Water levels in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan won’t drop anytime soon. Private waterfront homeowners rush to save their homes from loss. Citizens seek to preserve their public right to a walkable beach along the shore below the natural high water mark, and the State of Michigan and municipalities struggle to save valuable infrastructure for water, sewage, roads, dams, parks, and recreation.
Using the current COVID-19 situation as a pretense, the Trump Administration has stopped enforcing many Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safeguards. This has left individual states with the additional responsibility to sustain environmental protection. Many companies and corporations have recently requested that state regulators be lenient on environmental regulations that require them to test and monitor pollution, claiming that the pandemic has interfered with their ability to comply with preexisting regulations.
The public is invited to join FLOW and the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation as we co-host a one-hour webinar on Wednesday, June 17, at 1 p.m., providing frontline, scientific, and legal insights into citizen-led efforts to challenge Nestlé, the Swiss-based corporate giant, in its quest to expand its groundwater grab in Michigan.
What may seem like dry legal arguments over the interpretation of a few words sometimes can have ripple effects on people, health, safety, and the environment. Such is the case with arguments heard June 3 before the Michigan Court of Appeals over the fate of the proposed Enbridge oil pipeline tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, which promises to leave a lasting mark on the future of the Straits and the people of the Upper Great Lakes.
During a three-week comment period that ended in mid-May, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) received a flood of more than 3,100 public comments, with a strong majority firmly opposed, on Enbridge’s request to bypass the legal review process and plow forward with other permitting required to replace and relocate the decaying Line 5 oil pipelines crossing the Straits of Mackinac with a proposed 18- to 21-foot tall tunnel housing a new pipeline.
Rarely does a ruling by a state Administrative Law Judge overturn a permit issued by a state agency. In the contested case hearing on the Nestlé permit to withdraw more than 500,000 gallons of water per day from a White Pine Springs well near Evart, MCWC and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians had hoped the administrative law judge would reverse the Snyder administration’s unwarranted permission for Nestlé’s permit, writes Peggy Case, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) president.
Photo of the Mackinac Bridge and Straits of Mackinac by Kathryn DePauw. The Michigan Public Service Commission should reject Enbridge’s attempt to dodge the legal review process required to replace and relocate the segment of the Line 5 oil pipeline crossing the Straits of Mackinac into a $500 million proposed tunnel pipeline project, according to… excerpt-read-more" href="https://forloveofwater.org/flow-urges-mpsc-to-deny-enbridges-request-for-a-free-pass-on-siting-a-line-5-oil-tunnel-in-the-straits-of-mackinac/" title="ReadFLOW Urges MPSC to Deny Enbridge’s Request for a Free Pass on Siting a ‘Line 5’ Oil Tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac”>Read more »
Photo: from left-to-right, Miles, Liz, and Ella Kirkwood Haiku to My Children By Liz Kirkwood, FLOW Executive Director Toe. Dip. Jump. Splash. Smile. Brave you are. I am in awe. Water unites us. Small Gestures By Diane Dupuis, FLOW Development Director My daughter filling the kettle to make my scratchy throat a cup of tea,… Read more »
It’s a sad irony that in Michigan, surrounded by an endowment of 20% of the world’s freshwater in the Great Lakes, there are communities where people don’t have access to clean, affordable, safe drinking water.
The interconnectedness of human and natural ecosystems has never been more apparent. It’s the clarion call, the mantra, and the rallying cry of this global pandemic crisis: We’re all in this together.
