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Offfice:
420 E. Front St.,
Traverse City, MI 49684
231-944 1568 |
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There are several major threats to the waters of the Great Lakes Basin that are all converging. For example, the pipeline rupture and spill of oil spread across the Kalamazoo River and threatened Lake Michigan. The Asian Carp and other invasive species continue to knock on the door of the Great Lakes. Off shore drilling looms, and a massive globally scaled rush to fracture (“fracking”) deep shale beneath most of the Great Lakes region seeks to extract large quantities of water to penetrate and shatter the rock with a highly pressured chemical soup to release natural gas. Our watersheds continue to be polluted. There is also the sulfide nickel mining issue in the Upper Peninsula. And, of course, climate change, driven by a carbon- fueled civilization, pushes water sources and lakes to their limits. Was this summer’s dramatic drop in Lake Superior’s water level an indication of what’s to come due to climate change?
Umbrella to all of these abuses and threats, is the gap or loophole in the Great Lakes Compact diversion ban that allows exports of water from the Basin, and the total failure of the Great Lakes States to enact public trust principles to assure public control and protection of water for all private and public uses. These issues continue to plague the very core of our quality of life and economic stability.
As a result, those of us working with Flow for Water have come to realize, that all of these issues revolve around a common thread and principle – water as a commons must be held in public trust for private landowners, citizens, tribes, and communities from generation to generation. This principle, above all, operates as an outside limit on big government, and large domestic and foreign corporations from invading the Great Lakes Basin as if the water is theirs for the taking, abuse, and exacting for their own private benefit and profit.
Here are the issues:
Privatization
The United Nations has affirmed by resolution that access to water is a basic human right and public trust. Privatization is the antithesis to this basic human right. Large international corporations whose goal is to control water supplies are pushing for privatization for its own benefit. It is at the expense of the people’s water rights. If a country is beholding to a private cartel of foreign and domestic corporations who control the water supply, how can a democracy and a free market society possibly survive? The issue: Will citizens maintain control and democratic access to our water resources?
Can’t happen here? It is happening here. Check out the links for examples of communities facing the threat of privatization in the U.S.
Water Diversion and Exports
Water Diversions are a main threat to the Great Lakes. The first threat is multi-national corporations efforts to define water as a commodity. Once water is defined as a commodity, water as an end product is exempt from the Great Lakes Compact allowing it to be diverted from the Great Lakes Basin. The second threat is demand for water by communities outside of the Great Lakes Basin that are facing water shortages.
The first issue is the argument over closing the leak in the Great Lakes compact. The second issue is the impact of diversions upon the ecosystems, economies, and the quality of life and drinking water of communities within the watersheds the Great Lakes Basin? Our focus is to address the issue, Why are the Waters of the Great Lakes Basin still at risk? Our goal is to close the leak in the compact to protect the Great Lakes ecosystem and the economies, drinking water, and quality of life for millions of American, First Nation, and Canadian citizens.
Abuses of the Great Lakes
As Americans watched aghast at the spewing geyser of oil from BP’s Deep Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico, and then two more spills, one in China and the other in river in Michigan, we suddenly understood what it means for a private corporation to physically take over a global water commons. The people along the Gulf and their struggle bring home the direct connection between private physical domination of lakes, streams, and groundwater and the rights of citizens, workers, farmers, businessmen, and communities to be free from this kind of physical or de facto privatization of the commons. This speaks to a broader aspect of the public trust doctrine that imposes a duty on the government and those who are handed over the privilege to impose risks on the public. It means that government has a duty to prevent public commons from domination, subordination, and physical takings or de facto control for private gain by private corporate interests. This violates the human right to water and the respect and integrity of water protected by the public trust. This demonstrates how the public trust not only prohibits the diversion and export or trading of water for private property, but the diminishment, destruction, or impairment of water for private profit. Public trust means that there is a line beyond which neither government nor private corporations can go to abuse, alter, or privatize the public’s interest in water as commons.
U.P. Sulfide Nickel Mining
Michigan authorized Kennecott to take over public lands and waters for mining of its mineral interests, some of which were leased by the state, before the state evaluated and determined the structural risks and long term loss and impairment to state forest lands, wildlife, and the water impliedly subordinated to private interests.
Kalamazoo River Oil Spill
The citing and permitting of oil and gas pipelines near or under our lakes, streams, and water resources implicitly carries a risk of rupture, leaks, and serious damage to aquatic systems. A nearly million-gallon oil spill from a ruptured pipeline spread out and took over miles of this Michigan river. It appears there was a lack of oversight, by both the company and the state environmental agency. If adequate oversight is lacking or cannot be provided, no approval should be given in the first place. Otherwise, once again the public rights in the water are subordinated to private purposes and gain
Hydraulic Fracturing of Deep Shale for Natural Gas (Frac'ing)
The leasing by Michigan of 300,000 acres of state land, and a proposal to lease another 500,000 acres in October, 2010, without adequate evaluation of locations, quantities of water, disposal or discharge of waste waters with toxic chemicals is a gross domination or takeover of groundwater required to shatter the shale to produce natural gas. By leasing the right to drill and produce, the state handed over the water rights that go with the extraction of natural gas.
Invasive Species - Asian Carp
As the public in the Great Lakes and nation have witnessed for years, the Asian Carp, like other foreign invasive species, migrates at the entrance of the Great Lakes. The carp threatens to subordinate or destroy an entire freshwater fishery and recreational boating and activities. Government has a duty to prevent this from occurring, and people and organizations around the Great Lakes should have a direct recourse in the courts to stop it when the federal government and states have failed to do so.
Off Shore Oil and Gas Drilling and Mining
For years, some Great Lakes states prevent off shore oil and gas drilling and development. Ontario has allowed it. Ohio is looking to allow it. The public trust in the Great Lakes, recognized by the state supreme courts and the U.S. Supreme Court since 1892, does not permit the transfer of public waters an bottomlands for private development and gain. As witnessed in the Gulf of Mexico BP disaster, there are some risks, which simply go over the line of what is acceptable for private use of our water commons. Off shore drilling in the Great Lakes is one of them.
Climate Change and Off Shore Wind Turbines
As a society, we must move forward with non-carbon electrical and renewable energy production. But this does not mean it can or should be done by violating or subordinating public trust principles that apply to our Great Lakes bottomlands and waters. The waters and bottomland cannot be occupied in any manner that would dominate a substantial area, such as more than a square mile as was prohibited in the 1892 Illinois Central case, where the US Supreme Court voided a deed of a mile of Lake Michigan to a private corporation. Off shore wind generation should be allowed only if the public controls the water, bottomlands, and the energy systems and revenues, to assure a public purpose as required by the public trust in these majestic waters. Any approved development must be properly scaled and located and public waters should not be occupied and used without assurance that the wind that is associated with the water and bottomland is deemed public, too, and the right to generate electricity a privilege. Too, there should be no off shore until it is demonstrated that non public trust private uplands are not feasible and prudent for wind generation.
Pollution of Our Great Lakes and Watersheds
Pollution continues to plague the Great Lakes impacting our drinking water, health, plant and wild life species. Efforts continue but it is down to the nitty gritty and dollar and cents for these efforts to continue.
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