MI House and Senate Pass Water Protection Bills
Yesterday both the House and Senate committees passed a comprehensive package of bills to prevent irresponsible water withdrawals from the Great Lakes. The bills were expected to move to both House and Senate floors for final passage.
This is only a small step toward comprehensive protection. Our Republican Senate backed lobbyists from industry and agriculture so groundwater failed to get public trust status. Gaining public trust for our groundwater has its detractors but in arguments for passage of these bills testimony from Cooley Law Professor Chris A. Shafer makes sense:
The basic tenet of the public trust doctrine is that certain natural resources, especially the waters and beds of the sea coast and navigable lakes and rivers, are of such importance to the public that they are incapable of purely private ownership and control. Legislatively extending the public trust to groundwater reinforces its importance and creates a mandatory duty for the MDEQ to consider this protection during regulatory procedures. For these reasons, all waters of the state must be protected to prevent excessive and unreasonable exploitation. Expanding public trust protections to include our groundwater must be clear and explicit in statute. Regarding concerns about private property rights, these bill packages specifically reserve riparian rights and property rights for lawful use of water. The ‘takings’ would actually occur when corporations divert water from local watersheds and affect the rights of riparian users. http://www.greatlakesgreatmichigan.org/Public_Trust.pdf
And considering groundwater makes up 79% of all of Lake Michigan’s water, I would have to agree. But groundwater as a public trust will have to come in another step. Michigan is taking too long and too many baby steps toward a clean future because we have too many politicians listening to industry lobbyists.
But on the bright side and according to a news release by Michigan’s Sierra Club the protections won in this package of bills include:
- Approval of the Great Lakes Compact, guarding against large-scale water diversions (Michigan will become the 7th of the 8 states needed to approve it).
- Regulations ensuring that water users do not excessively harm aquatic resources by taking too much water.
- The adoption of conservation principles to be utilized by large water users.
- More public input into decisions about large-scale water uses that might impact local ecosystems.
- Overall, 75% of Michigan’s surface waters will be protected from harmful withdrawals. Use of the remaining waters will be subject to rules ensuring availability to all parties for reasonable use.
It’s the 25% that goes unprotected I’m concerned about. One quarter of our entire surface water falls under ambiguous rules and that will be enforced by whom? Right. And isn’t more public input into decisions about large-scale water uses that might impact local ecosystems just about equal to a public trust for groundwater anyway? Geez.