Jun 30, 2017
If you’re a landlord and your tenant behaves irresponsibly, do you reward his behavior and extend his lease? Well, you are and you shouldn’t. It’s in inexact analogy, but there are some parallels in Enbridge’s bungling of maintenance on its 64-year-old Line 5 twin petroleum pipelines crossing the Straits of Mackinac. The company has repeatedly rolled the dice by failing to shore up its pipelines in a timely way despite swift underwater currents. This has put precious Great Lakes waters at risk of a catastrophic spill. In a 22-page analysis, FLOW has documented Enbridge’s style of environmental stewardship: “Enbridge has demonstrated a cavalier attitude toward maintaining compliance with the 75-foot maximum unsupported span provision in the easement granted by the state, while making unilateral judgments of the safety of much longer unsupported spans. It would be folly to assume this will change.” FLOW also points out the company is allowed to use the lakebed for its pipeline crossing under an easement that the State of Michigan can terminate, consistent with the public trust doctrine — which holds that certain natural resources like Great Lakes waters and submerged lands are owned by you, as a member of the public, and that government has an obligation as trustee to protect those resources on your behalf. “Because the public trust is perpetual in nature, any private use of public trust waters and lands is subject to changes in knowledge, understanding, and new circumstances. In other words, the public trust is an inherent limitation on any use of public trust resources, and a state trustee cannot be foreclosed from terminating or modifying a...
Jun 24, 2017
The U.S. and Canadian governments have released a 2017 State of the Great Lakes report. The news is overall not good. It’s important to understand why. One way of summarizing things is the lake by lake snapshot on page 19. There, the governments report, four of the five Lakes are in fair or poor condition. None of the Lakes is improving, and Lake Erie is deteriorating. Another way is to look at the individual indicators. Of the 9, six are fair, one mixed, one good and one poor. That’s the equivalent of a solid C. A final way is to examine the rhetoric. The governments say: “While progress to restore and protect the Great Lakes has been made, including the reduction of toxic chemicals, we are still facing challenges with issues such as invasive species and nutrients. In addition, the ecosystem is large and complex and it can take years to respond to restoration activities and policy changes.” But the reduction of toxic chemicals discussed here is due to measures taken approximately 40 to 45 years ago, particularly the banning of PCBs and DDT Meanwhile, hundreds of problem chemicals are out there, and the governments have yet to propose strategies to deal with the handful of chemicals in the Great Lakes that they’ve formally declared of mutual concern. The real story behind the report card is that to governments, mediocrity has become acceptable. You wonder whether governments would even act against PCBs and DDT if they emerged as problems today. The public clamors for clean Great Lakes, and many devoted science and regulatory professionals in government are doing their best. ...
Jun 17, 2017
From Lake Lyrics and Other Poems How I long for dawns in-blowing, For the day-bloom, ruddier growing, Into morning’s perfect flower; Watched in sweet, wind rustled hour, Spirit-wrapt, by Huron’s shore. — Canadian poet William Wilfred...
Jun 11, 2017
Thanks to the leadership of the late Peter Wege, and the hard work of many Great Lakes advocates over the last 13 years, the federal government has shipped over $2 billion to the cause of Great Lakes restoration. That money has done extraordinary things for the Great Lakes ecosystem. And now it is threatened by the Trump Administration. A fight to restore the funding makes sense, but there may be bigger threats to the Great Lakes coming from Washington. Gary Wilson’s piece for Great Lakes Now is a fine piece of journalism. He explores both the good and the not so good that Great Lakes restoration funding has supported. By far, the good outweighs the not so good. But the Great Lakes restoration initiative is no more perfect than any other government program. As Gary points out, focusing solely on federal funding can blind one to systemic threats resulting from the policies of the administration. These include dogmatic denial of the effects of climate change, increased mercury emissions that could result from reversal of the Obama clean power plan, and attacks on clean water rules. The point is that the battle will be fought along a broad front. Great Lakes advocates need to think broadly. Taking modest budget cuts, but winning on the climate, mercury and clean water issues would be a net benefit for the Great Lakes. Admittedly, that’s a tall order....
Jun 4, 2017
If you live long enough, you will have a chance to see whether your predictions are affirmed or shown to be exaggerated or simply off base. In 1995, environmentalists predicted that a change in the state polluter pay law would expose public health and the environment to unacceptable risks. The proposed change, which sailed through the legislature, absolved many polluters of the responsibility to clean up their messes. If they could demonstrate that they would control pollution so that people or sensitive resources would not be exposed to it, they could leave the pollution in place. That of course saved them millions of dollars. Now, a generation later, the bill is coming due. And the public will be paying a lot of it. As this story shows, leaving chemicals in the ground does not mean they will stay there forever. It’s sad that this policy change is exposing citizens to health risks and taxpayers to big bills. But it also shows that if the terrible consequence of a policy manifests two decades later, it is easy for officeholders to sacrifice the public interest today. ...
