Tag: webinar

Risky, costly, and ill-advised: New report and webinar analyzes the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel project

Published on January 7th, 2025 by - Blog Posts

WATCH THE WEBINAR RECORDING

 

Enbridge’s plan to bore a tunnel between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to replace an underwater segment of Line 5 is costly and ill-advised, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The report shows that the aging pipeline is servicing a shrinking market and is facing additional challenges that will make it costly to maintain operations. The report also shows that the pipeline tunnel will likely be more costly than project proponents have disclosed publicly to date. IEEFA’s analysis concludes that Enbridge should question whether it makes sense to keep sinking money into an old pipeline when markets for its products are on a declining trajectory. Download the report.

Live Webinar: January 15 at 12:00pm EST

FLOW will host a free, live webinar with IEEFA report co-authors Suzanne Mattei, Energy Policy Analyst; and David Schlissel, Director of Resource Planning Analysis. We’ll talk about the report’s findings and answer your questions. The webinar will be moderated by FLOW Legal Director Carrie La Seur.

About IEEFA

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) examines issues related to energy markets, trends, and policies. The Institute’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a diverse, sustainable and profitable energy economy. IEEFA’s nonpartisan and evidence-based approach provides solid ground on which to base sound investment and policy decisions and to challenge misinformation.

Webinar Guest Speakers

Suzanne Mattei is an attorney with over 30 years of experience in public interest law and policy. She has analyzed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s policies related to interstate pipeline approval. She has also conducted research on blue hydrogen, petrochemical projects, gas flaring and fossil fuel extraction on public lands.

Suzanne is a former regional director for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, where she supervised permitting and enforcement in New York City, with an area population of about 8 million.

Previously, in City government oversight positions, her analysis helped spur the City to abandon a risky plan to sell its drinking water supply system to a state-run authority and to reject a costly, ill-advised plan to build garbage incinerators. Her investigation on behalf of Sierra Club exposed the federal government’s failure to curb exposure to pollution from the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster. Her testimony to Congress helped lead to a law that aids 9/11 responders and survivors.

Suzanne helped to establish free legal assistance and secure federal aid for bereaved families after the 9/11 disaster, and for Ground Zero workers suffering from negative health impacts.

She has a juris doctor degree from Yale University and B.A. from Washington State University. She is admitted to practice law in New York.

David Schlissel is an IEEFA analyst with 50 years of experience as an economic and technical consultant on energy and environmental issues.

He has testified as an expert witness before regulatory commissions in more than 35 states and before the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Schlissel’s work has included researching, writing and testifying about the U.S. nuclear industry and the cost overruns, construction delays and other challenges associated with many nuclear projects. He has engineering degrees from MIT and Stanford University as well as a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School. He also has studied nuclear engineering at MIT in a non-degree program.

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.

ART MEETS WATER: “Wilderness, Water & Rust: A Journey Toward Great Lakes Resilience” by Jane Elder book talk

Published on May 14th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

Watch the Webinar here!

Wilderness, Water, and Rust: A Journey toward Great Lakes Resilience asks us to consider what we value about life in the Great Lakes region and how caring for its remarkable ecosystems might help us imagine new, whole futures. Weaving together memories from her life in the upper Midwest with nearly fifty years of environmental policy advocacy work, Jane Elder provides a uniquely moving insider’s perspective into the quest to protect the Great Lakes and surrounding public lands, from past battles to protect Michigan wilderness and shape early management strategies for the national lakeshores to present fights against toxic pollution and climate change. She argues that endless cycles of resource exploitation and boom and bust created a ‘rust belt’ legacy that still threatens our capacity for resilience. The author lays out the challenges that lie ahead and invites us to imagine bold new strategies through which we might thrive.

Are we keeping the Great Lakes great? Few are in a better position to tell us than Jane Elder, a veteran of more than 40 years of public advocacy for the Great Lakes. In her new book, “Wilderness, Water and Rust,” she tells vivid stories of being in the front lines of the fight to clean up and restore the Lakes and offers insights on saving the Lakes for generations to come. “While not overlooking setbacks and defeats, Jane, in exquisite prose, provides hope for the Great Lakes, the planet, and ourselves.”
— FLOW senior advisor and author Dave Dempsey

Watch the Webinar!

—

A Conversation with Author Jane Elder:

 

Tell us what the book is about.

The book is part memoir of environmental issues I have worked on in the Great Lakes region over the course of my career, with a focus on public lands, including wilderness areas, and Great Lakes water quality and ecological health.

It is also a critique of policy—what has worked, what hasn’t, and the challenges we face with advancing positive public policy to protect the environment and public health in these times. A theme that runs through the book is that the region’s boom and bust economic cycles (thus the “rust” part of the title) have hurt both human communities and left behind a legacy of environmental damage, and that we need to break out of that pattern for people and the rest of nature to thrive.

Read the interview here!

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.

“The Strait Story” Line 5 Webinar

Published on July 17th, 2023 by - Blog Posts

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzO-NA-qjfw

Download the Line 5 Fact Sheet (PDF)

 

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline is over 70 years old and remains a threat to the waters and people of the Great Lakes region.

On Wednesday, July 19 2023, FLOW and Oil & Water Don’t Mix presented a special live webinar, featuring a panel of experts on how Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa are working together in the courts to shut down Line 5 and bring an end to Enbridge’s trespass on state, sovereign, and indigenous lands. We also discussed smart pipeline alternatives, how organizations are working to avert an oil spill disaster, and answered audience questions.

Our expert panel:

  • Riyaz Kanji, founding member and Directing Attorney of Kanji & Katzen and attorney for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
  • Christopher Clark, Supervising Senior Attorney, Earthjustice – representing Bay Mills Indian Community
  • Sean McBrearty, Campaign Coordinator, Oil & Water Don’t Mix and Legislative and Policy Director at Michigan Clean Water Action
  • Read full panelist bios.

Hosted by FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood, and moderated by Senior Legal Advisor Skip Pruss.

This online webinar was supported in part by a grant award from the Mackinac Island Community Foundation’s Natural Resources and Preservation Fund.