ART MEETS WATER: A Conversation with author & FLOW Founder Jim Olson and his new book ‘People of the Dune’
Tuesday, July 16 at 12:00pm EDT
FLOW’s founder, legendary environmental attorney Jim Olson, writes more than winning legal briefs. He writes books, too, including the first book on Michigan environmental law and several novels. One of those, “The Mound People,” published in the 1980s, has now given birth to a fresh novel, “People of the Dune.” Both versions of the story wrestle with values that the law does not fully address – the intangible but towering inherent values of land and water in the face of expectations of property rights. This webinar will be hosted by FLOW senior advisor Dave Dempsey and renowned writer Mike Delp, and is a part of FLOW’s Art Meets Water project. Register for the Art Meets Water webinar here! You won’t want to miss this!
‘Troubled Water’ film screening at The Garden Theater, Frankfort, MI
Friday, July 19, 7:30pm
Join For Love of Water, the Groundwork Center, and Oil & Water Don’t Mix at the Garden Theater in Frankfort for the Frankfort premier of the highly anticipated Great Lakes adventure-conservation documentary TROUBLED WATER on Friday, July 19, at 7:30 p.m. The film screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with filmmaker William Wright and staff of the host organizations. Ticket proceeds to benefit the Oil & Water Don’t Mix Campaign.
Get tickets!
Upcoming Zoom Webinar
Enbridge Line 5: Trouble under the Surface
August 20, 2024 12pm EDT
Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline is over 71 years old and remains a threat to the waters and people of the Great Lakes region. On August 20, join FLOW and Oil & Water Don’t Mix for a special live webinar, and learn from a panel of experts and advocates about how Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are working together in the courts to shut down Line 5 and bring an end to Enbridge’s continuous trespass on state and sovereign indigenous lands. We’ll also talk about the dangers associated with the proposed Great Lakes tunnel and Wisconsin re-route and answer your questions.
Our expert panel includes:
- Riyaz Kanji, founding member and Directing Attorney of Kanji & Katzen – representing the Bad River Band
- Mahyar Sorour, Deputy Legislative Director for Beyond Dirty Fuels at the Sierra Club
- Sean McBrearty, Campaign Coordinator, Oil & Water Don’t Mix and Legislative and Policy Director at Michigan Clean Water Action
Hosted by FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood, and moderated by Senior Legal Advisor Skip Pruss.
This online webinar is free, and supported in part by a grant award from the Mackinac Island Community Foundation’s Natural Resources and Preservation Fund. Register online here!
Recent Past Events:
THE CHARLIE MILLARD BAND | Special performance to benefit FLOW
Thursday, July 11 at 6:30pm
Elk Rapids Nature Fest 2024
Saturday, June 8 from 11:00am-2:00pm
Presented by Green Elk Rapids, Nature Fest is a fun, family-friendly event where you can connect with 50 regional organizations (including FLOW!) and learn more about protecting our environment, explore outdoor education, and enjoy live music, workshops, crafts, food, and storytelling. Veterans’ Memorial Park, Elk Rapids.
Art Meets Water: Jane Elder book webinar
Friday, May 31st from 12pm to 1pm
Listen to the recording here!
Weaving together memories from her life in the upper Midwest with nearly fifty years of environmental policy advocacy work, Jane Elder provides a uniquely moving insider’s perspective into the quest to protect the Great Lakes and surrounding public lands, from past battles to protect Michigan wilderness and shape early management strategies for the national lakeshores to present fights against toxic pollution and climate change. She argues that endless cycles of resource exploitation and boom and bust created a ‘rust belt’ legacy that still threatens our capacity for resilience. The author lays out the challenges that lie ahead and invites us to imagine bold new strategies through which we might thrive.
THE SMELL OF MONEY Film Screening
Saturday, April 27 at 6:00pm, Old Town Playhouse in Traverse City
This powerful film is a David vs. Goliath tale of one woman’s battle against one of the world’s largest pork companies to reclaim her right to clean air, clean water, and to protect her beloved community.
WEBINAR: The Ethics of Sharing Great Lakes Water
Watch the recording:
With worsening water scarcity in the US and around the world, pressures to share Great Lakes water will grow. The Great Lakes Compact allows water diversions for “short-term humanitarian emergencies.” But what does this mean, and who defines it? What are the ethics of sharing water? Is it right and under what conditions? These questions will be explored in a webinar hosted by FLOW featuring experts in environmental ethics and policy:
Dr. Susan Chiblow
Dr. Susan (Sue) Bell Chiblow is Anishinaabe, born and raised in Garden River First Nation, Ontario. She has worked extensively with First Nation communities for the last 30 years in environmental related fields. She is an assistant professor at the University of Guelph in their new Bachelor of Indigenous Environmental Science and Practice program. Sue has been appointed as a Commissioner to the International Joint Commission.
Dr. Cameron Fioret
Cameron is on the Board of Directors of the Windsor, Ontario-based nonprofit Windsor of Change; and a Policy Analyst in the Government of Canada. Previously, he was a Policy Analyst in the Canada Water Agency, a Virtual Visiting Research Fellow at the United Nations University (UNU-CRIS), and a Visiting Scholar in the University of Michigan’s Water Center in the Graham Sustainability Institute. He completed his PhD at the University of Guelph under the supervision of Dr. Monique Deveaux, Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global Social Change.
Dr. Caitlin Schroering
Caitlin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at UNC Charlotte. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida, and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Denison University. Her primary line of research is based on extensive fieldwork with two movements fighting against water privatization, one in Brazil and one in the United States. She is the author of Global Solidarities Against Water Grabbing: Without Water, We Have Nothing, forthcoming with Manchester University Press this September.
NO DEFENSE documentary film screening
Saturday, April 6 at Milliken Auditorium in Traverse City
NO DEFENSE is a documentary about the former Wurtsmith Air Force base in Oscoda, MI, the first military site in the country where PFAS contamination was identified. This screening was generously sponsored by the Wolfpack.
Presented by FLOW and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
PLACE: Truth & Restoration Series
March 13, March 20, and April 3
Night 1 – March 13: “Obtaining Non-Christian Land Using the Doctrine of Discovery”
Presentation by Tom Peters from the Grand Traverse Band
Night 2 – March 20: Screening of the film “Doctrine of Recovery”
A documentary on the restoration of the sacred feminine as a “Doctrine of Recovery” for a planet in crisis. Panel discussion to follow.
Night 3 – April 3: Night for Collective Action
Learn ways to follow local Indigenous leadership toward environmental restoration. Facilitated by Eva Petoskey of Mindimooyenh Healing Circle, and Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director of FLOW (For Love of Water)
Co-sponsors include:
Mindimooyenh Healing Circle, the SALT Coalition, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Presbyterian Church of Traverse City, National Parks Conservation Association, St. Francis Justice and Peace, Beloved 360, NMC Native American Student Organization
Webinar: Book Talk with novelist Maryann Lesert, author of Land Marks
Thursday, February 15 at 12:00pm EST via ZOOM
In this “Art Meets Water” virtual event presented by FLOW, senior policy advisor Dave Dempsey hosts book talk with novelist Maryann Lesert.
Maryann Lesert writes about people and place in equal measure. Her first novel, Base Ten (Feminist Press, 2009) followed an astrophysicist’s quest for self among the dunes and stars. Her current novel, Land Marks, is based on two years of boots-on-well-sites research on fracking in Michigan’s state forests. Her articles have appeared in EcoWatch and In These Times, and she is a regular presenter on art and activism. Maryann lives in west Michigan, where she teaches creative writing and writes by the big lake.
From Maryann Lesert, author of Land Marks:
When fracking came to Michigan’s state forests in the early to mid-2010s, I set out to learn as much as I could about drilling and fracking, the science behind the risks, and what it was like to live next to a frack well site. I learned a novel’s worth during my two years of “boots-on-well-sites” research, and I was deeply inspired by the people and groups who came together to protect water, land, and air—each bringing their own gifts.
FLOW was one of the “first responders.” Jim Olson and Liz Kirkwood showed up often to advocate for the Great Lakes and our right to protect water based on the doctrine of public trust.
Webinar: Microplastics in the Great Lakes (watch the recording)
Thursday, January 25 at 7:00pm EST
November 1, 2023 Line 5 Webinar (watch the recording)
Enbridge Line 5: Questions and Answers
Traverse City Volleyball Court and West End Beach Clean-Up
Saturday, September 23 from 10:00-11:00am
Troubled Water Film Premiere
Friday, September 15 at City Opera House
FLOW is proud to sponsor the new film Troubled Water, which will premiere on September 15 at the City Opera House in Traverse City, Michigan.
Troubled Water is an adventure/conservation documentary that explores the economic, political, and environmental implications of human impact on Michigan’s freshwater through an epic 36-day, 425-mile standup paddleboard journey from Mackinac Island to Lansing.
Enbridge Line 5: Legal and Indigenous Perspectives
August 17, 2023 at 11:30am
North Central Michigan College, Petoskey, MI
In June 2023, a federal court found that Canadian oil company Enbridge is trespassing on the sovereign lands of the Bad River Band in northern Wisconsin, and ordered it to pay fines and remove its Line 5 pipeline within three years. Legal experts and indigenous leaders will discuss the recent litigation in Wisconsin and Michigan; the Anishinaabe viewpoint and relationship with Enbridge; and smarter alternatives to the 41-mile Wisconsin pipeline reroute and the proposed four-mile tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac that do not threaten the Great Lakes with a catastrophic oil spill.
Speakers include:
- JoAnne Cook, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Tribal member
- Netawn Kiogima, Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, Tribal member
- Deleta Smith, Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, Tribal member
- Holly T. Bird, Attorney, Michigan Water Protectors Legal Task Force and Co-Executive Director, Title Track
- Liz Kirkwood, Attorney and Executive Director, FLOW (For Love of Water)
“The Strait Story” LIVE WEBINAR
The live event has concluded – watch the recording on YouTube.
Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline is over 70 years old and remains a threat to the waters and people of the Great Lakes region. On July 19, join FLOW and Oil & Water Don’t Mix for a special live webinar, and learn from a panel of experts about how Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are working together in the courts to shut down Line 5 and bring an end to Enbridge’s trespass on state, sovereign, and indigenous lands. We’ll also talk about smart pipeline alternatives, how organizations are working to avert an oil spill disaster, and answer your questions.
Our expert panel includes:
- Riyaz Kanji, founding member and Directing Attorney of Kanji & Katzen
- Christopher Clark, Supervising Senior Attorney, Earthjustice – representing Bay Mills Indian Community
- Sean McBrearty, Campaign Coordinator, Oil & Water Don’t Mix and Legislative and Policy Director at Michigan Clean Water Action
Hosted by FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood, and moderated by Senior Legal Advisor Skip Pruss.
This online webinar is free, and supported in part by a grant award from the Mackinac Island Community Foundation’s Natural Resources and Preservation Fund.
March 21 Webinar — The Case for a Statewide Septic Code: Michigan Must Inspect Septic Systems to Protect Fresh Water
FLOW hosted a webinar on March 21, 2023, that offered legal, scientific, economic, and political perspectives on the urgent need and critical opportunity for Michigan to finally join the rest of the nation in adopting a state law to protect public health and fresh water from septic system pollution. Billions of gallons of poorly or untreated sewage flow each year into an estimated 330,000 failed septic systems. An unknown amount of that raw sewage ends up in lakes, streams, and groundwater, the source of drinking water for 45% of Michigan’s population.
FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood hosted the webinar, and FLOW Legal Advisor Skip Pruss moderated the panel discussion with:
- State Rep. Phil Skaggs
- Dr. Joan Rose of Michigan State University
- Brad Ward, Legal and Policy Director of the Michigan Realtors
Panelists held a rich discussion and answered questions from the audience during the online event, which was free and open to the public. Watch a recording of the livestream below, and please share.
Feb. 14 & Feb. 16, 2023 — Who Owns the Water?
Join guest lecturer and FLOW Board Member Bob Otwell, Ph.D. and learn about Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation’s (MCWC) original 8-year fight against Nestle including the trial, court of appeals, Supreme Court Cases, and final outcome. Find out what this case meant for the future of water, diversion bans, public water, private commodity or public good, and international trade law. Then hear from Jim Olson, the lead attorney in the 8-year case and founder of For Love of Water (FLOW), about MCWC’s second 4-year battle with Nestlé, where people protested the state and Nestle’s interpretation of new water withdrawal laws and the privatization and sale of the public’s water.
March 14 & March 16 — For Love of Water and the Future of the Great Lakes
Guest lecturer Dave Dempsey, Sr. Policy Advisor at For Love of Water (FLOW) and former Sr. Policy Advisor to the International Joint Commission (IJC), discusses the role of the IJC on the Great Lakes, the Great Lakes Compact, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the Sixth Great Lake—Groundwater. In the second session, FLOW Founder Jim Olson will discuss the Compact’s diversion ban, including the controversy around the Foxconn “straddling- community” and Waukesha “straddling-county” diversions, the bottled water “loophole,” and the effects of climate change on water levels and the responsibility of government and industry under the public trust doctrine to protect the waters of the Great Lakes Basin.
Enjoy these recordings of FLOW’s recent livestream webinars on Line 5, groundwater, bottled water, water-themed literature, and more!
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