municipal ordinance that enacted the “Lake Erie Bill of Rights.” The Bill of Rights holds that “Lake Erie, and the Lake Erie watershed,… Read more »
FLOW (For Love of Water), the Great Lakes law and policy center based in Traverse City, is excited to announce the growth of our board of directors as we welcome Barbara Brown and Benjamin Muth.
During #WorldWaterWeek (August 23-28) FLOW asked Abdul El-Sayed, former executive director of the Detroit Health Department and public health professor at Columbia University, how the global pandemic has changed his connection to water.
