LANSING – Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today signed legislation that for the first time protects Michigan waters from large-scale diversions and withdrawals. The landmark legislation fulfills a commitment Michigan made more than 20 years ago to join with other states and Canada to protect and preserve the waters of the Great Lakes Basin.
http://michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--137274--,00.html
LANSING – Governor Granholm, joined by PIRGIM and other members of Michigan’s environmental community, signed a landmark package of water-use bills today, bringing long overdue protections to Michigan’s waters.
http://pirgim.org/MI.asp?id2=22422
Clean Water Action did not support the agreement that resulted in the bills signed into law today. We are proud, however, of the environmental campaign for water withdrawal and diversion protections that Clean Water Action helped lead and believe the new water withdrawal permitting rules, limited stream protections, and the conditional legislative approval are steps in the right direction.
Only a few of the 55 groups and businesses who supported the Great Lakes, Great Michigan campaign for protections against large-scale water withdrawals and diversions had an opportunity to weigh in on the pros and cons of the water use agreement when the deal was struck earlier this month. The agreement was proposed on the eve of what we thought was likely to be a bipartisan victory in the state House for strong protections, and then on to an uncertain future in the Senate. Clean Water Action was one of the groups who weighed in on the industry-backed proposal and we believed--and still do--that on balance it was not a deal that we could support. That decision was based on our 30-plus years experience working for water protections, and the ongoing advice we received from the very best legal and policy minds on the issue of water privitization. All thought that creating a legal sanction for the diversion of Great Lakes waters by private industry was unacceptable and posed a high risk for the future of maintaining public control over our waters. Both the benefits of the new water use rules, and the new diversion loophole, are now law. The question for us today is what to do about enforcing the new rules, plugging the big loophole, protecting the Great Lakes, and putting the public firmly in control of our waters.
http://great-lakes.net/lists/enviro-mich/last30days/msg18402.html
The Feb. 20 Press editorial "Great Lakes, good regulations" praising Michigan's new water withdrawal laws misstates a fundamental principle of our system -- the tradition that water belongs to all the public and cannot be privately owned unless for a public purpose and authorized by citizens through their elected officials or referendum.
The new legislation exempts water in containers under 5.7 gallons from the definition of "diversion." This could rip a giant hole in the system of protection for public water resources.
http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/114105545728090.xml?grpress?NELE&coll=6
After twenty two years as a clean water advocate using the Clean Water Act to protect America's waterways and the communities that rely upon them, it's been a difficult five years watching the White House systematically dismantle that popular and fantastically successful statute. But yesterday, the newly constituted Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas-dominated Supreme Court signaled the worst attack yet -- one that may effectively destroy the Clean Water Act entirely.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/destroying-the-clean-wate_b_16195.html
Don Kriens, principal engineer for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the results. Blood samples taken from fish in the Mississippi River near the 3M plant in Cottage Grove showed very high levels of PFOS, a chemical manufactured at the plant until 2002 and used in stain-resistant treatments for carpets, fabrics and paper products.
"The results were startlingly high," Kriens said, with some chemical concentrations 10 times higher than had been reported anywhere for fish or wildlife. "The fish are definitely contaminated with this stuff," he said.
http://www.startribune.com/531/story/269889.html
San Francisco, CA-- A new Environmental Protection Agency rule will turn more Americans into lab rats for industry pesticide tests according to lawsuits filed today by a coalition of health and environmental advocates, farmworkers and doctors. The groups contend that the agency’s human testing rule violates a law passed by Congress in 2005 mandating strict ethical and scientific protections for pesticide testing on humans.
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/display.html?ID=1123
ONE IN FIVE WOMEN TESTED NATIONWIDE HAS MERCURY LEVELS HIGHER THAN EPA LIMIT
Interim Results of Largest Mercury Hair Sampling Project Confirm Impacts of Dirty Power
Washington - Interim results of the nation’s largest mercury hair sampling project were released today by the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. The report found mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested.
More than 6,600 people from 50 states of all ages participated in the hair tests conducted by Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Mercury contamination is a particular concern for women of childbearing years (16 to 49 years old) and their small children (under the age of six) because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems. The EPA has not established mercury exposure health standards for older children, men, or women older than 49.
"We teach our children if you make a mess, you need to clean it up," said Navis Bermudez, Sierra Club's Environmental Quality Representative. "The same rule should hold true for polluting power plants. This study should be a wake-up call for state governments to move to clean sources of energy in order to keep women and children mercury-free."
Watching housing developments pop up like weeds across Minnesota and lake lots gobbled up in a frenzy, David Hartwell asked himself a question:
Who's paying attention to what the state will look like in 25 years, when 1.2 million more people will live here, or in 50 years?
The answer was no one. And so Hartwell, a 49-year-old Minneapolis businessman with a long-standing interest in the outdoors and a penchant for the big picture, decided he would. More than a year ago, he called together a small group of prominent conservationists and environmentalists, posed all sorts of questions and hit up business associates for at least $25,000 each to pay for an ambitious research effort to answer them.
Today, he'll unveil the product, the first comprehensive assessment of what's happening to Minnesota's abundant natural resources, the pressures bearing down on them and what might happen to what's left.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/13938432.htm
How sweet it is.
GLENN -- It is 365 acres of beech-maple forest, restored prairies, farmland and Lake Michigan shoreline.
West Michigan conservationists say it now will be permanently preserved, thanks to late Chicago businessman's donation.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1140536783138400.xml&coll=6
The Sun-Times News Group believes that it's up to the regional lawmakers who signed the blueprint, both Democratic and Republican, to put some money in the budget for this worthy proposal. The Bush administration shouldn't be allowed to put this project on the backburner. State and local governments will also be called upon to contribute. Otherwise, the unprecedented work on Great Lakes protection by the regional leaders will turn out to be water down the drain.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/commentary/cst-edt-edits22.html
Read this:
"However, singling out bottled water for stricter supervision ignores a fundamental principle that should underlie these protections. State policy ought to focus on what happens when water comes out of the ground, not where it goes after that.
High capacity wells can leave neighbors tapping dry aquifers, and can harm the environment. Addressing those concerns should be the priority.
There's no sound basis for legally distinguishing between water going out of Michigan as Aquafina, Coke or baby food. All could damage neighboring lakes, streams and wetlands, and all should be judged on the same basis."
In other words, if a company wants to sink a thousand wells in Michigan, each one of which cannot be demonstrated to have a "significant adverse impact", and ship the water to California, that's fine?
Then why did the entire process of this legislation begin when the public learned that a company wanted to ship 50 tankers of Lake Superior water a year to Asia? That would have no "significant adverse impact" in the world's largest lake by surface area.
But it would set a dangerous legal precedent.
Nestle is a genius at marketing; it has persuaded Michigan's editorial writers that its capture, private ownership and sale of water anywhere it pleases is of no consequence.
But perhaps the public will still understand that you can worry about BOTH adverse resource impact of a particular withdrawal, and the long-term legal danger of privatizing and exporting Great Lakes water.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1140450406234850.xml&coll=6&thispage=2
Botts makes a point of calling this unique pact, signed by the President Nixon for the United States and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for Canada in 1972, “binational” rather than “bilateral.” Far from academic hair-splitting, the distinction cuts to the core of the treaty’s reason for being: The Great Lakes don’t give a damn about dotted lines, and neither should we. Contrary to most agreements between autonomy-addicted countries, this pact gave birth to research and regulatory bodies answerable only to the lakes — most significantly, an International Joint Commission charged with protecting the world’s biggest fresh-water system and insulated (ideally) from the fickle winds of national politics.
http://lansingcitypulse.com/060215/literature/index.asp
PUT-IN-BAY, Ohio — Two years ago, Sophia Schroeder had the best birthday of her life. She stood on frozen Lake Erie near this town on South Bass Island and ate ice cream. Her father dragged her sled across the ice behind his snowmobile.
Later they ate birthday cake around a huge bonfire built right on the ice. "That was my favorite birthday party ever," said Sophia, now 7.
This year, Sophia spent her birthday inside, playing video games with friends. "It's really boring here without ice," she said.
For the first time that anyone in Put-in-Bay could remember, the Great Lakes were ice-free in the middle of winter. Even Lake Erie, the shallowest of the five lakes and usually the first to freeze over, was clear.
"There's essentially no ice at all," said George Leshkevich, a scientist who has studied Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Here's a Michigan journalist who gets what has just happened in the Michigan Legislature, and some of the dangers that will result.
But, the bills say little about bottled water, leaving room for misperception to continue - the idea that water captured and put into a bottle is magically transformed from natural resource that doubles as fish habitat into a product.
http://www.themorningsun.com/stories/021706/loc_eric001.shtml
Republican Governor of Minnesota calls for the state moving out ahead of the feds in reducing toxic mercury emissions.
http://www.kare11.com/news/health/health_article.aspx?storyid=118801
Still waiting on Michigan's governor to act.
http://lansingcitypulse.com/060215/health/index.asp
"The company sued Michigan over its claim that bottled water couldn't be shipped out of the Great Lakes Basin and the charge that bottled water was different than baby food, soda, cars or any other product that uses significant amounts of water and is sold across the country. Legislators wisely addressed the issue by defining bottled water as a product."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060215/OPINION01/602150313/1008
Repeat of yesterday's message: the new Michigan legislation does not define bottled water as a product, but as a consumptive use.
It doesn't define the sky, Sleeping Bear Dunes or white pine forests as products either.
Water is water. It is not a product. Even if the Legislature ever DID say otherwise.
Today's Battle Creek Enquirer says:
"The compromise agreement also settles one of the thornier issues raised since a controversy erupted several years ago over a water-bottling plant in Mecosta County: Is bottled water a manufactured product or a diversion of water? Under the new laws, containers smaller than 5.7 gallons are considered products. We think this is reasonable since, as water-bottling companies pointed out, companies that make soda pop or over beverages also use large amounts of water but are not considered to be diverting water from the state if their products are sold elsewhere."
Wrong -- in terms of what the new law will say, and in terms of the bogus comparison to soda pop. Water is water. Soda pop is not water. Is there anyone who can understand the difference?
If they were the same thing, then we could just say our lakes are full of soda pop.
Soda pop is a product. Wine is a product. Cars are products.
The sky is not a product. The Grand Canyon is not a product. Water is not a product.
In terms of the new law, for better or worse, here's what it says about bottled water:
"(h) "Diverted" means a transfer of water by pipeline, canal, tunnel, aqueduct, channel, modification of the direction of a watercourse, tanker ship, tanker truck, rail tanker, or similar means from the Great Lakes basin into a watershed outside of the Great Lakes basin. Diverted includes a transfer of water withdrawn from the waters of the Great Lakes basin that is removed from the Great Lakes basin in a container greater than 5.7 gallons (20 liters). Diverted does not include any of the following:
(i) A consumptive use.
(ii) The supply of vehicles, including vessels and aircraft, whether for the needs of the persons or animals being transported or for ballast or other needs related to the operation of vehicles.
(iii) Use in a noncommercial project on a short-term basis for firefighting, humanitarian, or emergency response purposes."
IT DOES NOT say water is a product.
Perhaps they can be induced to write a song about bottled water exports. Interesting group.
The airy band from Toronto became a unit with this album. While both this and last year’s self-titled debut were the primary projects of Dekker, he enlisted the help of those he assembled to finish off the touring slate for the first record to go into the studio to lay down “Bodies and Minds.” With a history of hankering down and plugging in the mixing board in some pastoral settings, Dekker this time decided on a rural church beside a lake in southern Ontario, just north of Lake Erie.
“It was a really isolated place. It’s kind of a nice place to be in the summer time, but we got there near the end of it so there weren’t that many people to bother us,” he said. “It definitely made a difference with the record. (The setting) was like another instrument in the band. We wanted to get, what I think is a pretty distinct sound. We tried to get that natural reverb. For me, it was a lot more comfortable atmosphere to record in.”
http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/02/09/go/doc4328f75320d07100939268.txt
An earthquake measuring a 2.6 magnitude was detected beneath Lake Erie about three miles northwest of Mentor-on-the-Lake Friday morning.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/lake/1139736860317510.xml&coll=2
At last, a Great Lakes Basin newspaper points out the emperor's new clothes.
Why representatives and senators in Congress from Great Lakes states continue to countenance the not-so-benign neglect of one of the largest reservoirs of fresh water to be found anywhere in an increasingly thirsty world defies comprehension.
To his credit, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, Democrat of Dearborn, Mich., labeled the $20 billion Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy for what it was, a Bush Administration public-relations stunt, even before it was unveiled in Chicago last December.
No sooner had the Great Lakes cleanup initiative been announced than the White House began to undermine it. Although priorities for the effort involved input from more than 1,500 public officials, as well as representatives of businesses, environmentalists, and civic leaders, senior White House officials recommended that no new money be allocated.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060212/OPINION02/602120317
A reporter for a Great Lakes region newspaper described the President's 2007 budget proposal for the Lakes as a mixed bag. In these quarters there is new respect for the White House spin job. When the President proposes $20 million in new money for the Great Lakes (while cutting other Great Lakes programs) in responding to a $20 billion cleanup plan developed by his own Administration...meaning it would take 1000 years at that rate to come up with $20 billion...and that's considered a "mixed bag"...that is great spin.
The Great Lakes will abide.
It appears the Michigan House of Representatives, or at least some clueless members of it, are poised to grant the international bottled water industry -- perhaps in a committee and floor vote today -- a special exemption from a ban on Great Lakes water diversions. That ban, which appeared in a compact among the Great Lakes states signed less than 60 days ago, was touted with such joy by governors and environmental leaders. Now we're at risk of legislating it away.
Let's be clear: this language appears to allow the insertion of withdrawal pipes into the Great Lakes themselves and water withdrawn through them for the express purpose of bottling and selling to any market in the world. These withdrawals will be exempt from any review by the other Great Lakes states and will undercut the position of the states in trying to prevent water from being diverted through pipelines or tankers.
In fact, water bottlers could ship Great Lakes water in any quantity out of the Basin in bottles on tankers or trucks under this amendment without any regional review or possibility of veto, provided that no one could show that their pipes are affecting the Lakes -- and that would be a difficult test to meet until too many of those withdrawals have occurred to be undone.
Those whose people have lived here far longer than the Europeans can teach us a thing or two. Let's hope a few lawmakers rise in defense of the Lakes before it's too late. The clock is winding down and it's 11:59 p.m. in the fight over public vs. private control of the Lakes.
For generations we have heard the cries and felt the tears of our Mother Earth, felt the pulse of her life blood waters struggling to survive the abuses that have been heaped upon her. One hundred and fifty years ago we had a resource in the Great Lakes region that was considered inexhaustible. It lasted barely two generations. This was the White Pine forest. The White Pine of this century is Water.
-- Frank Ettawageshik, Chairman of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, December 4, 2004
"We run the risk of becoming like the Outer Banks if we're not careful and if we don't take advantage of these opportunities," said Emily Green, head of the Sierra Club's Great Lakes program.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060205/NEWS01/602050322/1002/rss01
On the Great Lakes, environmentalists were pleased by the president's request for Congress to fully fund the Great Lakes Legacy Act, which sends federal money to clean up the most-polluted sites in the waters. The White House noted the president is calling for $20 million more than in the 2006 budget.
But environmentalists said he didn't go far enough to address the range of threats to the Great Lakes that a presidential task force in December said would require $20 billion to reverse damage caused by sewage overruns, invasive species and wetlands loss in addition to toxic sediment sites.
"You can't fully fund one program and then hope the Great Lakes comprehensively will be brought back to health," said Cameron Davis, executive director of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, "On any given day, there are a number of threats, and the Legacy Act only addresses one of them The budget proposal is a betrayal of trust."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060207/POLITICS/602070419
Great Lakes Funding
Review of the President’s Fiscal 2007 Proposed Budget
Funding for Great Lakes programs declined in the proposed fiscal 2007 budget. The Environmental Protection Agency’s budget dropped by more than $300 million, with a $193-million cut (down to $687 million) to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. Support for the Great Lakes Legacy program – which cleans up contaminated sediments at Areas of Concern – is proposed at $49.6 million, a $400,000 decrease from the proposed fiscal 2006 budget but a $19.6-million increase over the fiscal 2006 appropriation. Funding for EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office, which provides vital grants to the Great Lakes region, dropped from the $22.072 million appropriated in fiscal 2006 to $20.58 million proposed in fiscal 2007. The EPA’s budget references a federal/state effort to develop plans to restore, enhance, and protect 200,000 acres of wetlands in the Great Lakes, yet additional information is not available.
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s budget dropped by $2.0 million – from $14.3 million in fiscal 2006 to $12.3 million in fiscal 2007. This cut will have a serious impact on sea lamprey control efforts. The International Joint Commission’s budget remains the same as fiscal 2006.
Funding for the Corps of Engineers’ work in the Great Lakes was cut substantially. The Corps’ account for maintaining shipping channels was cut pretty severely last year. Additional cuts were made this year, but additional information is not yet available. Many of the Corps environmental programs in the Great Lakes – such as the Great Lakes Fishery & Ecosystem Restoration, Great Lakes Remedial Action Plans & Sediment Remediation, John Glenn Basin program – were not provided any funding
And when the last wetland is drained, a law that really protects them once and for all will be enacted...wetlands are today's bison.
Participants in the first Minnesota Wetlands Summit, held Saturday in Bloomington, expressed frustration over the state's disappearing wetlands and federal and state policies that aren't protecting them.
Many of the summit's more than 300 participants called on state lawmakers to tighten rules in the Minnesota Wetlands Conservation Act, passed in 1991 to achieve a no-net-loss of wetlands in the state. Participants also expressed frustration with federal farm policy, which they said rewards Minnesota farmers to maximize crop yields at the expense of responsible conservation practices.
Retiree Dick Kroger drove to the summit from his home in Yellow Medicine County to decry policies and programs that drain wetlands. "If you go to my county, 99 to 100 percent of the wetlands are gone. We're never going to get them back with the programs we have," he said.
The Minnesota division of the Izaak Walton League of America sponsored the summit, which was attended by duck hunters, farmers, conservation group leaders and officials from the Department of Natural Resources, the Board of Water and Soil Resources and other agencies. A handful of state lawmakers also attended.
Bob Whiting, chief of the regulatory branch of the U.S. Corps of Engineers in St. Paul, explained that a long string of federal laws and court cases have given protection to wetlands since the 1970s, but he acknowledged, "We are still not at a no-net-loss."
State Sen. Steve Dille, a Republican farmer from Dassel, defended farmers' rights to drain their land. "We need to drain our lands to farm efficiently to be competitive,'' he said. He said urban and suburban sprawl also should be blamed for wetland losses and that some state figures show a growth in wetlands in the state.
At one point, a participant challenged the Dille's assertion that farmers weren't the problem, and Dille shot back.
"I don't agree with you. You say I'm taking away your ducks. You also have to eat," Dille said.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/13794645.htm?source=rss&channel=twincities_local
In Michigan it's Dow, in Minnesota 3M...
A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency research scientist, who filed a discrimination lawsuit and a whistleblower complaint against the agency last year, has agreed to drop her complaints and leave her job as part of a mediated settlement.
Fardin Oliaei, (pronounced far-deen oh-lee-ay) who studied emerging contaminants for the MPCA, claimed that her supervisors restrained her research into chemicals formerly produced by 3M Co. and retaliated against her for criticizing the agency to reporters and legislators.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/223499.html
All of the Upper Great Lakes states continue to see wetland losses despite laws designed to protect them, and this new MN study confirms the problem.
Federal and state laws intended to protect wetlands in Minnesota often don't work properly, resulting in the continued loss of these ecologically valuable swamps and marshes, a prominent environmental organization charged Wednesday.
The reason? A byzantine and bewildering set of protections rife with loopholes and exemptions, inadequate enforcement and outdated and mismatched regulations, according to a report to be released today.
"You put all of those together and you've got a regulatory framework for wetlands that isn't working as intended,'' said Janette Brimmer, legal director of the St. Paul-based Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the report's lead author.
http://www.mncenter.org/mcea_wetlands_initiative/files/Wetlands06ExeSum.pdf
As adults, we must overcome our own fears and let our children back into nature, where they'll encounter perplexing, astounding and sometimes life-changing sights, smells and tastes -- along with the risk of a few bug bites and scraped knees. If we don't, we risk creating what Louv terms a "Nature Deficit Disorder" in our next generation, and a generation of adults that view the natural world with fear and ambivalence.
http://www.startribune.com/562/story/217456.html