When Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivers her State of the State speech on Wednesday, January 29, she would do well to emulate her predecessor Gov. William Milliken, who 50 years ago gave a 1970 State of the State speech that fought environmental degradation and deregulation and called for dramatic changes in state policy to better protect the air, water, land, fish and wildlife.
FLOW founder and president Jim Olson delivered the following remarks — inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech — on January 12 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Grand Traverse. By Jim Olson I had a dream in 2009 and 2010. I had a dream to bring the public trust… Read more »
Maude’s new book, “Whose Water Is It Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands” is a combination of big picture world water crisis, personal story, water policy, conflicts, and solution. Here is a short readable book, a book you can slip into your purse, backpack, or even suit coat pocket, to take with you into the city hall, the boardroom, the classroom, or statehouse. It’s a story that should be read by everyone who cares about liberty, dignity, harmony, and the common good of people and planet.
It’s disappointing that it took creeping green ooze to awaken state officials in Lansing to a monumental environmental problem — thousands of dirty groundwater contamination sites across the state. But that’s exactly what has happened.
On December 3, the Michigan Court of Appeals released an opinion nullifying a lower court order that had allowed Nestlé to build an industrial booster pump facility to transport 210 million gallons per year of groundwater that feeds headwater creeks in Osceola Township just north of Evart. The decision exposes the Achilles heel of private bottled water industry’s water withdrawals, diversions, and sales throughout Michigan and the country.
Powered by our supporters, FLOW had quite a year in 2019. Our legal advocacy work to restore the rule of law made a big impact at the state level. Michigan’s new Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a public trust lawsuit on June 27 to revoke the 1953 easement that conditionally authorizes Enbridge to operate its… Read more »
A Michigan state administrative law judge, after almost a year and a half delay, recently decided he had no jurisdiction to rule on a citizen challenge of a proposed potash mine that would suck enormous amounts of groundwater out of an aquifer near the town of Hersey—near Reed City and the Huron-Manistee National Forests. The mine, if approved, would drain groundwater supporting sensitive wetlands and result in disposal of contaminated water into aquifers.
An angler speaks with a DNR creel clerk. Photo courtesy Michigan DNR By Tom Baird Many Michiganders overlook a state agency critical to the environment. When we talk about water issues in Michigan, we usually think of environmental protection, especially related to pollution and public health. We tend to forget that environmentalism was born out of… Read more »
FLOW held a community engagement session at the Grand Rapids Public Library on Thursday, December 5, to make the economic case for government’s role in protecting human health and the environment—both nationally and locally.
By Jim Olson A railway company recently proposed extracting 500 million gallons of groundwater per year from Minnesota and shipping it to water-scarce states in the southwestern United States. Although the water that would be diverted lies outside the Great Lakes Basin, and Minnesota officials said they are not likely to approve the water export… Read more »
