The waters of the Great Lakes are held in trust by the state as a shared public commons for the benefit of citizens for navigation, boating, fishing, health and sustenance. The courts of all eight Great Lakes states have recognized this principle, which means the states must manage these waters as a trustee for the… Read more »
Since our A.G. has emphasized the importance of public trust in the Great Lakes and navigable lakes and streams, including Great Lakes, we’ve analyzed the doctrine, applied it to fish farming in Great Lakes, and the answer is: it cannot be authorized under the public trust doctrine, not even by legislative amendment to expand the… Read more »
The article linked below provides a good synopsis of the new federal bill H.R. 458 that would provide an orderly mechanism to shut down Line 5 if a 12-month study determines the risk is simply too significant to allow crude oil to flow through the heart of the Great Lakes. The bill’s sponsors Congressmen Dave… Read more »
Bob Otwell, FLOW Board of Directors December 2016 Most of us in northern Michigan drink groundwater and use it to bathe. Outside of metro Detroit, the majority of Michigan’s public water supplies along with water in rural homes comes from groundwater. Groundwater also is used to water golf courses and supply the growing thirst of… Read more »
FLOW is forever spreading awareness. It is our job to educate people about public trust and about what is happening with the Great Lakes in the world today – the joys and potential threats, and what we can do about our water. Part of that awareness is through social media. We teamed up with Eightfold… Read more »
Nestlé has been aiming to pump more water out of Michigan. Near Evart, the company is attempting to expand and greatly increase the withdrawal amount to 400 gallons per minute, which equates to 576,000 gallons per day.Michael Jackman, from the Detroit Metro Times, writes that there may be “rough water ahead” for Nestlé. Many people are… Read more »
On December 16, 2016, FLOW (For Love of Water) wrote a letter and formally requested that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) cancel its approval of Nestlé’s application to more than double its groundwater pumping for commercial water bottling from a well northwest of Evart, in Osceola County. After conducting an independent assessment, FLOW’s environmental… Read more »
What’s At Stake There’s a big fight brewing over water worldwide. From drought-stricken California, to Canada, to Germany and beyond, the Nestlé corporation is one of the key players in a worldwide effort to privatize our finite water resources and then sell it back to us in plastic bottles in and outside the Great Lakes… Read more »
“Sunday marked a hard-earned victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe with the announced construction halt of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. The protest’s main message has resonated here in Michigan and around the globe because of its core truth: oil pipelines – new and old – threaten lands and waters that are vital, not… Read more »
On Sunday, after seven months of legal battles and protests, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that they will not grant the final easement across the Missouri River necessary to build the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline to transport Bakken oil to Illinois and the Gulf. The basis of this decision was the need to conduct… Read more »
