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Water 
Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 08:37:08 AM EST
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( - promoted by Eric B.)
I just finished my trip to the Middle East, where I visited Israel and Dubai. You may have read my blog post about touting Michigan's Green Jobs for Blue Waters initiative in Israel, where I was able to secure commitments from two Israeli water technology companies to locate in Michigan. To be clear: we will never sell our water abroad; but rather will position Michigan as a center of excellence for global water technologies. As the world's thirst for increasingly scarce fresh water grows, we want Michigan to reap enormous economic benefits by becoming the home of businesses who sell technologies that assist other states in solving their water scarcity problems.
We set our sights high when it came to advanced battery technology in Michigan. We began by positioning Michigan to lead in advanced batteries just a few years ago, and the payoff was enormous. Michigan received $1.2 billion of the $2 billion that the Federal Government allocated for advanced battery research and development. This has resulted in a number of companies who will be manufacturing advanced batteries for the new generation electrical automotive engine making Michigan their home-- securing jobs for our future. I believe we can do the same with water technologies bringing even greater benefits to our state.
Following my stops in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I travelled to Dubai, one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the Middle East. There, even this Wolverine was proud to be the first state official to visit MSU's Dubai campus (and yes, I heard the U-M/OSU score already!). I also visited the American University-Dubai where I addressed the class of Professor Youssef Beydoun. One of Professor Beydoun's students is from Saginaw Valley State University where she is studying for a degree in Political Science, specializing in International Relations. She expressed to me her concern for the future of the Michigan Promise which is assisting her in paying for her education.
Both schools are emerging as great educational institutions in Dubai. Students at MSU's Dubai campus frequently travel back to East Lansing for at least a semester of classes, and receive the same degrees as students here in Michigan - and also pay tuition back to MSU as well. MSU-Dubai is helping all MSU degrees obtain more international exposure and marketability, and I was pleased to be able to visit its campus.
After a long week on the road, I'm thankful to be back home in Clio for Thanksgiving, where I'll enjoy the company of good friends and family. I wish your family a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
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Wed Nov 18, 2009 at 06:38:50 AM EST
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(Very cool! - promoted by LiberalLucy)
This week I've been in Israel, on a trade mission to cultivate water technology economic development in Michigan. As co-chair of the joint Michigan-Israeli working group on water technology, I know there's great opportunity to diversify our economy and create jobs -- while leveraging our most precious natural resource, the Great Lakes.
I want to be clear: I am not proposing to sell Michigan's water. Companies seeking to use our water should locate here in Michigan -- where they can have all the water they need. Instead, through our Green Jobs for Blue Waters initiative, I want to position Michigan as North America's center of excellence for water technology. Right now, water technologies are a $500 billion global market -- but by 2020, that market is expected to grow to nearly $1 trillion. That means great opportunity for Michigan's economy -- and that is why we intend on seizing the opportunity, much as we did to become the Nation's leader in advanced battery technology.
Michigan's unique position in the water technology field proves we are at the forefront of this technology. Michigan's location in the middle of the Great Lakes, which contain about 20 percent of the world's supply of fresh water, has primed the state's successes in agriculture, tourism and the auto industry. We need to continue to protect water resources and use it wisely for economic development purposes that include retention of current businesses and the attraction of new ones.
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Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 08:20:51 AM EDT
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(What did YOU do on Earth Day? - promoted by LiberalLucy)
Even though 70% of the Earth is covered in water, only 3% is fit for human consumption -- and two-thirds of that is frozen! Here in Michigan, we're fortunate to have access to the Great Lakes, containing 22% of the world's fresh surface water. That means we have a special obligation to protect our waterways -- but also a special opportunity to be the global center of transformative economic possibilities based around water.
Yesterday, for Earth Day, I announced the "Green Jobs for Blue Waters Initiative" to target opportunities for economic growth and environmental protection centered around our most precious resource: water. By developing new technologies to conserve water here in Michigan, we can export those technologies around the globe to places where water is far more scarce: helping Michigan's economy and global environmental protection. Michigan can, and will be the place where the water technologies of the future are developed, thanks to our access to the Great Lakes, university research, water management experience, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and our strong history of environmental stewardship. We can create the same sort of dynamic based around a Blue Water Economy that we've started to build in alternative energy here, with component manufacturers and researchers flocking to set up shop here in Michigan, diversifying our economy, creating jobs, and helping our environment.
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Sun Jun 08, 2008 at 13:39:13 PM EDT
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This morning's Record-Eagle featured this gem of an Op-Ed piece by the 104th's representative, Howard Walker. In addition to the Compact, we can make reasonable statutory changes to help protect our water. However, there is proposed House legislation, which is unnecessarily tied to the Compact, that will establish a public trust in groundwater, and will enact tremendously strict and scientifically unsound limits for individuals and businesses needing to use water.
The problem? This so-called public trust already exists, and Walker later cites it in a position paper called, "Water--Protect it, don't socialize it." Flowing water, as well as light and air, are in one sense 'publici juris' (owned by the public). They are a boon from Providence to all, and differ only in their mode of enjoyment. Light and air are diffused in all directions, flowing water in some. When property was established, each one had the right to enjoy the light and air diffused over, and the water flowing through; the portion of the soil belonging to him. The property in the water itself was not in the proprietor of the land through which it passes, but only the use of it, as it passes along, for the enjoyment of his property and as incidental to it. The law is laid down by Chancellor Kent in 3 Comm. 439, thus: 'Every proprietor of lands on the banks of a river has naturally an equal right to the use of the water...He has no property in the water itself, but a simple usufruct as it passes along.' While he does not own the running water, he has the right to a reasonable use of it as it passes by his land. As all other owners upon the same stream have the same right, the right of no one is absolute, but is qualified by the right of the others to have the stream substantially preserved in its natural size, flow, and purity, and to protections against 'material' diversion or pollution. This is the common right of all, which must not be interfered with by any.
The problem isn't that Howard Walker opposes the public trust. The problem is that Howard Walker doesn't understand what the public trust is.
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Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 09:46:04 AM EST
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Since Michigan entered the Union, our state government has had a duty to maintain what one judge called a “high, solemn and perpetual trust” by safeguarding our water resources for the public. It’s one of the reasons we still have Great Lakes instead of pretty bad lakes. In 2008 the Michigan Legislature has a choice of whether the state will fulfill this public duty – or open the floodgates for greater and greater control of water by powerful private special interests. The choice is as clear as night and day – or House and Senate. House Democrats have crafted legislation now on the House calendar that will write into statutory law the public trust doctrine. H.B. 5068, part of a package that would also ratify the eight-state Great Lakes Compact limiting water diversions, contains strong language sought by Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Michigan LCV, Michigan Environmental Council, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation and more than 50 other groups working together under the Great Lakes, Great Michigan banner. The language in question says this: in reviewing any proposal for a major water withdrawal from Michigan’s water resources, the Department of Environmental Quality must act as “trustee for waters of the state” under the doctrine, and authorize only those projects that it finds are in the public interest. Why is this important? Because water, by common law and tradition, belongs to all the people of Michigan. And because under international trade law and even the Great Lakes Compact, there is a danger that private investors may claim a right to take that water for private profit – or sue the government if it attempts to stop them. This is no abstract argument. The attempt by Nestle Waters North America to tap the headwaters of Great Lakes tributaries in Michigan for sale in faraway markets is already well underway. It would be difficult for the DEQ to find any additional proposed withdrawal by Nestle as “in the public interest” if it diminishes stream flow and aquatic habitat (as its Mecosta County project does) and promotes private profit with no corresponding benefit to the public. Simply put, without this public trust language in the new statute, Michigan water law could condone the privatization of public waters for profit. In a time of water scarcity not just in faroff lands but in Atlanta and the Southwest, and a time when private capture of water for sale is booming, nothing puts Michigan’s future at risk more than transferring decisions about our water from a public trustee to a rich lobby of water barons. Unfortunately, over in the Michigan Senate, Republicans have so far refused to affirm the public trust doctrine in law. State Sen. Patty Birkholz (R-Saugatuck Township), often a pro-conservation voice and vote, has so far opposed public trust language. And it was the Senate Republicans that insisted in 2006 on a loophole in the state’s original water withdrawal law that redefines Michigan water diverted out of state in containers under 5.7 gallons as “a consumptive use” rather than the export/diversion that it is. That potentially disastrous exemption for a powerful special interest could in the end undo all that politicians hope to do for the Great Lakes – unless they move fast and restate what the public believes – that the Great Lakes and their tributaries, including the groundwater and springs that feed them, belong to the public. The House Democrats are on the right track. The Senate Republicans can show their conservation colors by proclaiming the public trust as the central principle of Michigan water law. The time to do it is now.
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Tue Jun 05, 2007 at 20:14:47 PM EDT
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A friend in AA tells me they passed this great resolution last night in City Council.
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Thu Feb 08, 2007 at 14:55:45 PM EST
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Nestle Corp.'s proposed water plant in McCloud, California is yet another example of its unrelenting quest for new sources of spring water. In an outrageous marketing coup, Nestle and other multinational corporations are reaping huge profits from bottling and selling the public's own water. Americans are annually buying over 10 billion bottles of water that costs 1,000 times more than tap water. Why? In general bottled water is not any healthier than tap water, and in some cases, less so. The manufacture and transport of these single-use plastic bottles require precious energy, while releasing toxic chemicals both in their making and disposal in landfills or outright litter. Drinking water of course is vital for good health. But every citizen is entitled to clean water. If tap water quality is at issue, then the municipality should clean it up; or the homeowner can simply install a filter. Responsible citizens might also reuse a stainless steel container filled with tap water instead of supporting the bottling industry.
The Nestle project would drain water from the McCloud River system and ship it elsewhere. The famous McCloud River, a California Wild Trout stream, is dependent on the exceptionally cold spring water. Its strain of rainbow trout is world renowned. Who can confirm that pumping feeder springs will not damage the McCloud River and its main tributary Squaw Valley Creek? Who can confirm that water quantities in the aquifers today will be there tomorrow? How can any governmental body sell rights to a precious, limited natural resource for 99 years to a profit-driven corporation responsible mainly to its shareholders? If the project goes forward, will the amount of water that Nestle pumps be rigorously capped with strict enforcement? I'd guess not. Yes, good jobs are important, but not at the cost of sacrificing the health of our waterways. The stakes are too high for any more mistakes like this. We need to stop Nestle now.
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Mon Feb 05, 2007 at 15:52:02 PM EST
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The DEQ approved Nestlé's "request for determination", pumping 70 million gallons of spring water yearly from Twin and Chippewa creeks in Osceola County near Evart would not have an adverse impact. This came after only a 3-week public comment period after the DEQ and Nestle went public with the proposed decision on Christmas Eve.
Although the DEQ announced the public comment period would be extended until March 15, 2007, this week's DEQ decision ignored the extended comment period. Apparently Nestle refused to waive the deadline for the DEQ's decision as required by last year's amendments to Michigan's water laws. Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation - leading the fight against Nestle - relied on the extended time period and retained experts to provide meaningful analyses, only to be stabbed by the DEQ's premature decision.
The DEQ largely ignored comments, particularly those related to the effects on flows and levels of the headwaters of the two trout streams. Nestle and DEQ's decision used selected measurements of the stream which may have missed the primary area of effects and adverse impacts to a bountiful brook trout fishery.
Nestle claims that it is a "good corporate citizen." Despite the company's claims to the contrary, a trial court and the Court of Appeals found pumping caused substantial harm to the stream and wetlands in Mecosta County, and the company recently mounted an attack on the heart of Michigan environmental laws to block citizens' rights to maintain lawsuits to prevent such harm from happening.
"Now Nestle apparently has refused to cooperate with the DEQ's extension of time for public comment on the effects of its pumping on two blue ribbon trout streams," says Terry Swier, President of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.
Dave Dempsey, Great Lakes Policy Advisor for Clean Water Action, said, "The legislature failed last year when it passed a new water law that allows water to be commercially exploited. This decision shows Michigan's new water law is a failure."
Jim Olson, legal counsel for MCWC, said, "These type of private water exports that diminish our lakes and streams, whether in ships, trucks, or bottles, should not permitted to continue. If the citizens of Michigan do not keep strict control on who, when, where and for what purpose someone is allowed to export our water for private gain, we will find ourselves in dire straits when the global tidal wave of demand for water comes crashing on our shores."
Nestlé has also been investigating a new "spring" water source near the White River in Newaygo County for the past three years. Nestle wants to truck the water from the Osceola and Newaygo sites about 20 miles to its Ice Mountain plant in Stanwood.
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