I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Michigan’s legislators left the Capitol for spring break without passing key legislation to regulate withdrawal of water from the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes Compact — if passed in all Great Lakes states as wells as Quebec and Ontario and approved by Congress — would allow governors to block new, large-scale water diversions. The compact would grandfather in existing water withdrawals and leave it to the states to regulate in-state withdrawals and water exports involving containers smaller than six gallons.
Michigan is the only Great Lakes state that has not passed the compact in either chamber of the Legislature. Though the compact has broad support in both bodies, the House and Senate are sharply divided on bills that spell out how Michigan should manage withdrawals not regulated by the compact.
Continued -The legislation in the Democrat-led House includes language supported by state environmental groups and directing the Department of Environmental Quality to act as “trustee for waters of the state” and authorize only those projects that it finds are in the public interest.
The bill in the Republican-led Senate introduces a computerized water assessment tool that would evaluate planned water withdrawals for environmental impact and allow those that diminish stream flow by up to 25 percent.
Business groups support use of the water assessment tool. But Cyndi Roper of Clean Water Action told Michigan Messenger that the Senate’s bill is “a giveaway for corporations.”
Roper said her members are worried that reliance on an automated assessment tool could fast-track potentially damaging water withdrawals. The tool provides inadequate environmental review, she said, because its only measure for environmental impact is fish populations. It fails to consider potential impact on navigating waterways, recreational uses and nearby property owners, and it minimizes public participation in the review process.
Water bottlers, golf course operators and others have strongly objected to the House version on the ground that it would impede economic growth. “While we’re in favor of protecting Michigan’s water resources, making water off-limits through costly, burdensome and unmerited regulations is a sure-fire way to set Michigan back even further economically,” Doug Roberts Jr. of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.
Photo: Michigan Sea Grant Coastwatch.
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