Jim Olson
Here’s the ugly future of water if we don’t protect it as something public and held in public trust for the benefit of citizens. Water is a commons, meant to be used by landowners, homeowners, and citizens who have a right to access for drinking water. Water can be priced based on cost as a nonprofit cost-based public or municipal operation, but not as a private commodity.
We must resist all efforts to privatize water, or we will lose liberty, property, democracy, and life itself. Water is becoming scarcer, or wildly out of control, causing flooding like hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, and mudslides killing thousands around the world with increasing frequency during the past decade.
The faces and devastation of people in Houston, Texas, and Louisiana will be the faces of all of us everywhere. We saw it in Detroit during massive shut-offs of water to those who cannot afford it. We saw it in Flint from shut-offs of taps because of lead and other toxins in the water supply. We must protect and insist that water throughout the water cycle – water vapor or streams in the air, precipitation, run off, percolating groundwater, wetlands, springs, streams, lakes, big rivers, oceans, evaporation – is first and foremost public and subject to a duty to protect it from abuse, waste, and private gain by those who want to confiscate it for themselves to profit off the backs of all of us: individuals, communities, and the earth itself.
Nayt Boyt
Hurricane Harvey, which has resided in Texas for an entire week, has provided the region with record-breaking amounts of rain. Houston has received more rain from this storm alone than from their total annual allotment.
To put that amount of rain in context, consider this MLive article written by Mark Torregrossa, comparing the amounts to our massive Great Lakes. Current estimates of rainfall from Hurricane Harvey hover around 19 trillion gallons, which is enough water to raise the entire Great Lakes nearly a full foot. The Great Lakes holds 20% of the world’s fresh surface water, and raising the water levels even one inch takes substantial amounts of rainfall.
The balance of water is crucial for everyone. As the devastation continues, our hearts reach out to all of those affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director Cell: 570-872-4956
FLOW (For Love of Water) Email: liz@flowforwater.org
Jim Olson, Founder & President Cell: 231-499-8831
FLOW (For Love of Water) Email: olson@envlaw.com
ST. IGNACE – The state of Michigan must immediately apply the law, stop Line 5’s oil flow, and reject a Canadian company’s application to extract more life out of its decaying steel pipelines built in 1953, according to FLOW, a Traverse City-based Great Lakes water law and policy center in public comments made today. The comments came at a public hearing in St. Ignace on Enbridge’s bid for state approval to shore up parts of Line 5 that are bent or deformed due to the company’s neglect and support other areas potentially prone to erosion.
“Enbridge characterizes the application as seeking authorization for routine maintenance,” said Liz Kirkwood, FLOW’s Executive Director and environmental attorney. “The reality is that Enbridge is scurrying to rectify its dangerous neglect of maintenance over decades, including multiple violations of a legal agreement to properly anchor its dual pipelines against the swift currents in the Straits.”
A recent report by Dr. Ed Timm, a FLOW adviser and former Dow Chemical engineer, shows Line 5 is bent and deformed where Enbridge wants to anchor it. The report presents new evidence of structural damage to the western pipe where Enbridge seeks to install five of the 22 anchors into Lake Michigan’s public bottomlands, stemming from a company pattern of violating a 1953 easement granted by the state allowing Enbridge to occupy the Mackinac Straits.
The state’s easement agreement allowing Line 5 to occupy the Mackinac Straits limits unsupported spans to no more than 75 feet, but a 2003 survey identified 16 unsupported spans greater than 140 feet; the longest at 224 feet on the east leg and 286 feet on the west leg. Other Enbridge inspection report revealed nearly 250 instances between 2005 and 2016 of unsupported spans on the pipelines exceeded a 75-foot legal limit in violation of Michigan’s easement agreement with Enbridge. This track record does not provide confidence that the company will fulfill its obligations in the future.
By attempting to cloak the results of its neglect and avoiding an assessment of Line 5’s impacts and alternatives, Enbridge is perpetuating the imminent threat to the Great Lakes and the protected public uses that include fishing, commerce, navigation, recreation, and drinking, according to a legal analysis by FLOW.
In fact, the company’s poor performance as well as the massive work proposed provides a compelling legal basis for the state to consider feasible and prudent alternatives to continued operation of the dual Line 5 pipelines.
“The state of Michigan must consider under rule of law whether there are viable options to the piecemeal patch-up of these aging steel oil pipelines threatening the Great Lakes,” said Jim Olson, FLOW’s founder and president and a renowned water rights attorney. “Enbridge has expanded Line 5 and the new Line 78 from Indiana across lower Michigan to Sarnia under the rubric of ‘maintenance.’ Our cities, villages, and citizens have ended up with Enbridge’s version of the Keystone XL right here in the Great Lakes, and it happened without the public notice, hearings, and independent impact and alternative analyses required by law.”
Line 5 transports nearly 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids each day through the Mackinac Straits, 80 percent more volume than its past design capacity after several of its so-called “maintenance” upgrades.
Of particular concern is Enbridge’s continued failure to predict and prevent the cumulative impacts on Line 5 of lakebed erosion caused by Straits currents that frequently reverse and can exceed 10 times the flow over Niagara Falls.
Contrary to assertions by Enbridge, the state taking action to stop Line 5’s oil flow in the Mackinac Straits to prevent a catastrophic oil spill would not disrupt Michigan’s or the Midwest’s crude oil and propane supply, according to a set of expert reports FLOW released in December 2015. Available capacity and flexibility to meet energy demand in the Great Lakes region already exists in the North American pipeline system run not only by Enbridge, but also by competitors supplying the same refineries in Detroit, Toledo, and Sarnia, Ontario.
“The fact is, Line 5 is not essential,” said Rick Kane, a Michigan-based hazardous materials risk management specialist advising FLOW. “The regional pipeline system can supply crude oil to Michigan and surrounding refineries while eliminating the risk that Line 5 poses to the Great Lakes,” Kane said. “Feasible and prudent alternatives exist to support domestic needs, as well as exports. However, pipeline company owners will not move to implement any alternatives as long as Line 5 operates and the public continues to carry the risk.”
Urgent Threat: Enbridge is courting an oil spill disaster again in Michigan, and this time the Great Lakes are at risk. The public has until June 29, 2017, to oppose the Canadian energy transport giant’s request for state permission to squeeze more life out of a cracked, dented, and deformed pair of pipelines that push 23 million gallons of oil a day across the bottom of the Mackinac Straits, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. The request to continue the piecemeal patch up of the 64-year-old “Line 5” pipelines threatens the drinking water source for more than 40 million people, the economic engine for the Great Lakes region, and a way of life for millions of North Americans.
Terrible Track Record: Recall that Enbridge in 2010 caused the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history when its southern Michigan pipeline ruptured and dumped more than one million gallons of heavy tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River watershed. That failure sickened 150 people, and permanently drove 150 families from their homes, taking four years and over $1.2 billion to clean up to the extent possible. Enbridge’s Line 5 has a similar dark history, with at least 29 spills totaling more than one million gallons of oil spread along its path in Michigan and Wisconsin since 1953.
Damage Done: Now Enbridge has applied to the State of Michigan for a permit to install more underwater anchor supports on its antiquated Line 5 pipelines in the Mackinac Straits, which the University of Michigan calls the “worst possible place” for a Great Lakes oil spill. The 22 anchor supports are another belated attempt to keep Line 5 from shifting, bending, and grinding on the bottom in the powerful underwater currents at the Straits, but the damage is already done. These supports are merely the latest in a series of stopgap measures that ignore decades of metal fatigue and stress on the pipeline, which is now well past its 50-year life expectancy and should be permanently shut down as soon as possible.
Public records reveal that…
This strategy has previously enabled the company to avoid State of Michigan review of the safety and necessity of the pipeline itself, and dodge the legally required consideration of alternative routes and methods that do not threaten the Great Lakes.
The public has until June 29, 2017, to submit comments to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality opposing Enbridge’s bid to keep Line 5 on life support and seeking to prevent a Great Lakes oil spill disaster.
Thank you!
The Michigan legislature has introduced what is a sure contender for the worst Michigan environmental bill of the 21st century. The bill, HB 4205, would prohibit all state agencies from promulgating any administrative rule that is more stringent than an applicable federal standard. With the federal government actively seeking to dismantle historic environmental protections by lowering or eliminating a whole host of environmental standards, HB 4205 could result in irreparable and irrevocable harm to Michigan’s priceless natural resource heritage.
We cannot assign the responsibility to protect Michigan’s natural resources to the federal government. We cannot surrender the safeguarding of Michigan’s natural resources to an administration that is contemptuous of efforts to protect land and water resources and boasts of its eagerness to eviscerate existing environmental rules.
The Trump Administration’s pledge to repeal two administrative rules for every rule promulgated and its promise to use the Congressional Review Act to void environmental regulations are indicators of the potential harm HB 4205 could create. The Trump Administration’s roll back of 23 environmental rules in its first 100 days is harm already incurred.
Michigan’s natural resources are globally unique, requiring vigilant protection and stewardship. Our Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of fresh surface waters and harbor distinctive, specialized watersheds. Our shoreline of 3,288 miles is by far the longest freshwater coastline in the United States, shaping coastal dunes that are singularly unique natural features. Science affirms that our inland lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands are an integrated, interconnected, mutually dependent hydrologic system providing immeasurable services and benefits to all citizens.
In all, Michigan’s natural resources are magnificent, unparalleled and sublime – a natural endowment demanding extraordinary legislative safeguarding. HB 4205 is antithetical to Michigan’s values, laws and environmental legacy.
HB 4205 has eleven legislative co-sponsors. Their support of this bill is irreconcilable with their constitutional responsibilities. Michigan’s Constitution explicitly defines the primary duty legislators have to protect Michigan’s natural resources. Article 4, Section 52 of Michigan’s Constitution states:
The conservation and development of the natural resources of the state are hereby declared to be of paramount public concern in the interest of the health, safety and general welfare of the people. The legislature shall provide for the protection of the air, water and other natural resources of the state from pollution, impairment and destruction.
Complementing this constitutional mandate is the Public Trust Doctrine, embodying a set of foundational principles, long recognized by law, that require proper stewardship of Great Lakes resources. The doctrine creates a fiduciary responsibility of stewardship on the part of government for the preservation of these resources for the benefit of the public. Described in Michigan jurisprudence as a “high, solemn and perpetual duty,” the Public Trust Doctrine creates a foundational, unifying, coherent legal framework for defining and prescribing rights, obligations, duties and responsibilities for protecting public resources that government – and the legislators behind HB 4205 – cannot ignore.
Please encourage your friends and family to contact the eleven co-sponsors of HB 4205:
Triston Cole – (primary), Jim Runestad, Aaron Miller, Kathy Crawford, Michele Hoitenga, Steven Johnson, Peter Lucido, Beau LaFave, Tom Barrett, Sue Allor, John Reilly.
Stanley “Skip” Pruss co-founded 5 Lakes Energy in 2010, specializing in energy policy and clean energy system development.
Some of my favorite childhood memories include hiking trips across Northern Michigan and taking in the beauty that is our Great Lakes. As my own children grew up, we regularly went on family trips across Michigan because I wanted to make sure the natural wonders of our state could be passed along to the next generation.
The Great Lakes mean so much to me personally, as they do to millions of Michiganders. They are more than just an economic engine and drinking water source: they are a way of life in Michigan.
That’s why we must protect our Lakes at all costs – and why I am very concerned about the unique threat posed by the Line 5 pipeline running underneath the Straits of Mackinac. Any pipeline leak – no matter how minor – could devastate the Great Lakes watershed and contaminate much of the safe drinking water 40 million people rely on.
According to the University of Michigan, the volume of water going through the Straits of Mackinac is ten times that of Niagara Falls, and it’s rapidly changing currents could carry oil up and down Michigan’s coasts in the event of a spill. Like you, I was alarmed by recent reports that sections of Line 5 are missing critical protective coatings.
In March, I teamed up with Senator Stabenow to demand some answers from Enbridge, whose past assurances about the structural integrity of Line 5 run directly counter to these reports. Here’s what we want to know:
These are just a few of the many serious questions must be addressed by Enbridge. But while we work to find these answers, we can’t afford to keep our eye off other concerns related to pipeline safety in the Great Lakes.
For example, U.S. Coast Guard officials have told me that we do not have adequate research or a plan for cleanup of oil spills in fresh water, especially under heavy ice cover and adverse weather conditions that we see during Michigan winters.
Last year, I was pleased that my bipartisan pipeline safety bill was signed into law by then-President Obama. Among other provisions, it required the federal agency overseeing pipeline safety to consider ice cover when developing oil spill response plans, designated the Great Lakes a high consequence area – making any pipeline in the Lakes subject to higher standards – and required pipeline reviews and oversight on the age and integrity of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines.
I’m also focused on efforts to classify Line 5 – and other pipelines crossing the Great Lakes – as offshore pipelines. Right now, Line 5 is considered an onshore pipeline, meaning it’s held to less stringent regulatory standards and liability requirements in the event of a spill. Given the potential for significant economic and ecological harm from an oil spill in the Great Lakes, this change in classification is critical.
Finally, I’ll be looking at ways to improve freshwater spill research and make updates to our coastal maps and data in order to better safeguard our natural resources.
We must continue to highlight the risks posed by Line 5, and FLOW’s efforts to shine a light on these risks is more important than ever. From keeping our Great Lakes free of pollution to highlighting the dangers of invasive species like Asian Carp, I applaud FLOW’s commitment to protecting this unique ecosystem. Together, we can work to keep our Great Lakes clean and safe for future generations of Michiganders.
I share in the excitement with FLOW’s Executive Director Liz Kirkwood, the staff, Board of Directors, and supporters in welcoming Dave Dempsey’s arrival at FLOW.
When we began FLOW in its initial stages nine years ago, Dave Dempsey expressed his enthusiasm and support for our launch and the course ahead. He knows first-hand how important strong policies and actions are to address the systemic threats we face in the 21st century.
Dave and I have shared a friendship, worked together, and exchanged ideas and our shared passion for the Great Lakes, its people, and beauty for over 30 years. FLOW, but more importantly, all of us in Michigan and in the Great Lakes region are fortunate Dave has decided to join us at this time. His ideas, wisdom, talents, professionalism, and experience will help us find and implement commons, public trust principles and new frameworks to find solutions to the systemic threats that face the Great Lakes and our world.
As you might expect, since Dave arrived, we’ve already rolled up our sleeves higher and waded a little more deeply to strengthen our capacity and efforts in what all of us and our organizations can accomplish as we work together and with many others in the years to come.
Gratefully,
Jim Olson
Contact: Misha Neidorfler 321 E Front Street
Morsels, LLC Traverse City, MI 49684
Phone: 231.421.1353 www.morselsbakery.com
Mobile: 231.715.6281
Traverse City, MI, March 29, 2017: For the month of April 2017, Morsels
Espresso + Edibles, a specialty bakery, featuring unique, bite-sized baked goods,
will be partnering with FLOW (For Love of Water), continuing an effort to support
the Traverse City community through unique, partnering arrangements. Morsels
has created a custom morsel (their bite-sized bakery goods) for FLOW called,
“for love of rosewater,” which is pistachio-cardamom cake with rosewater
frosting. For each of these morsels sold, Morsels will donate $.25 to FLOW at the
end of the month. The morsels will be available for purchase in the store as well
as on Morsels’ website for shipping from April 1-30.
FLOW is a water law and policy center working to protect the common waters of
the Great Lakes Basin through public trust solutions. We educate, engage, and
empower citizens to protect the Great Lakes now and forever. To learn more
about the systemic threats facing our Great Lakes water and how you can help,
we invite you to visit our web site at www.flowforwater.org.
Morsels Espresso + Edibles, owned and operated by local couple, Jeff and Misha
Neidorfler, offers a selection of specialty, hand-crafted, bite-sized desserts and
savory treats, along with a Michigan-sourced breakfast and lunch menu, and
features specialty coffee and tea from Intelligentsia Coffee and Kilogram Tea.
Morsels has been in business in Downtown Traverse City since 2008.
FLOW’s unique morsel flavor called, “for love of rosewater.” Morsels creates
specialty, bite-sized baked goods and will donate $.25 of each of these morsels
sold in the month of April to FLOW.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 3, 2017
Contact: Liz Kirkwood, Executive Director
Email: liz@flowforwater.org
Office: (231) 944-1568; Cell: (570) 872-4956
TRAVERSE CITY – Great Lakes water law and environmental policy non-profit, For Love Of Water (FLOW), has hired Great Lakes policy expert and environmental historian, Dave Dempsey, as Senior Advisor.
For the past six years, Dempsey has served as Policy Advisor to the International Joint Commission (IJC). The IJC was established in 1909 by the Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada and is charged with protecting the common waters and water interests of the United States and Canada.
“We are thrilled and grateful that Dave has chosen to work with our team at FLOW to help protect and preserve the Great Lakes at this critical juncture,” said FLOW Executive Director Liz Kirkwood.
“Dave’s knowledge and experience will enrich and expand the scope of FLOW’s mission to empower citizens and elected officials with information-based risk analysis and with public trust solutions that will protect the health of the lakes, streams and drinking water in the Great Lakes basin for current and future generations,” Kirkwood said.
Dempsey’s 35-year career has included service as Environmental Policy Advisor to former Michigan Governor James Blanchard, presidential appointee to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, and Senior Policy Advisor for the non-profit Michigan Environmental Council. He has also authored or co-authored nine books including the award-winning William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate, 2006.
Dempsey said FLOW is unique in its approach to using the centuries-old public trust doctrine as a powerful tool to protect citizens’ legal rights to use the Great Lakes and to hold state governments accountable for ensuring these waters and public uses are protected in perpetuity.
His strong attraction to working with FLOW at this stage of his career, Dempsey said, is based on the opportunity to work with Kirkwood, the FLOW team, and with FLOW Founder Jim Olson, a nationally recognized environmental lawyer, to foster wide understanding and effective use of the public trust doctrine to protect the Great Lakes. But, Dempsey said, his decision is also deeply personal.
“In writing about Michigan’s conservation history, I learned about the men and women of the late 19th Century who laid the groundwork for today’s public forests, fish and game. They were far ahead of their time. FLOW is comparable. Its forward-looking efforts will prevent environmental and economic devastation by assuring public ownership and protection of our water,” he said.
Dave Dempsey,
Senior Advisor at FLOW
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Media Contacts: Leonard Page 231-268-8430/ leonard@thepages.net
David Holtz 313-300-4454/david@davidholtz.org
Citizens Respond to Attorney General Schuette:
Get Off the Sidelines on Line 5 and Protect Great Lakes
Responding today to a letter from Attorney General Bill Schuette, citizens groups from across the state told state officials that their decision to “stand on the sidelines” by failing to enforce legal requirements on pipeline operator Enbridge Energy Partners is putting the Great Lakes at risk from a catastrophic oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac.
In a March 8 letter to the Oil & Water Don’t Mix campaign, the attorney general, Dept. of Natural Resources Director Keith Creagh and Dept. of Environmental Quality Director Heidi Grether responded to revelations that protective anti-corrosion coatings were missing from 18 areas of Enbridge’s Line 5 in the Straits. In their letter, Schuette, Creagh and Grether said they would investigate findings in a late 2016 report detailing the missing coatings as well as other evidence calling into question claims by Enbridge that Line 5 is safe.
In their response letter today to state officials, citizens groups told Schuette and other state officials that their failure to assert regulatory authority over Line 5 in the Straits could result in an oil spill that would “devastate our public drinking waters and our water-dependent economy.”
“It is not enough to stand on the sidelines or fail to take action that has the effect of complicity by deferring to Enbridge,” the groups said in their letter to Schuette. “For nearly two years, we have heard our state leaders declare that the days of this pipeline are numbered and that Line 5 wouldn’t be built today. However, the State of Michigan has not taken a single preventative measure to make our Great Lakes safer from a catastrophic oil spill.”
The missing Line 5 coatings, the groups said, violated a 1953 easement agreement with the state and should, at a minimum, have resulted in enforcement action against Enbridge. By instead deferring to Enbridge, the state’s failure to act allows Enbridge to avoid comprehensive review of Line 5 and delays any potential action for months while the state continues to study the pipelines.
“Attorney General Schuette’s urgency in protecting the Great Lakes and our communities from an oil spill seems to be missing,” said attorney Leonard Page of the Straits Area Concerned Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment. “We need action now, before Line 5 ruptures and destroys our way of life and economy.”
In April 2016 the Oil & Water Don’t Mix campaign wrote Schuette and other state officials, identifying eight violations of the 1953 easement, including missing pipeline anchors, emergency oil spill response plan violations along with issues related to pipeline coatings in the Straits. While the state notified Enbridge of easement violations, it has yet to require Enbridge to submit to a comprehensive environmental assessment under state law. A current series of studies being done by the state with $3.6 million in funding from Enbridge are advisory.
“What Attorney General Schuette or any state official can’t tell us is how the structural integrity of these pipelines in the Straits are holding up against age, strong currents, missing anchors and missing coatings,” said David Holtz, chair of Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Executive Committee. “They can’t tell us that because they are not taking the kind of enforcement actions that could produce answers. They are not prioritizing protecting the Great Lakes over Enbridge’s profits.”
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Oil & Water Don’t Mix is a campaign supported by 22 organizations and thousands of citizens businesses who want to end the threat of a Great Lakes oil spill by shutting down the flow of oil through Enbridge’s Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.
The March 27, 2017 letter to Attorney General Schuette, the March 8 letter to OWDM from Schuette and OWDM’s original letter to Schuette are located here:
http://www.oilandwaterdontmix.org/owdm_response_to_ag_schuette_michigans_legal_duty
