MICHIGAN WATER RIGHTS LEGISLATION
Sample ideas for you to copy/paste into a personal letter to the editor of your local newspaper
Version I | CLICK HERE TO PRINT
Dear Editor
Michigan's water resources are critical to our state's economic sustainability. Agriculture, tourism and manufacturing are the state's top industries. They all depend on access to water to succeed.
Michigan Water Rights Legislation needs to be enacted to ensure all Michigan citizens and businesses are entitled to use our water provided they do not degrade or diminish the resource for the rest of us. This legislation will protect our groundwater, small streams and lakes and the Great Lakes from diversion for export to consumers elsewhere—ensuring water is available for continued economic prosperity and recreation.
Lets protect the rights of millions of Michiganders whose jobs, livelihoods and health depend on water for drinking, farming, manufacturing and recreation.
Please contact your Michigan House Representative and urge them to enact legislation that protects all the waters of the Great Lakes and protects us as Michigan Citizens.
Version II | CLICK HERE TO PRINT
Dear Editor
Michigan Water Rights Legislation will protect, rather than infringe upon, private property rights. Those who claim a public trust law will interfere with private ownership and use of groundwater are spreading a falsehood.
Michigan Courts have placed an artificial distinction between large lakes and rivers and smaller streams and groundwater, affording the later with fewer protections. Public Trust law closes a gap in our water protection policies to provide the same protections to all the waters of Michigan.
Michigan Water Rights will protect the water resources we use today from irresponsible users who don't care whether water is sold or exported out of the Great Lakes Basin. Our children deserve to be able to fish for brook trout or kayak down a quiet and clean stream.
Support Water Rights legislation to protect our water streams, rivers and lakes.
Version III | CLICK HERE TO PRINT
Dear Editor
The Great Lakes and the groundwater, streams and lakes that feed them are globally spectacular freshwater seas. They are a tremendous public resource not unlike the Grand Canyon or the Florida Everglades. Our state's groundwater and streams are a critical aspect of our freshwater resource: the Great Lakes. Small streams, lakes, groundwater and our and Great Lakes system are threatened by a gap in current policies.
Michigan Water Rights legislation seeks to keep all of our water resources, including lakes and streams—secure and public as our water has always been. The bill keeps our water safe from irresponsible uses, withdrawals and exports from our watersheds and the Great Lakes Basin. Such a bill will ensure that all of the state's water users—farmers, manufacturers and residential property owners, riparian landowners, fishermen, boaters - will continue to use and enjoy our shared freshwater resource.
Water sustains our economy and our lives. People in our state need to take action to protect our water rights and resources. Contact both your State Senator and State Representative urging them to support the introduction and enactment of Michigan Water Rights Legislation that declares Michigan water a public trust, imposes a duty on the state and government, as the trustee, to protect water, and prohibits the government or anyone from violating the public trust principles.
Public trust protects everyone's use of water against claims of ownership, control, or export by powerful outside special interests. Why would Michigan leave itself open for the rest of the world to press a finger on the map, buy land, and come here and ship the water somewhere else?
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