Blog posts by FLOW team and guest writers
On Tuesday night June 24, 2014, approximately 150 concerned citizens gathered together at Petoskey High School to learn and ask questions about Enbridge Energy and their future plans for pipeline 5. A wide range of advocacy and regulatory groups were also in attendance and participated in the discussion panel that followed after presentations form PHMSA,… Read more »
Hello! My name is Courtney Hammer, and I am thrilled to be spending twelve weeks this summer up in the beautiful Traverse City, Michigan interning with FLOW (For Love of Water). I was raised down south in Roswell, Georgia, but Traverse City is home away from home for me, as I have vacationed up here every summer visiting my grandparents, relatives, and friends.
Peter Sinclair is tall and brawny, and while the climate change communications expert looks like he could scale a mountain or scramble a glacier (and soon he will), he doesn’t look like a baseball player on steroids. What looks like a baseball player on steroids, he says, is climate change. While a baseball player on… Read more »
Ross Hammersely and Kate Redman, attorneys with the Traverse City law firm, Olson, Bzdok & Howard, have done a marvelous service for local government officials, planners, administrators, property owners, industry, and the public in publishing a cogent, objective article on the scope and nature of local government regulation, including zoning and police power ordinance tools,… Read more »
I recently visited Detroit, Michigan and am shocked and deeply disturbed at what I witnessed… Every day, thousands of them, in a city that is situated right by a body of water carrying one fifth of the world’s water supply, are having their water ruthlessly cut off by men working for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Most of the residents are African American and two thirds of the cut offs involve children, which means that in some cases, child welfare authorities are moving in to remove children from their homes…
Click here to view on YouTube.com FLOW’s May 13th webinar hosted four speakers who provided their insight on nutrient pollution in Lake Erie. We were fortunate to hear from Dr. Don Scavia, professor from the University of Michigan Codi Yeager-Kozacek, correspondent from Circle of Blue Dave Dempsey, member from the International Joint Commission Jim Olson,… Read more »
Photos from the “Well May the World Go” Pete Seeger Community Concert FLOW Benefit in Benzonia, MI Credit: Liz Kirkwood, FLOW Executive Director
For Professor Joseph Sax “Of all the concepts known to America law, only the public trust doctrine seems to have the breadth and substantive content which might make it useful as a tool of general application for citizens seeking to develop a comprehensive approach to resource management problems.” – Joe Sax, The Public Trust Doctrine, 66… Read more »
By FLOW intern Jonathan Aylward. Jonathan has been with FLOW since January 2014 and also works on food-related projects throughout the Grand Traverse region. There is an oil pipeline running through the Great Lakes underneath the Mackinac Bridge. The pipeline, called Line 5, is owned and operated by Enbridge, a Canadian energy corporation. Enbridge has… Read more »
Pursuant to his recent publication in The Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, the following are some thoughts from Jim Olson on the importance of the public trust doctrine at this time in history. Systemic Threats to Great Lakes Demand an Immediate Paradigm Shift to Water as Commons Protected By Public Trust “We forget that the… Read more »
