Tag: FLOW

FLOW Demands State Reject Latest Enbridge Ploy

Published on May 14th, 2018 by - Blog Posts, Reports & Media Releases

In comments submitted to state officials Friday, FLOW is urging state regulators to deny a bid by Enbridge Energy to install 48 new anchor supports on dangerous Line 5 at the Straits of Mackinac while evading scrutiny of alternatives that would protect the environment.

Enbridge’s latest request, if approved, would bring the number of anchor brackets to 198 that the governments have allowed the company to install since the early 2000s — completely changing the pipelines’ design. 

Structurally, this means that approximately 3 miles of pipeline are elevated in public trust waters above the bottomlands. But the design approved by the state in the 1950s had the pipeline resting in a trench on the lake bottom. 

“The fact that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continue to approve Enbridge’s anchor supports on the lakebed of the Lake Michigan as ‘repair’ and ‘maintenance’ is simply untenable,” FLOW says in its comments. “The highly increased risks of and alternatives to a completely modified design under both state and federal permitting laws requires a new agreement of occupancy and permits” under several laws.

“And given the recent anchor dents in the twin lines and rupture of the electrical line and release of toxic fluids, the risks to the Great Lakes are totally unacceptable,” FLOW said.

FLOW called on the state and federal governments to require that Enbridge:

  1. file a full and comprehensive application including a study of potential effects and feasible and prudent alternatives to Line 5 in the Straits in its entirety;
  2. suspend the flow of oil in Line 5 unless and until Enbridge files such application and evidence and obtains proper occupancy agreements, permits, or other approvals for this new or completely modified pipeline design; and
  3. consolidate into one application and examine the risks, impacts, and alternative analyses of the entire 645 miles of Line 5.

Read the full comments here.

Water and Nevada

Published on May 12th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

When you think of Nevada (and that’s ne-va-da, not ne-vah-duh), I bet a clear picture forms in your mind: Las Vegas and its neon lights, slot machines, Elvis, quick divorces and UFO sightings (among other things). Those are all part of it, yes. But did you know Nevada is an outdoor-lover’s paradise? My husband and I moved there in 2014, for this reason. We get about 350 days of sunshine a year. There are mountains, valleys, canyons, hot springs and old-growth forests to hike, bike, camp and explore, year-round, and much of it is pristine due to federal land management, which prevents development. In the summer, it’s warm during the day but cools down at night. Winters are full of skiing and snowboarding. The sunsets are always out of this world.

Notice how I didn’t mention anything that had to do with water? Water is not the same here. Nevada is an alpine desert, and we get the good and bad that comes with it. Water is scarce, both on the ground and coming from the skies. In Reno, where I live, I can count on two hands how many days it rained last year. Summer is hot and dry. I’ve adjusted to this climate without even realizing it; I always carry lotion and chapstick for dry skin, my yard only has native, low water plants and I stick to my designated water use days religiously.

And it’s not like we don’t have water at all – there’s the Truckee River to fish, kayak and float, and Lake Tahoe is only 40 minutes south. Tahoe is a saving grace for sure; a true oasis in the desert and it’s been a vacation spot of Californians for generations. But over the years the lake has become increasingly inaccessible (and less fun) due to overcrowding and overdevelopment. Tahoe’s water is also pure snowmelt, and combined with the depth means the lake never warms over 50 degrees, making it un-swimable for babies like myself.

Skiing in Nevada (after a particularly good storm) with Lake Tahoe in the background.

Northern Nevada, like much of California, is dependent on snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for our water. Nevada has been experiencing different stages of drought for a while now, thanks to climate change. Some parts of the state are worse than others, and it always seems like some not-too-far-away city is under the threat of actually running out of water if there’s no rainfall. The storm predictions always start in the fall, and we all hope for storms with lots of snow for a good ski and snowboard season, but also to create a good snowpack that will melt and fill our reservoirs. The drought the past few years has been rough. But even our recent “Miracle March” wasn’t enough to erase the snow drought from last season, which hadn’t erased it from the year before… and so on.  This seems to be the new normal. Storms bring precipitation, but we’re always playing catch-up from the last storm or two that didn’t bring enough. At least Reno is more fortunate than most of Nevada; we have more water resources to pull from and our proximity to the mountains and higher elevation give us a rain and snowfall advantage when compared with a city like Las Vegas. Our reservoirs are currently full and the outlook for this drought year is optimistic.

That’s why Michigan is so unique. Water is everywhere. It’s part of the culture, and people are connected to it. We all have a water here, whether it’s the Traverse Bay, the Boardman River, Lake Michigan, or for me, Birch Lake- we feel a connection to some body of water for one reason or another. It took moving away and living in a dry climate for me to truly appreciate how lucky this region is to have such an abundant resource, and how intertwined it is with our lives. And don’t get me wrong; I love living in Nevada. There are too many beautiful, serene places to count, and I love the culture. But no matter where I live, I will always miss the waterways of Michigan. A day on Lake Tahoe is never wasted, but a part of me will always wish that when I reach my hand over the side of the boat into the cool depths, I were instead feeling the warm waters of Michigan.

Kirsten Nolet is assisting FLOW this summer as part of a Patagonia-sponsored environmental internship.  She was born in the area and lived here until 2004, and tries to get back as often as she can.  She is currently employed by Patagonia as a stockroom manager and lives in Reno, Nevada.

Growing the Plastics Conversation towards Meaningful Change

Published on May 8th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

A growing movement is afoot here in the Great Lakes – a broadening recognition and fierce determination to tackle the ubiquity of single-use plastics in our waters. Just in our small neck of the woods in northern Michigan, a number of nonprofit groups, concerned citizens, and conservation districts are seizing the moment and starting conversations through film, public education and strong campaigns to change the way we accept single-use plastics in our everyday lives.

In just the last three weeks, Green Elk Rapids hosted A Plastic Ocean at the Elk Rapids Cinema; the Benzie Conservation District hosted the Smog of the Sea at the Garden Theater in Frankfort; and the local chapter of The Last Plastic Straw hosted a free film screening of Straws at Michael Moore’s State Theatre, followed by a Skype conversation with filmmaker Linda Booker. Groups like Inland Seas that embraced the issue early are no doubt pleased to see their educational efforts on microplastics gain traction among students, citizens, and leaders.

Film organizers from The Last Plastic Straw – Linda Frank, Kathy Daniels, Claudia DeMarco, and Kristine Drake – rightly predicted that plastic straws are an easy way to introduce a community conversation about the impact of single-use plastics on human health, animals, and the environment. Did you know that Americans throw away over 500 million plastic straws every day? It’s staggering facts like this, coupled with visual scenes of plastics pollution, that make for a great film and engage viewers to take meaningful action. The  goal for every committed citizen and organization and every filmmaker is to harness this engagement around plastic straws and shift the way individuals and businesses think about plastic pollution and our society’s disposable culture at a macro scale. 

At FLOW, we too are committed to this global public policy initiative to prioritize protecting the human and ecological health of the Great Lakes ecosystem and combatting climate change. We know that this transition will be hard, but Rachel Carson reminds us why we must act now:

Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road-the one ‘less traveled by’-offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”  – Silent Spring, 1962.

Join FLOW’s Get Off the Bottle campaign. The response has been incredible. Students, citizens, and businesses are spreading the word with our informative blogs, stickers, yard signs, and pledge to get off bottled water and plastics.

FLOW Challenges Wisconsin’s Approval of Lake Michigan Water Diversion

Published on May 4th, 2018 by - Reports & Media Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO MEDIA: May 4, 2018

 

Dave Dempsey, Senior Advisor                                                               Phone: 231-944-1568
FLOW (For Love of Water)                                                       Email: dave@flowforwater.org

Jim Olson, Founder & President                                                            Phone: 231-499-8831
FLOW (For Love of Water)                                                             Email: olson@envlaw.com

 

FLOW Challenges Wisconsin’s Approval of Lake Michigan Water Diversion

 

A Lake Michigan water diversion approved by the State of Wisconsin is inconsistent with the Great Lakes Compact and threatens an open season on Great Lakes water, FLOW said today.

The Traverse City, Michigan-based science and law center asked Great Lakes governors and a Regional Body established by the Compact to review Wisconsin’s approval of a 7 million gallon per day diversion request by Racine, Wisconsin, a city entirely inside the basin, primarily for the Foxconn Corporation in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approval of the diversion is based on a faulty interpretation of the Compact and sets a dangerous precedent, FLOW said.

“We can’t go into this century’s water crisis with a loosely conceived decision that turns the ‘straddling community’ exception to the diversion ban on end,” said Jim Olson, founder and president of FLOW. “The Compact envisioned sending water to cities that straddle the basin with existing water infrastructure that already serves residents on both sides of the divide. Wisconsin has shoe-horned Racine’s request to extend its pipes outside the basin to serve a private customer, not a public water supply. Scores of other communities and private interests could start doing the same, and billions of gallons will ultimately end up outside the basin.”

“Wisconsin’s approval of this diversion doesn’t just bend the Compact, it threatens to break it,” said Dave Dempsey, Senior Advisor to FLOW. “The Racine-to-Foxconn diversion must receive the highest degree of scrutiny, and if it is discovered that the application of this exception violates or is not consistent with the Compact, the Council, Regional Body, and parties or citizens must correct the error before it is too late.”

The approved diversion allows the City of Racine to extend its existing water supply system to an area of Mt. Pleasant not served by a public water supply and outside the Great Lakes watershed.

FLOW’s challenge has two parts:

  • The Foxconn diversion stretches the Compact’s exception to a ban on diversions for so-called straddling communities that is intended “solely for public water supply purposes,” primarily residential customers. The exception was intended to assist communities with public water supply systems that already extend across the divide and serve a straddling public water supply, with emphasis on residential users. The Racine-to-Foxconn diversion is simply a diversion of an in-basin city’s in-basin public water system to an area outside the basin for an industrial purpose, as acknowledged publicly by state and local officials. The City of Racine circumvented the requirement by using its gross water utility system-wide data to show that its in-basin system serves 30,425 residential customers, 848 multi-family residential customers, about 3,000 business, commercial, and 302 industrial users. But the water diverted or transferred here is the 7 million gallons covered by the Racine application. If the analysis is limited to that required by law, the primary purpose of the diversion is to serve customers outside the basin who are commercial and industrial—the Foxconn plant project, and not residential users.
  • The Foxconn diversion violates the exception for “straddling communities” because the exception is solely for public water supply “within” or “in” “the straddling community.” A customer area in an incorporated town like Mt. Pleasant is not a public water supply of Mt. Pleasant, and therefore Mt. Pleasant without its own public water supply system does not qualify as a “straddling community.” To interpret the exception otherwise, is to allow a city inside the basin to divert water to a new customer in an area outside the basin by merely assuming the identity of an existing community whose corporate limits straddle the basin divide. This is not what the exception was intended to allow; it does not serve the public water supply of Mt. Pleasant; and it serves the customer and newly diverted water on the part of Applicant City of Racine.

The Council and Regional Body have broad authority to bring actions, exercise rights as aggrieved parties, or exercise powers of review for consistency, compliance, uniformity based on a joint commitment to protect the integrity of the Great Lakes; this means upholding the diversion ban and interpreting and applying the exceptions to the ban as written. The Racine in-basin community proposed diversion for primarily industrial use by an industrial customer in Mt. Pleasant, but outside the basin, does not qualify for the straddling community exception.

The Council and Regional Body and affected or aggrieved parties should demand an investigation, review, and determination of whether or not the Racine proposal and final determination by the Wisconsin DNR fall within, meet and/or comply with the “straddling community” exception standard, FLOW said.

###

Interview with Chris Doyal of the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council

Published on May 1st, 2018 by - Blog Posts, Public Trust Tuesday

byzantine-empire-public-land.-trusts

Michigan is the 22nd largest state if you consider only the land within its borders that is above water.  But if you add its submerged lands, it’s the 11th largest. Much of the approximately 40,000 square miles of Michigan under water consists of Great Lakes submerged lands, which belong to the public and are managed by the state as trustee.

 A 1980 state law authorizes the creation of underwater preserves in these submerged lands.  Michigan’s thirteen underwater preserves include approximately 7,200 square miles of Great Lakes bottomland – an area larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. The underwater preserves protect some of the region’s most sensitive underwater resources.

The legislation imposes stiff penalties for disturbing shipwrecks and their artifacts. It is a felony to remove or disturb artifacts in Michigan’s Great Lakes.

 Divers were a principal force in the drafting of the 1980 law and today provide voluntary support to the preserve system. Supporters of the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve are becoming active in exploring and mapping the 295-square mile preserve. We interviewed Chris Doyal, president of the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council, Inc., to find out what the group is up to.

A carriage that fell through ice onto the floor of Grand Traverse Bay in the early 1900s.

How large is the group and how diverse the backgrounds?

We are currently in the process of reforming. The preserve was essentially defunct for a few years. We have reformed and now have a board of directors comprised of six people. All of our board members are local divers.

 

How did you personally get involved?

I was contacted soon after the preserve was formed in 2007. My expertise is in underwater photography, and I was asked to photograph the shipwrecks.

 

How can someone join?

We currently aren’t a group that has an official membership. We may head that direction in the future. People usually approach us to share additional historical information about the various sites within the preserve. Local knowledge is the best.

 

Is there a newsletter/regular email?

No, but we maintain a Facebook page and a website.

 

What are some of the more noteworthy discoveries the GTBUP group has made?

Our primary goal has been to do an inventory of the known shipwrecks within the preserve. If we come across something new, that’s great. But we still have a lot of work to do documenting the known sites. We’re currently working with the Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum to locate and document shipwrecks around Northport.

 

What is your partnership with MDNR/MDEQ like?

Since we don’t excavate or disturb sites in any way, we’ve not had any contact with them. However, we are looking into the possibility of installing buoys on some of the sites and that will likely need their support.

 

In addition to shipwrecks, are their environmental or aboriginal features of interest?

Absolutely. There are many important historical sites within the preserve. For example, Rev. Peter Dougherty’s pier remains are still easily seen from a boat. This was constructed around 1839. There are also several native American settlements within the preserve.

 

What is the preserve’s greatest need — e.g., awareness, funding, legislation & policy, protection?

It’s really too soon to tell what our needs will be. The restructured preserve is still in the process of defining its focus for the future.

 

Do you think people respect that these submerged lands are owned by the public?

Yes, but more education is always needed. The lands are managed by the state but owned by all of us. People really need to know how fragile these sites are.

“Look but don’t touch” certainly applies here.

 

 Whom should interested readers contact?

The contact section on the website is the best way to connect with us.

What Kind of Environmental Agency Does Michigan Need?

Published on April 30th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

For almost eight years, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality has sided with resource exploitation over resource protection. MDEQ’s recent decisions to grant Nestle a 60% increase in the volume of water it can extract from springs near Evart for bottling and sale, and to authorize Enbridge Energy to bypass full environmental alternatives review and install more support anchors on its dangerous Line 5 pipelines are just the latest examples.

It wasn’t always so — and we can do better again.

Michigan’s conservation and environmental protection agencies have been recognized as national leaders in two eras. From 1921 to 1970, the Department of Conservation oversaw the reforestation and acquisition of 9 million acres of forestland, built a robust park system, and vaulted recreational fishing and hunting to national prominence, particularly in deer and salmon management.

From the late 1960s to the 1980s, the Department of Natural Resources attracted national praise for a number of bold actions. DNR was a major force in making Michigan the first state to cancel most uses of DDT, three years before the federal government. DNR championed reduction of phosphorus, which led to the recovery of Lake Erie. The state adopted tough limits for sulfur content in coal burned by power plants in Michigan, attacking acid rain and smog before nearby states. With DNR support, the Legislature and governor enacted laws to control soil erosion, protect inland lakes and streams, protect sand dunes, protect wetlands, protect Great Lakes shorelands and bottomlands, improve management of solid and hazardous waste, clean up toxic waste sites and ban oil drilling in the Great Lakes.

In both eras, a key feature was the separation of the Department of Conservation/Natural Resources from raw partisan politics. As was true in many Midwestern states, lawmakers in the 1920s created a citizen commission, the 7-member Conservation Commission, appointed by the governor, to oversee the agency. The Commission chose its own chairperson and was generally free to put in place policies that would pay off in a generation without suffering direct political backlash.

The Commission system was born in part out of a memory of how politicians of the mid- to-late 1800s catered to the lumber barons, market (not sport) hunters and other commercial interests who laid waste to natural resources and abandoned the state, leaving behind ruin for the people of Michigan to clean up. A Commission insulated from the pressures of politics and lobbyists, it was felt, would be able to put in place policies with long-term public benefits rather than immediate rewards to politicians. This enabled foresters to take a long view of 40 to 50 years for replanting the north country.

The tradition continued in the 1960s and 1970s, when what was now the Natural Resources Commission generally provided support for staff to do what it considered best. The DNR also contained air and water commissions that met in public, voted on rules and permits, and heard out the concerns of citizens. The DNR Director from 1975 to 1983, Howard Tanner, encouraged staff to “err on the side of the resource” when in doubt.

Michigan has not been regarded as a leader on the environment since Governor John Engler in 1995 split the DNR in two, abolished most citizen commissions and gave the new DEQ a “hands-off” mandate. The DEQ has never had a commission and the DNR’s Natural Resources Commission performs mostly ministerial functions, rarely delving into major policy issues, instead setting fish and game rules and seasons. Leaders of both agencies are appointed not because of excellence in environmental and natural resource fields, but because of fealty to the governor.

How might things be different if a DEQ Director sensitive to public concerns had acted swiftly when advised about alarming news in Flint – or if citizens from Flint had been able to speak in public before a citizen commission demanding that the state investigate?

 The current DEQ mission statement does not use the word “protect”:

“The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality promotes wise management of Michigan’s air, land, and water resources to support a sustainable environment, healthy communities, and vibrant economy.”

The name of the agency also lacks the word “protect.”  Perhaps it needs a new name — the Michigan Department of Environmental Protection — and a mission to “protect the air, water, land and other natural resources of the state, and the public trust therein, from pollution, impairment and destruction. Through a high level of professionalism, respect for public views, strong science, law enforcement, and policy that considers both current and future generations, the Department assures a healthy people and environment.”

Michigan deserves this new approach.

Water Always Wins

Published on April 27th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

Last month, I took a plane out to Eugene, Oregon to visit my brother and his girlfriend. We spent most of our time playing pinball and visiting the local tea bar to try out various Oolongs, but one of the days out there, we decided to head out to the coast to see the water.

It was supposedly whale watching season, so on the drive out, I kept imagining these breaching blue whales, creating massive shadows over me, that would forever be imprinted in my mind to remember this spring day. When we arrived, we found a viewing station and gift shop. Down below, we saw nothing but waves. I asked the ranger where all the whales were, and he told me that the swells were too high. While that didn’t quite answer my question, I guessed that they had found calmer waters. They knew better than to play around with big waves.

We left the viewing station and went down to the water. It was a spot known as Thor’s Well – a giant sinkhole in the rock where the vast waves crash over and get pulled into the depths below. I balanced from one rock to another to go get a closer look. The deep colors and tremendous thundering sounds of water on rock were truly humbling. Despite the Well, one wave still powered over the top and managed to thoroughly douse me.

Nayt Boyt

In that moment, I was mostly laughing and glad that I remembered to put my phone in my waterproof pocket. But I also had a profound respect for nature and for water – for the power behind it and what it is capable of. For the simple fact that it is chaos and life.

Water always wins.

Water does not need humans. (In fact, it tried to take me out that day.) But humans do need water.

The Wisconsin Water Diversion Giveaway

Published on April 26th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

The 10-year-old Great Lakes Compact is not just an agreement among eight states. It is also a compact between the citizens and public officials of those states. A decision yesterday in Wisconsin puts both compacts at risk.

Wisconsin has now approved a diversion of up to 2.7 million gallons a day of Lake Michigan water to be used by Foxconn for industrial purposes.

But the premise of the Compact is that governments will do everything in their power to prevent diversions of Great Lakes water, reflecting the will of the people of this region. After all, the compact arose from public outrage over a 1998 proposal to ship Lake Superior water to Asia. It wasn’t government that initiated the compact, it was a clamor from the public.

In two ways, the fine print of the Compact departed from the public’s opposition to water diversions. First, the Compact exempts from its ban on diversions shipments of water for sale as long as the shipments are in small containers, such as bottles. This condones the privatization of a public trust resource and could yield control of the Great Lakes over to commercial interests.

The other, supposedly more limited exemption is one for public health. Communities straddling the Great Lakes watershed boundary, or outside of it but in a straddling county, are allowed to seek diversions to supply public drinking water if there is no alternative. Specifically, the Compact provides that the exempted diversion water “shall be used solely for Public Water Supply Purposes.”

But under Governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin is attempting to use Lake Michigan as yet another giveaway on top of $3 billion in other tax incentives to lure Foxconn and the jobs it would create to his state. The company’s facility, just outside the Great Lakes watershed, will enjoy the bulk of up to 2.7 million gallons a day of water from the lake that it would not return.

The City of Racine’s application is clear that the water it seeks will help “meet forecasted demands for water resulting from expected development in the Village of Mount Pleasant along the Interstate-94 corridor.” The Wisconsin DNR website affirms that the area served includes the area identified as the future site of the Foxconn facility. Clearly, the purpose of the proposal is primarily industrial. Until there is a factual basis that demonstrates the proposal will serve “largely residential customers,” and that the industrial portion of the proposal is merely incidental, this application cannot be approved.

An additional problem is that as currently construed by Wisconsin, the other seven Great Lakes states have no formal role to play in approving or rejecting the Foxconn proposal. That’s because the village in which Foxconn would be located is a “straddling community,” whose fate the Compact leaves to the originating state in most cases.

This proposal turns the Great Lakes into a subsidy for development – just like a tax break – outside the Great Lakes watershed. It could lead to a Great Lakes industrial water reservoir available for all states to create, populated by dozens of industries in existing or even new straddling communities, subject only to a single state’s approval. 

The question then becomes if the Great Lakes states themselves can tap the lakes for politically favored interests, why can’t other states do the same? Clearly, under this interpretation, the Compact is not solely concerned about the health of the lakes or the health of the people close by. It is a cash cow for private interests — and vulnerable to legal attack from outside the watershed.

Dave Dempsey, FLOW Senior Advisor

That’s not what the public thought it was getting. It breaks the compact between the governed and those who govern. Moreover, when the states approved the Compact, Wisconsin included, they adopted a provision that they must follow the standards of the Compact. This means the threshold question of whether Wisconsin is construing the “straddling community” “incidental industry” standard too loosely to serve its own ends is not for Wisconsin to decide alone, but for all the states to the Compact and the citizens of the Great Lakes watershed it protects.

The Great Lakes states must honor their promise, insist on a stringent interpretation of the “straddling community” exception and stop the Foxconn water giveaway.

Running Michigan’s Water Into the Ground

Published on April 24th, 2018 by - Public Trust Tuesday

byzantine-empire-public-land.-trusts
FLOW’s organizing principle is the public trust doctrine.  What sounds like an exotic concept is quite simple.  This centuries-old principle of common law holds that there are some resources, like water and submerged lands that by their nature cannot be privately owned.  Rather, these commons – including the Great Lakes — belongs to the public.  And governments, like the State of Michigan, have a responsibility to protect public uses of these resources.  We explicitly address public trust concerns on what we’re calling Public Trust Tuesday. 

Last week, Michigan Radio broadcast a two-part series on Michigan’s groundwater. They found that there are more than 2,000 places around Michigan where, instead of cleaning up contaminated groundwater, the state bars people from using it or even touching the soil — and this is an extremely conservative estimate.

How did we get to this point? Groundwater is profoundly important to our state. Michigan has more private drinking water wells than any other state. About 45% of the state’s population depends on groundwater as its drinking water source. Manufacturing industries and agriculture depend heavily on groundwater. As much as 42% of the water in the Great Lakes originates from groundwater.
 
And yet state policy treats it as disposable.
 
Michigan water quality protections in theory already extend to groundwater. As defined in state statute, “Waters of the state” means groundwaters, lakes, rivers, and streams and all other watercourses and waters, including the Great Lakes within Michigan’s boundaries.
 
Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act (NREPA), Part 327, declares that groundwater and surface water are one single hydrologic system. Groundwater can recharge surface water, and surface water on occasion loses water to recharge groundwater. The waters of the state should be considered one resource for any groundwater protection regulation or standard.
 

Dave Dempsey, FLOW Senior Advisor

Part 327 recognizes water in the Great Lakes basin and Michigan is held in trust for the benefit of citizens. This principle should govern every water statute, and any statute regulating activities that protect groundwater, to assure that contaminants do not impair the public trust in connected wetlands, creeks, streams, and lakes, and Great Lakes.

 
In short, the public trust doctrine applies to groundwater, part of the larger hydrologic system. FLOW will be working to affirm this — and to make sure these vital waters are protected.

Michigan’s Water Legacy

Published on April 23rd, 2018 by - Blog Posts

“This couldn’t be just a lake. No real water was ever blue like that. A light breeze stirred the pin-cherry tree beside the window, ruffled the feathers of a fat sea gull promenading on the pink rocks below. The breeze was full of evergreen spice.”

— Dorothy Maywood Bird, “Mystery at Laughing Water”

2018 should be the year that Michigan recommits itself to protecting its water better than any other state does.  There is hope out there, if you look closely.

On Sunday, the Detroit Free Press observed that when Michiganders are asked what defines Michigan, they almost invariably cite water and the environment. Water is our identity. Water surrounds us and water flows through our state.

That’s why policies that have been pursued in recent years by politicians in Lansing are so out of step with the character of our state. The Flint drinking water disaster is just one of many serious offenses against our water legacy. The failure of the state to shut down the antiquated Line 5 petroleum pipelines at the Straits of Mackinac, Michigan DEQ’s recent authorization of a 60% increase in Nestlé’s water extraction operation, proposed legislation granting automatic approval to large agricultural water withdrawals and even worse legislation that would grant veto power over DEQ’s rulemaking to polluters are all examples.

This is not right for Michigan. This is not what Michiganders want.

The answer to the problem of poor state water policy is in the hands of all of us. If we educate ourselves on these issues and communicate with elected officials, nothing can stop us from restoring Michigan is leadership. It’s that simple, and that difficult. It requires sacrificing a little time, and making an effort. But over the decades, the lesson of Michigan’s environmental history is that when the people lead, the politicians follow.

It is entirely possible that within a year, if all goes well, the people of the state will unite behind a common sense water agenda and use the legislature as an instrument to enact it. That will mean funding for clean, safe and affordable drinking water, restoration of the Great Lakes, protection of our wetlands, and clear public control of the water that we own as a people.