Tag: For Love of Water

Giving Back Can Come in Many Forms

Published on May 18th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

Giving Back Can Come in Many Forms

A Sunday afternoon spent walking through downtown Traverse City, taking in some much needed and long overdue sunshine and fresh air, strolling along the Boardman River and picking up trash – a perfect day, right? Perhaps that last part sounds less than appealing, but I promise you, it was the highlight of my day. A couple weeks ago, I participated in a river clean-up organized by a few eco-minded local businesses. For the chance to be outside and help out for a good cause, I was happy to spend a few hours picking up litter.

Dozens of other area residents must have felt the same way. Everyone from young kids to retirees came prepared with trash bags and gloves, ready to roll up their sleeves and put in some elbow grease to make our town, and waterways, a little cleaner. As I picked up cigarette butts, bottle caps, and plastic bags off the river bank, I was met with the smiling faces of other volunteers and gratitude from passersby, taking the time to stop and say “thank you.” Maybe it was sunshine-induced happiness after months of drab, cold northern Michigan winter, but the air seemed to be saturated with positive energy. I’m often asked how I make time to volunteer while balancing work, school, and coaching, and volunteer events like this remind me why I choose to make it a priority. I might not be able to volunteer consistently or lend my skills to every organization I support. The most important part is to give back when I can.

Giving can come in many forms, but we all have the capacity for it.  

It doesn’t have to feel like a time-consuming commitment, or financially burdensome. Donations are often siloed into two categories: time or money. If you want to affect change, but are feeling short on both, I offer you a third option. The act of giving can also include the gift of change: a willingness to stop buying bottled water, using a reusable mug or thermos for your to-go coffee, or saying no to single-use straws. These are just a few of the small but simple actions that can protect our environment, and make our world a better place for everyone. And isn’t that what giving is all about?

Thank you to all the local businesses for organizing for the Boardman River Clean Up:

  • Brick Wheels
  • Grand Traverse Guide
  • Keen Technical Solutions
  • Scuba North
  • The Northern Angler
  • Way of Knife

With the collective power of 75 participants, we collected more than 600 pounds of trash!

BAYKEEPER® Heather Smith is Protector and Educator Too

Published on May 17th, 2018 by - Blog Posts

Grand Traverse Bay is one of the Great Lakes watershed’s special places.  Protecting, restoring and preserving it is the job of many, but a special role goes to Heather Smith, the Grand Traverse BAYKEEPER® at the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay since August 2016.  FLOW was curious about Heather’s work, and she graciously agreed to answer our questions.

Heather grew up in Leelanau County and attended schools in Suttons Bay.  She earned her undergraduate degree in Biology and Environmental Science from Michigan State University and a graduate degree in Water Resources Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

First, what are some of the most interesting facts about the bay and why we should be proud of it? For example, I did a calculation and found it has 8 times the volume of Lake St. Clair, which seems pretty impressive.

The bay is an impressive water body! It’s a very unique embayment of Lake Michigan, and the bathymetry is wild – all resulting from glaciers that retreated about 11,000 years ago. At the deepest point, the bay is around 600 feet deep. The east arm of Grand Traverse Bay is significantly deeper than the west arm, and it gets relatively shallow near the outlet to Lake Michigan. We have some unique underwater features as well – underwater bluffs and riverbeds – that we are learning more about as Northwestern Michigan College’s Marine Technology Program further explores the lakebed.  

Besides the geeky bathymetric and geologic stuff, the Grand Traverse Bay watershed is home to hundreds of native plants and animals, some only found in this region. Thousands of people depend on Grand Traverse Bay for their drinking water. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on lakes, streams, and wetlands within the Grand Traverse Bay watershed for recreation, transportation, fishing, and their way of life. These waters are worth protecting. They are the lifeblood of our community.

Are there characteristics or features of bays that are unique or not like lakes?

Yes, Grand Traverse Bay is a bit different than a lake. We are directly connected to the larger Lake Michigan system. About 261 billion gallons of water flows into Lake Michigan from the bay each year.

When people come up to you and ask you what the BAYKEEPER® does, what is your quick reply?

I am the eyes, ears, and voice for Grand Traverse Bay and its watershed. I advocate for swimmable, fishable, and drinkable water in our region.

What do you think is your most important BAYKEEPER® task?

I am a consistent and persistent advocate for decisions and policies that preserve and protect YOUR water.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned as BAYKEEPER®?

Local decision-making plays a big role in the protection of our environment as local decisions directly affect water quality in Grand Traverse Bay and its watershed. There are a number of zoning tools and land use policies that local governments can employ to help protect our water.  

If we, as the people that work, play, and live here, value our water, we need to speak up to ensure it’s protected. Local governments can represent community values and respond to community concerns in a way that state and federal governments can’t always do. We need to ensure there is not a disconnect between the community value of our water and local decision-making. Ensuring that citizens are actively engaged in local decisions can and will largely impact the future of the community we live in.

What is the biggest problem facing the Bay?

The Great Lakes are faced with challenges that we created. As the Grand Traverse BAYKEEPER®, I spend the majority of my time focusing on hyper-local issues. Stormwater runoff and intense development that threatens to fill our valuable wetlands and alter our natural shorelines are our biggest threats to the Grand Traverse Bay watershed. Sediments, nutrients, bacteria, and other pollutants enter our surface waters through stormwater that washes from roads, parking lots, and driveways. Wetlands and naturally vegetated shorelines play a critical role in filtering and purifying runoff before it enters our waterbodies.

It’s worth noting that I am not here to halt development in our beautiful corner of Michigan, but rather to advocate for sustainable development practices that treat and infiltrate stormwater onsite using natural processes and preserve wetlands and natural shorelines. There are engineering solutions and design principles that work in harmony with nature. I’ll argue that nowhere else in the state is it as important to utilize these eco-conscious design elements as the Grand Traverse Bay watershed. Our livelihood depends on the health of our water.

What shaped your appreciation for water and made you interested in a career in environmental issues?

Growing up on the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay – swimming, sailing, fishing, kayaking – significantly shaped my life and inspired my career path. My days spent on and in the bay cultivated my interest in and passion for freshwater ecology. There are few days a year, weather permitting, that I am not outside enjoying our vast network of water resources. And watching my daughter enjoy this same body of water motivates me to continue fighting to protect our water.   

Can you suggest one or two things anyone can do for the Bay?

Take action, and speak up about projects and policy decisions that affect your water. To learn more about receiving updates on public meeting and comment periods where you can voice your concern or support for water related projects and policies, contact me at hsmith@gtbay.org or 231.935.1514 x3.

Public Trust Perspectives

Published on May 15th, 2018 by - Blog Posts, Public Trust Tuesday

byzantine-empire-public-land.-trusts

FLOW’s organizing principle is the public trust doctrine.  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 Public Trust Tuesday. 

This week, we are welcoming five graduate students from the University of Michigan who will be assisting FLOW in our new Blue Communities project.  The purpose of the initiative, which begins in the Grand Traverse Bay watershed, is to empower communities to instill the values of water stewardship in their policies and practices.  This grassroots, place-based program is based on the knowledge that water is precious to all, and its stewardship has the potential to unite communities in achieving environmental goals.

As they arrive on scene this week to get a lay of the land, we asked them for their perspective on the public trust.

Public trust is the principle that certain spaces and resources such as air and water are preserved for public use. In addition, governments have the obligation to prohibit any use that could harm these resources in order to protect the rights and benefits of current and future generations. This concept is becoming more important when it comes to water crisis and over-extraction of ecosystems. As an existing source of legal authority, public trust should be taken hold to prevent impairment of natural resources and related habitats as well as improve public awareness and water stewardship.

-Lingzi Liu: Landscape Architecture

What having the public trust doctrine in place means to me is that there is an established set of rules/guidelines that determine if something can be owned by one person or if it belongs to everyone (aka a common good). It is through this doctrine that the Great Lakes have been made accessible to all. It is through this doctrine that the government is given the responsibility of maintaining and preserving these common goods. It is also through this doctrine that we as citizens and people of the commons have the ability and duty to make sure the government is upholding their responsibility. It is through this public trust doctrine that a tragedy of the commons can be avoided.

-Kaitlin Vapenik: Environmental Informatics with Data Science Certificate

“By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind—the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea.” Public spaces and resources are owned and shared by the public. The concept is to protect public resources for the public (owner). Public trust is the principle that could be used to govern all decisions, rights and duties of the use of common resources, like waters and shorelines. Public trust waters should be used for public purposes (like drinking water, navigation, recreational uses, etc.), instead of being controlled or transferred to private interests for private purposes. And the proposed uses cannot harm waters, influence the quality and quantity of public trust waters, or protected public uses as well.

-Kangu Yu: Landscape Architecture

The public trust doctrine states that the public has the right to use certain resources, such as water. Water belongs to everyone, and the government has been given the responsibility to protect this resource for the people. Therefore, the government must ensure that current and proposed uses do not violate the principles of the public trust, and that no one individual or group is disproportionately causing harm to or interfering with other’s rights to use water resources. The multitude of stressors threatening water resources today suggests that there is a need to protect this resource that belongs to all of us.

-Nancy Ye: Environmental Toxicology with an emphasis on Aquatic Toxicology

To me, the public trust doctrine is the idea that creation ought to be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their place in life. The beauty of creation often takes my breath away, and many of my fondest memories involve utilizing natural resources like lakes, rivers and beaches. The natural world is here for everyone’s reasonable use and enjoyment and should not be the pleasure of a few. While privatization is often good in many sectors and encourages healthy competition, the destruction, alienation or diversion of natural resources through private ownership often produces detrimental effects for the environment at-large, oftentimes destroying that which was exclusively sought after in the first place. The public trust doctrine allows the citizens of our country to protect precious, natural resources from degradation so that these resources can be enjoyed by anyone, including future generations. In a world of instant gratification and abundant, self-centered pleasures, the public trust doctrine calls on us to resist our own selfish desires and to put the good of the community first.

-Adam Arend:  Environmental Policy and Planning

 

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.

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.