Aug 23, 2017
Less than 15 months until Michigan elects a new governor, and it’s still not clear what the candidates are for, as opposed to what they’re against. And it’s all too easy for candidates to escape from talking environmental specifics during an entire campaign. That can’t be allowed to happen in 2018. Not after Flint and so much else that has further shredded Michigan’s reputation as an environmental leader among the states. The governor of Michigan has a responsibility like no other governor. She or he governs the state with the most at stake in the health of the Great Lakes. Further, she or he has an awesome responsibility to assure that future generations will enjoy all the values and beauties of the Great Lakes. Michigan is the only state that borders four of the five Great Lakes. Michigan has 3288 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Michigan has 40,000 mi.² of water surface within its borders. When you add that water surface to land, Michigan grows from 22nd largest state to 11th. These are some of the reasons why Michigan is called the Great Lakes State. And here are just a few questions that a good journalist should put to all of the candidates for governor: Where will you find state money, and how much, to restore the Great Lakes instead of relying almost entirely on the federal government and its money? How specifically will you prevent another Flint from happening? Do you oppose or support the extraction of Michigan water by multinational corporations for private profit while they pay the state $200 a year in fees? Will you support...
Aug 17, 2017
The news that former Congressman and state legislator Vern Ehlers has passed away prompts reflection as well as sadness. A Republican, Vern was also a conservationist. During a time when I worked for a Democratic governor and he chaired the State Senate’s environmental committee, he collaborated on significant state environmental legislation. He was often the author of it, or improved our work. I remember sitting in his office discussing amendments to a bill while he successfully toyed with a Rubik’s cube and cracked bad puns. Opponents and members of the Democratic Party were treated in his office with respect and dignity. When he moved to Congress, he championed Great Lakes cleanup and restoration and got the ball rolling on big-time cleanup of contaminated sediment. What has happened to Vern’s brand of Republicanism — civil, science-friendly (he was a physicist) and committed to advancing environmental protection? It is not just the Republican Party’s loss, it is everyone’s loss that there are few Verns today. On the bad pun front, there is this from the floor debate in the State Senate in 1987 on his bill making the brook trout the official state fish: “”I’m glad the Senate did not flounder around on this bill. I recognize it’s not the sole issue before us. I’m glad no one took me for a sucker.” It was a halibut...
Aug 12, 2017
While some deride the Trump Administration as clumsy and ineffectual beyond bombast, these critics are forgetting that an Administration is more than the White House. The evidence suggests that a campaign to reverse environmental protection is succeeding at EPA. “Together with a small group of political appointees, many with backgrounds, like his, in Oklahoma politics, and with advice from industry lobbyists, [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt has taken aim at an agency whose policies have been developed and enforced by thousands of the E.P.A.’s career scientists and policy experts, many of whom work in the same building,” the New York Times reports. Don’t be fooled by the recent conversion of Pruitt to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. Money, even in tight budget times, issues from Congress like water from Niagara. The Great Lakes will be punished by Pruitt’s regressive policies on climate change, wetlands and mercury pollution. More on this subject...
Aug 5, 2017
The time has come to shut down Line Five. No more studies, no more excuses. If you’re a politician who talks about how much you value the Great Lakes, you need to back it up with actions. My employer, FLOW, has built a clear and convincing case that the Line is a threat, that Enbridge has been a lousy steward, and that alternatives exist. And consider this: While Dynamic Risk predicted a 1 in 60 chance of pipeline rupture and release of 4500 barrels, this does not account for continuous damage to the pipelines over the 64 years they have been subjected to the effects of currents and gravity, causing bending, deformation, and potentially serious fatigue that could result in failure. As a result, the expected failure probability of Line 5 under the Straits is 46.4% in 2017 and 72.5% in 2053 based on the average failure rates for all DOT 195 pipelines from all causes, according to a July 21, 2017, analysis by Dr. Ed Timm. Gambling with the Great Lakes,...
