Tag: Great Lakes Compact

Citizens fight proposal to bottle and sell Lake Superior water

Published on September 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

A proposal to turn artesian groundwater that feeds Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin into a product for sale continues to run head-on into the law, the community, a tribe, and a citizens group, Lake Superior Not for Sale (LSNFS).

The most recent defeat for Kristle KLR came in June, when the Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld a Bayfield County Board of Adjustment decision to deny the company a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to harvest, store, and transport artesian water. The company has lost every round since it took the issue to the courts in 2022. Now the last stop in the judicial system is the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which rarely accepts appeals in such circumstances.

When Kristle KLR announced its proposal to bottle and sell the water, it said it would store the water in underground tanks on site, and transport it via tanker trucks to an off-site bottling facility in Superior, Wisconsin. Proposed markets included the Twin Cities of Minnesota, which lie outside the Great Lakes watershed.

But the proposal ran into a buzzsaw of opposition from surrounding communities, the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, LSNFS, and others.
The proposal was designed to evade the Great Lakes Compact’s ban on diversions outside of the Great Lakes watershed by exploiting a loophole in the Compact that exempts diversions of water in containers under 5.7 gallons in volume.

The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa officially condemned the proposal with a resolution calling water “a finite resource” and adding that “societal demands to monetize fresh water supplies represent an existential threat to our culture and lifestyle,” including fisheries and wild rice. Linda Nguyen, Red Cliff Environmental Director said, “To allow for the commodification of water is to allow the theft of our sacred relative.”

LSNFS signs reading “Not For Sale,” with the image of Lake Superior in the background, sprouted up in Bayfield, Ashland, and Douglas Counties. By the end of 2022, over 3,000 yard signs had been distributed throughout the upper Midwest, throughout all 11 tribes in the State of Wisconsin and into Canada.

“This area has been fighting resource extraction threats since the land was ceded in the 1842 Treaty, so the communities are strong and relationships are deep,” said Dana Churness, one of the principals in the Lake Superior Not for Sale group. “This is what allows us to feel exhilarated and ready for what comes next. We absolutely have to be. Are some days exhausting? You bet. However, the corporate threats won’t rest, and neither will we.”

Rob Lee, an attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates in Madison, which has represented citizens opposed to the withdrawal, says the success of the opposition to date “demonstrates what happens when regular people band together to oppose extractive industries like this, and that the people living on the shores of Lake Superior are adamant that Wisconsin’s precious water resources will not be privatized for purely monetary gain. It shows that those people can work through their local elected officials to get things done, and that local governments in Wisconsin have the authority to be responsive to their citizens’ concerns.”

The legal work takes funding, which LSNFS has raised by tabling at events and selling the signs and gear.

The threats to the water continue. Churness says citizens are wary of a bill introduced by Congressman Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, which would redesignate Wenabozho Ominisan – currently known as the Apostle Islands Lakeshore – as a national park. Introduced without meaningful consultations with affected communities and the Red Cliff tribe, the bill has awakened concerns that it is a step toward federal takeover of water extraction.

“We can only expect that Tiffany’s legislation is preparing for future water extraction, if Trump is elected in November,” Churness says. She urges businesses or organizations interested in signing a petition or resolution against this legislation to contact lakesuperiornotforsale@gmail.com. LSNFS continues to accept donations for its defense of the Lake Superior watershed.

Another Illinois City Seeks Lakes Michigan Water

Published on July 26th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

More and more, communities outside of the Great Lakes watershed basin are looking for ways to tap into Great Lakes water, despite the Great Lakes Compact agreement ban on most out-of-basin water diversions.

The latest example is the City of South Barrington, Illinois, which announced recently it is paying $154,000 to a consultant to prepare a plan to buy water from the City of Chicago. That city diverts Lake Michigan water into the Illinois River watershed to prevent city sewage from fouling its drinking water, and to support barge traffic on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.  The diverted water is also treated and used by the City for drinking water.

Despite its geographic proximity to Lake Michigan, South Barrington lies outside the Lake Michigan watershed.

Although large, new consumptive uses of Great Lakes water require approvals under the Great Lakes Compact, water allocations from Chicago to other Illinois cities are exempt from the Compact as long as they stay within Chicago’s 3,200 cubic feet per second diversion, which is allowed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Due to increased water use efficiency, Chicago has reduced its consumption, opening a margin that it is selling.

In other words, rather than returning the water it doesn’t use to Lake Michigan, Chicago can use it as an asset to be leased to communities beyond its borders and outside of the watershed. Last year, Chicago and the City of Joliet, Illinois – 35 miles from Chicago’s downtown – announced a 100-year agreement for Joliet to purchase treated drinking water from Chicago. The estimated price for the lease is $1 billion.

“It is time to reset the decades-old Supreme Court’s order,” says Jim Olson, founder of For Love of Water.

FREE REPORT: A Watershed Moment: The Great Lakes Compact After 15 Years

“The decree continues to bind the states and Great Lakes to the loss of 2 billion gallons a day, a drop of more than two inches a year, which during record low level years can result in devastating harm to the public trust for navigation, boating, fishing, shoreline wetlands and habitat along our coastlines. Yet it was entered into two decades before the nation’s and states’ first environmental and water laws and it was entered into before the legal recognition of the rights of the public and the lakes themselves that are protected by the universally accepted public trust law principle. And while the Chicago Diversion was exempted from the 2008 Great Lakes Compact’s diversion ban, that doesn’t prevent review of Chicago’s abuse of the Supreme Court’s consent order.”

Wisconsin is also using Lake Michigan water to support economic development outside the Great Lakes watershed, exploiting authority conferred by the Compact. In a report released earlier this year, FLOW found that state officials had okayed five new or increased water diversions outside the Great Lakes for development and population growth.

“Wisconsin’s reinterpretation of lawful exceptions to the Great Lakes Compact’s diversion ban has deviated from the common understanding upon its 2008 ratification. The Compact now enables rather than prevents diversion proposals in [watershed] straddling communities, and fosters population growth and water consumption outside the Great Lakes watershed,” FLOW said in the report.

WEBINAR: The Ethics of Sharing Great Lakes Water – April 17, 2024

Published on June 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

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 to be diverted outside of the watershed basin 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 are explored in a webinar hosted by FLOW featuring experts in environmental ethics and policy.

This webinar was recorded on April 17, 2024. Watch the recording:

Guest Speakers

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
Dr. Schroering 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.

The discussion is moderated by FLOW senior policy advisor, Dave Dempsey. Dave is the author of Great Lakes For Sale, which provides historical context for the issue of Great Lakes diversions and chronicles the region’s internal wars over bottled water.

With thanks to:

This webinar is presented with sponsorship by the Barton J. Ingraham & Gail G. Ingraham Foundation.

WEBINAR: The Ethics of Sharing Great Lakes Water – April 17, 2024

Published on March 7th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

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 to be diverted outside of the watershed basin 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 are explored in a webinar hosted by FLOW featuring experts in environmental ethics and policy.

This webinar was recorded on April 17, 2024. Watch the recording:

Guest Speakers

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
Dr. Schroering 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.

The discussion is moderated by FLOW senior policy advisor, Dave Dempsey. Dave is the author of Great Lakes For Sale, which provides historical context for the issue of Great Lakes diversions and chronicles the region’s internal wars over bottled water.

With thanks to:

This webinar is presented with sponsorship by the Barton J. Ingraham & Gail G. Ingraham Foundation.

Public Trust Bill Package Boosts Groundwater Protection in Michigan

Published on March 17th, 2022 by - Blog Posts, News, Reports & Media Releases

Editor’s note: This is a FLOW media release issued March 17, 2022. Members of the media can reach FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood at Liz@FLOWforWater.org or cell (570) 872-4956 or office (231) 944-1568.

FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood expressed strong support for legislation introduced in Lansing today that would shore up public trust protections for the Great Lakes and groundwater against water-bottling companies thirsting for profits and strengthen safeguards for waterways on state land.

“The Great Lakes must never be for sale,” Kirkwood said in a video-recording message for the press conference announcing the legislation. “And Michigan’s groundwater must never become privatized and siphoned away.”

Watch Liz Kirkwood’s video message below:

The three-bill package (House Bills 5953, 5954, and 5955) introduced by Michigan Reps. Yousef Rabhi, Laurie Pohutsky, Rachel Hood, and Padma Kuppa would close the legal loophole in the Great Lakes Compact that allows private interests and international regimes to take massive amounts of Great Lakes water as long as it is extracted in containers of 5.7 gallons or less. The legislation also would explicitly apply public trust protections to groundwater, which provides drinking water to 45% of Michiganders and helps recharge the Great Lakes, and would direct the Department of Natural Resources to be strong public trustees of the lands and waters it manages. Rep. Kuppa also plans to introduce a groundwater resolution on March 22, World Water Day.

“These prudent changes will ensure that Michigan has the ability to stop privatization of the Great Lakes and groundwater, and reject future water withdrawals that are not in the public’s interest,” said Kirkwood, an environmental attorney who directs FLOW (For Love of Water), the Great Lakes law and policy center based in Traverse City. “We must protect every arc of the water cycle.”

Michigan’s groundwater supplies drinking water to 45% of Michiganders. Groundwater that discharges to lakes and streams also is crucial to sustain coldwater fisheries, stream ecology, and wetlands, and also accounts for approximately 20-40% of the volume of the Great Lakes.

“Without these protections explicitly in place we face the very real possibility that our most valuable natural resource, the water which defines our state, could be treated as a commodity for sale like oil,” Kirkwood said, “and virtually eliminate the state’s ability to protect this vital resource.”

Michigan Lawmakers Must Step Up on Behalf of Our Water

Published on January 19th, 2022 by - Blog Posts, H2Olson, News

It is vital to assert the human right to water and prohibit private control and sale of water as a product

Jim Olson, FLOW Founder & Senior Legal Advisor

Editor’s Note: Great Lakes Echo published an article in December 2021 titled, “Can a bottled water royalty help preserve the Great Lakes?” which highlighted the idea of applying a royalty on sales of water captured by private entities and sold on the market. FLOW founder Jim Olson offers his thoughts on the nature of water as part of the public trust and the necessity of retaining state sovereignty over all water.

By Jim Olson

In Michigan, water in its natural state, including groundwater, is held by the state as sovereign for the benefit of the people. Michigan’s 2008 groundwater withdrawal law declares that lakes, streams, and groundwater–indeed springs, seeps, and wetlands–are a singularly connected part of the water cycle. The removal of water from one arc of the water cycle affects the other, often substantially.

It’s time for all legislators regardless of political party to step up on behalf of all of us and protect our public water, assert the human right to water, and prohibit private control and sale of water as a product.

The 2008 law also declares waters of the state, including groundwater, are held in trust for the benefit of citizens, and so does the eight-state Great Lakes Compact, which also dates back to 2008. When the singular and connected nature of groundwater and surface water is scientifically understood, that the removal of groundwater is a removal of surface water that is otherwise replenished by the groundwater, courts regularly subject the withdrawal to public trust protections. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2021 Mississippi v. Tennessee ruling, reaffirmed its basic rule that groundwater, like all waters within the boundaries of a state, are subject to exclusive control and ownership of the state, except for navigational servitude and interests. 

The Michigan Supreme Court has recognized that groundwater is not owned by anyone, and to the extent that it is, it is the common property of the state as sovereign. So, too has our legislature declared that our lakes, streams, and groundwater are a single hydrological system and that these common waters are held in trust by the State as sovereign. Sovereign means people–that’s all of us here in Michigan.

The International Bottled Water Association is wrong. Water is not a product until a state authorizes the sale of water as a product. That hasn’t happened in Michigan. BlueTriton Brands, formerly Nestlé Waters North America, Inc., like other bottled water operators, gets permits to withdraw and use water, but the notion that use includes sale has never been addressed. Once it is, water, if allowed to be sold in bottles or other containers less than 5.7 gallons must be licensed. Any other sale of water must be prohibited and explicitly not authorized or subject to license. Otherwise, Wall Street hedge funds and commodities exchanges will move in, prices will skyrocket, and water necessary to our own people, farmers, farms, industries, recreational pursuits, and communities will be subject to private control. 

We sure don’t want water traded or marketed out of the Great Lakes or Michigan. If there’s a humanitarian need or crisis, a one-time transfer can be done by the state for a public, humanitarian purpose on behalf of its citizens. But it won’t be sold, and it won’t be a product.

It’s unconscionable that those in cities and villages in rural areas facing water shutoffs because of inability to pay for the unaffordable rising costs of infrastructure or the presence of lead or another health threat should be forced to buy and use bottled water, which is degrading.

Municipal drinking water services are public goods established for public use, not private sale. That’s why bottled water companies that tap public water supplies in Michigan must obtain a license. Otherwise they would take the water, jack up the price once in a bottle, and not share the gain from selling a public good with the rest of the community’s residents–that’s called a subsidy, and under Michigan law and constitution, it’s unlawful. 

It’s time for all legislators regardless of political party to step up on behalf of all of us and protect our public water, assert the human right to water, and prohibit private control and sale of water as a product. It’s unconscionable that those in cities and villages in rural areas facing water shutoffs because of inability to pay for the unaffordable rising costs of infrastructure or the presence of lead or another health threat should be forced to buy and use bottled water, which is degrading, and 100 to 1000 times more expensive than what people should be able to pay to a city or village for their public water service.

Billions of Taxpayer Dollars and 2 Billion Gallons a Year of Great Lakes Water Don’t Mix with Private Corporate Profits and Promises

Published on January 22nd, 2020 by - Blog Posts, H2Olson, News

Revisiting the Foxconn Great Lakes Water Diversion in Wisconsin

By Jim Olson

Last summer I wrote about a Wisconsin administrative judge’s ruling that the diversion of 7 million gallons a minute — or 2 billion gallons of Great Lakes water per year — to the private corporation Foxconn to build a 22 million square-foot plant for 13,000 jobs should not qualify as a “public water supply”.

FLOW filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing in support of Wisconsin citizens and organizations that the Foxconn diversion was not exempt from the Great Lakes Compact, because it did not constitute a public water supply. Under the Compact and Wisconsin law, public water supply means “primarily residential” customers. To ensure a public service and purpose, the law and anti-diversion Compact are quite clear: If it’s not for many people who live in a straddling community but outside the basin, the water of the Great Lakes cannot be diverted. The law is also clear that it cannot be diverted for private purposes.

What happened in the Foxconn case was politics, plain and simple. Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker teamed up with the Taiwanese multinational electronics manufacturing company to commit $3 billion and 2 billion gallons of Great Lakes water for Foxconn’s promise of a 22 million square-foot facility and 13,000 jobs. Every business has to plan and decide for itself whether to build, finance, and operate an expansion. But 2018 was an election year, and Walker dangled everything he could to stir excitement for Wisconsin’s citizens. He rode the promises of Foxconn for tax base and jobs. Walker, a Republican, lost to now Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat. Foxconn didn’t uphold its part of the bargain with Walker. The company has downsized its facility to 1 million square feet, will offer a small fraction of the jobs, and will need much less water.

But no one has asked the real question: What do taxes, jobs, and transferring billions of gallons of Great Lakes water outside the Basin have to do with public water supply? What does this have to do with public services or public purpose? The answer is nothing.

The question now is: What is Governor Evers and Wisconsin citizens, and those of us in the Great Lakes Basin going to do about it? Under Scott Walker, Wisconsin bent the law and the Compact, but the new administration hasn’t done anything to remedy that. It’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses and protect the waters of the Great Lakes from becoming a subsidy and reservoir for private corporations outside the Basin.

Minnesota Water Train Proposal Exposes Flaw in Great Lakes Compact

Published on November 27th, 2019 by - Blog Posts, H2Olson, News

Jim Olson, FLOW Founder

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 proposal, the resulting controversy has renewed analysis of the Great Lakes Compact, which is designed to protect the Lakes from water diversions. And the heightened scrutiny is a good thing because part of Minnesota lies within the Great Lakes Basin.

The Great Lakes Compact has suffered from a primary weakness from the very beginning: it does not address the sale of water or consumption outside the Basin or watershed (with the exception of diversions in counties or communities that immediately adjoin the Basin). To provide for water used or diverted in products, there is a “product” exemption buried in the definition of “diversion” that permits tomatoes grown within the Basin, for example, to be shipped outside the watershed.

But buried in the definition of “product” is “water removed by human or mechanical means and transferred out of the basin” as a result of industrial, manufacturing, agriculture processes or products, and here’s the kicker, “… or intended for intermediate or end-use consumers.” So, the Compact contains a water-as-product export provision—at least to the extent that water is placed in a container. But, here’s another kicker. There is no limit to size, so railroad containers filled with water and “intended for intermediate or end-use consumer” would be exempt from the diversion ban for purchase or use by famers in Colorado, or any place on the planet.

The Compact Sec. 4.10 states in the bottled-water or “Bulk Water Transfer” provision, that water in containers larger than 5.7 gallons “shall be treated… in the same manner as a… Diversion.” What’s wrong with this language? It’s a Band-Aid that covers up the product exemption. The clause “shall be treated in the same manner as Diversion” concedes that water in a container of a certain size is not a diversion, but a product; rather than place an exemption for bottled water directly into the definition of, or as an exemption to, diversion, the negotiators and Compact tacked on a Bulk Water limit on the product exemption. But the problem is, water in any size container, whether in a railroad car or the deck of an ocean barge, is defined as a product.

So, under international trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and trade laws, defining water as a “product” is admitting that this is a regulation, not a ban on bulk water diversions. The regulation of water as product lays a heavier burden on the Office of Great Lakes Governors and citizens of the Great Lakes to justify to foreign investors and countries that the export of water in large containers will not harm the environment. Worse, treating water in a container as a “product,” not a diversion, shifts the expectations of investors outside the region, who can demand equal treatment and/or massive sums of money as damages for applying the regulation to prohibit or deny their “right” to export water in containers. Why? 

A regulation to restrict the export of water as a product, as opposed to, say, a diversion, admits that the right to export water as a product exists. As indicated above once it’s a product, the Great Lakes states through the Compact governing body, the Office of Great Lakes Governors, will have to prove the regulation of the water prevents harm. If a bottled water company that has received a permit can ship water in containers less than 5.7 gallons under a permit, because a state has determined there’s no harm to water resources, how can the Great Lakes states argue water in a 10,000-gallon container from the large-volume water well can be “treated as” a diversion, when the amount of water pumped from the same well and put in a large container is no different than the amount shipped in bottles?

So, then the issue becomes factual: Can the export of water in containers be prohibited by the regulation to “treat it as” a diversion if it can be shown to harm or threaten harm to the environment or conservation. Whether water is in large containers is less than 5.7 gallons or more than that amount, if the impacts do not threaten the water, environment, or the conservation of a non-renewable resource, under international trade laws, like NAFTA or the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT”), its export cannot be stopped.

This is a serious problem. It was there in 2005, when the eight Great Lakes states signed the agreement that became the Compact; those close to the ink before it dried knew it, but nothing was done about it. The proposed water train from Minneapolis to Colorado may never be permitted, and it shouldn’t be. But it is a warning: the “product” exemption or loop-hole is a door that needs to be shut.

FLOW is developing a report and comment on weaknesses and future questions for states in the Compact. Clarifying the “product” exemption in the Compact is one of the critical measures that needs to be rectified. It could be done by the Compact Council through an interpretative guideline of the definition of “product.” It could be done by the legislature of each state, because the Compact allows states to impose more stringent measures than the Compact. Essentially, the fix would remove the “intended for intermediate or end-use consumers” clause in the “product” definition, and then declare that “water in any sized container” is not a product.

In the meantime, and this is critical, the best thing the Great Lakes Compact Council can do is expressly interpret and declare under Sec. 1.3 that, “The waters of the Basin” are held in, and subject to, a public trust in the waters of the Basin,” and that any consumptive use, exemption, or other exception managed or reviewed or decided by the Council is subject to the duties and overlying principles of the Public Trust Doctrine that protects the waters and citizens, quality of life, and sustainable economy in the Great Lakes region.

Fortunately, the International Joint Commission adopted a recommendation in a 2016 report that each state adopt a public trust framework, using the public trust principles as a “backstop” to future threats to the Great Lakes. The water train proposal is just such a threat and should be the impetus for the Council and states to fully implement the public trust principles that apply to the Great Lakes and their tributary waters. If not, the waters of the Great Lakes Basin could very well lose in disputes between foreign interests abroad or those in other states.

It is time for all of us who understand the essential life-giving importance of water in the Basin where it falls and flows to join with Minnesotans to stop the water train notion in its tracks, and to implement the straight-forward amendments of our water laws in each state to shut the door before the excessive demand for water in a worsening world water crisis pushes it wide open.

In Honor of Ted Curran: Friend and Founding Board Member of FLOW

Published on August 23rd, 2019 by - Blog Posts, News

Photo by Marcia Curran

By Jim Olson

President and Founder, FLOW

Ted Curran and his wife Marcia walked into my life and FLOW’s life during the fight by the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) for the soul of Michigan’s public water and the Great Lakes in its lawsuit against bottled water-giant Nestlé.

I served as legal counsel in MCWC’s battle, and it was during a citizens’ meeting in the lower level of Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City that Ted and Marcia showed up to support us. When they introduced themselves after the meeting, and offered their assistance, I realized they were there because they cared not just about a single issue, but cared deeply about the common good.

Ted became a stalwart supporter of FLOW during our early years from 2009-2011 when we formed as a coalition to work to close the dangerous loopholes in the Great Lakes Compact diversion ban for bottled water and water as a product. Little did I know when I first met Ted that when he chose to work on something, he wouldn’t stop until he saw it succeed. 

Thankfully, Ted, along with our other MCWC board members, meant just that. Then he continued as a founding member of FLOW’s Board of Directors. Our mission—“Keep it plain and simple,” Ted urged: Save and sustain the waters of the Great Lakes Basin from diversion, impairment, and private control by establishing a framework and body of principles for generational stewardship.

This framework and body of principles are rooted in what is known as the common law public trust doctrine— principles that impose a duty on government, as trustee, to protect the integrity of common public waters like the Great Lakes, for citizens, as beneficiaries, from one generation to the next. Ted understood the importance of these principles, but he also understood the majestic beauty and importance of 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water.

He rolled up his sleeves, attended most every meeting, and began to demand that we continually define and hone our mission and goals. Shortly after we formed FLOW, Ted invited me to his home on the Lake Michigan shore near Frankfort to talk over coffee. He stressed clarity in our work, and contacts with others, especially in raising funds. He urged me to reach out and follow up, and to not shy away from asking for donations, something I’ve never been very good at. He cared for FLOW, but he knew caring and missions also demanded professionalism for an organization to succeed and serve the common good.

Ted was a mentor, sharp observer, astute organizer, and quiet leader—he encouraged, asked questions to force you to think clearly, and guided strategy and direction. Ted drew on his wealth of diplomatic experience around the world—often in hot-spots like the Middle East–during his career as a one of the highest-ranking members in the United States Foreign Service, and on his deep passion for peaceful solutions in serving the common good throughout his life.

Ted’s idea of peace was not quietism when he was with us. As FLOW co-founding member Bob Otwell, former Executive Director of TART Trails, recalled, “Ted was a warm, gracious man, and at board meetings, his comments always helped move us forward with more wisdom.” Former FLOW Board Chair Mike Dettmer said, “Ted’s work, dedication, and involvement cannot be overstated. He was, and always will be a guiding light, someone who kept us moving in the right direction, and when we strayed, he gently, firmly called us on it.”

As FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood said, “Ted was there in the early days, for meetings, events, outreach, and fundraising. He would always take me aside, reminding me about details, people to contact, and always to keep raising funds. His words and actions were, and remain, an encouragement and reminder that good things come about with faith and action.”

These qualities of clarity, grace, wisdom, and a keen sense of the right thing to do, and then to do it, are something that he and Marcia seemed to have shared throughout their entire life of more than 60 years together.

Ted, you lived for community and the common good of humanity. We miss you. Thank you for your solid, kind service and friendship to all of us here in Northern Michigan. We’ll always think of you when we look at the majestic Great Lakes that you cherished. You have been, and will continue to be, a beacon of light.

A memorial service is planned at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Beulah, Michigan, for 2 p.m., Friday, Aug. 23, 2019. For more on Ted’s full life, read his beautiful obituary here.

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.