Michigan's Granholm Administration recently took a strong step toward defending the state's vulnerable water resources by announcing its plan to move ahead in drawing up rules protecting lakes and streams from the damage that large water withdrawals cause. But at the same time, the state filed an "amicus brief" in the Nestle water bottling case appeal that, as attorney Jim Olson explains at the link below, could damage the state's chances to defend against water exports.
http://www.davedempsey.org/610granholm.pdf
The critical point in Jim's letter is that the state's brief critiques a portion of the lower court ruling that was part of the citizen victory over Nestle. Instead of holding that reasonable uses of water within a watershed take precedence over exports, the state proposes a "balancing test" that measures the benefits of the in-basin versus out-of-Basin uses.
As Jim observes, "MDEQ's argument for a 'balancing test' on diversions out of a watershed would acknowledge the lawfulness of diversions and exports out of the [Great Lakes] Basin that meet this test...Further, under the MDEQ's 'balancing test,' the more money there is to be made (i.e., the greater the economic value of water bottling or other water export or marketing operations), the more harm companies like Nestle may inflict on ordinary citizens and the hundreds of thousands of riparian owners on our lakes and streams."
Time for the state to rethink this. Fast.
Posted by Dave at June 16, 2005 11:53 PM