Traverse City and Detroit, Michigan, June 11, 2008. Former Governors William Milliken and James Blanchard released a bipartisan, joint statement today, urging Michigan legislative leaders to protect the public trust in Michigan's waters when debating and voting on water law reforms in the House and Senate this week.
Both Governor Milliken and Blanchard signed laws during their administrations in the 1970s and 1980s that put into place protections against impairment and diversion of the State's precious water and related resources. These protections included provisions that recognized the public trust in Michigan waters. Under the public trust doctrine, the State has an obligation to manage and prevent harm to the state's water, fish, and other aquatic resources from harm or improper disposition.
"We in Michigan have a long tradition of appreciation and conservation of our incomparable Great Lakes, lakes and streams, and the groundwater that feeds them.," Governor Milliken said. "This tradition embodies the public trust principle – a principle of strong stewardship for the benefit of our citizens, businesses, and communities, and future generations. The state must be required to consider the public interest for any large withdrawals – especially private taking of water for sale. Without protecting the public trust in our waters, Michigan's sovereign power to safeguard our vital interests against outside forces will be diminished."
"When the eight Great Lakes state governors signed the Great Lakes Charter in 1985, Michigan committed to protecting water as a 'public resource held in trust,'" said Governor Blanchard, referring to the Great Lakes Preservation Act passed into law when he was governor in 1985. "The public trust is about more than public access to our navigable waters for boating, fishing, and commerce. The world is facing a monumental water crisis, made worse by the effects of global warming. We need to establish a solid legal and policy public trust framework that will stand up in the face of these realities."
"Michigan
can ill afford to pass a law weak on safeguards against exports and
sale," Governor Milliken added. "If we do not enact a strong water law
that strongly protects the public trust in our waters, future shifts in
population and political power will seize on these weaknesses and we
will lose control of our most valuable natural heritage."
Both Governors agreed that the water law now debated in the legislature must accomplish four things.
Recognize and protect the public trust in all of our waters. The public trust standard does not interfere with the reasonable use of our waters by Michigan businesses, farmers, and citizens. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The public trust protects these reasonable uses against claims by outside interests under NAFTA, other trade agreements, or federal laws that may be passed in the future.
Close the "product" exemption to the diversion ban. The water law already recognizes consumptive or reasonable uses by Michiganians, so it is not necessary to tell the world that our water can be put in containers and exported.
Tighten the adverse impact standard and tie it to a reduction in stream flows, not reductions in fish populations. Fish are a public resource subject to the public trust doctrine. Reduction of flows and aquatic habitat should be regulated to avoid sacrifice of public trust resources like fish.
Require individual permits for all withdrawals that are likely to cause an adverse impact or that exceed 1 million gallons per day. The current 2 million gallons per day threshold largely ignores major withdrawals.
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