May 13 marked an inflection point in our water and climate work to shut down Line 5. It was a day of action and a show of force to evict Enbridge as a foreigner occupier—a rogue pipeline company pumping oil through our public waters and lands of the Great Lakes. It was a day highlighting the power of community and solidarity and the power of indigenous leadership in protecting the source of all life: water.
In this week’s installment of FLOW’s business supporter spotlight, Development Specialist Calli Crow connected with Beth Price Photography to talk about Beth Price’s love of water, passion for Great Lakes protection, and ongoing partnership with FLOW.
Despite the well-documented and lasting economic and ecological harm of oil pipeline disasters across the globe, we are witnessing intense, orchestrated opposition from Canada’s Enbridge and its allies to shutting down a clear-and-present danger to Michigan’s waters and way of life. A Line 5 oil spill would be an unprecedented ecological and economic disaster in the Great Lakes, threatening 84% of North America’s surface fresh water and some 20 percent of the planet’s fresh surface water, devastating coastal communities, and causing billions of dollars of damages to the environment and local and regional economy.
The Line 5 pipelines at the Straits of Mackinac—which Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has called on Enbridge to shut down by May 12—pose a multigenerational threat to citizens of the Great Lakes. Take it from Sage, an 11-year-old from Oxford, Michigan, who chose to do her 5th grade final project on Line 5. “My love for the Great Lakes,” Sage opens her essay.
It’s not often that two high-ranking officials in Michigan’s state government lash out at a company in strong language. But that’s what happened May 7 when Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Liesl Clark, the director of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) slammed 3M.
For 10 years FLOW has worked to keep our water public and protected. During 2021, our 10th anniversary year, FLOW supporters and collaborators are sharing reflections on what our work together has meant to them, and to the freshwaters of the Great Lakes Basin. Meet Peggy Case, executive director of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC).
Meet Leland, Michigan-based watercolor painter Kristin MacKenzie Hussey, who is donating 50 percent of sales (until June 15) to FLOW from her museum-quality Giclée fine art print, which features Lake Michigan waves lapping the shoreline. “Lake Michigan has always been my safe place, my center,” writes Kristin. “I feel most at peace when I am on the shore, watching the waves roll in, listening to them crash on the stones. And it is so incredibly important to keep this space pure and protected.”
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? According to a poll undertaken by the International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board in 2018, approximately one-fifth of surveyed residents of the Great Lakes Basin do not. If the same ratio applies to Michigan, about 1.5 million adult residents of the state are uncertain where the water they drink originates. During Michigan’s 2021 Drinking Water Awareness Week, May 2-8, filling knowledge gaps is a critical priority. The source of your drinking water is crucial, and so are threats to its safety and legal and environmental defenses to its contamination.
Photo by Sleeping Bear Tour Company’s Julie Den Uyl By Calli Crow, FLOW Development Specialist On Saturday, April 25, members of FLOW’s board and I joined a few hearty volunteers on a trek to North Bar Lake in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to join Sleeping Bear Tour Company for an exclusive two-hour wilderness tour highlighting the… Read more »
FLOW and the Great Lakes are healthier and stronger because of the help we have received from interns specializing in law, policy, and communications during our 10 years of keeping water public and protected. Case in point, Alex Theophilus, who has served since January as a policy intern at FLOW. Currently studying environmental geography and sociology at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, Alex grew up in Leelanau County and the Traverse City area before graduating from Traverse City Central High School in 2018. We asked Alex to share his thoughts about his experience as a FLOW intern in a year unlike any other as the COVID-19 pandemic continued its grip on the globe. Here are Alex’s responses to the questions we posed.
