by Drew YoungeDyke

One of the biggest challenges facing the Great Lakes is the damage caused by invasive species, many of which arrived in the Great Lakes by stowing away in the ballast tanks of oceangoing vessels. 

In 2005, Michigan took the lead on protecting the Great Lakes by passing a Ballast Water Statute that requires oceangoing vessels to either refrain from dumping ballast water in the lakes or to use environmentally sound treatment measures. A new bill, though, would insert a loophole in the Ballast Water Statute that could allow new invasive species into the Great Lakes.

After the 2005 Ballast Water Statute was passed, the shipping industry immediately challenged it. Two federal courts, however, upheld both its legitimate purpose and its constitutionality. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said:

“To the extent the permit requirement even marginally reduces the problem of [aquatic nuisance species] introduction, its local benefits would be very large. In contrast, the burdens imposed by the permit requirement ... are de minimis.”

The shipping industry, though, has now introduced a bill that would punch a loophole into the Ballast Water Statute big enough for invasive species to swim through. SB 1212 would identify one specific treatment method - deep-sea ballast water exchange - that could satisfy the permit requirements. This is the same method required by the Coast Guard that - because it could still allow invasive species through - prompted Michigan to enact the Ballast Water Statute in the first place. Even the Coast Guard is updating its standards away from this method, though there is debate about whether even its upgraded standards will be strong enough. SB 1212, however, would lock this method in place, essentially repealing Michigan’s Ballast Water Statute.

Invasive species cost the Great Lakes region $200 million a year, according to the National Wildlife Federation. That’s $1 billion every five years, which is only a drop in the bucket, though, compared to the $7 billion Great Lakes fishery and $12.8 billion tourism economy. An estimated 823,000 Michigan jobs depend on the Great Lakes and tourism, and 90,000 jobs depend on the Great Lakes just in the counties which border them. As more of those counties are in Michigan than any other state, Michigan has to be the leader in protecting the Great Lakes from the invasive species which threaten those jobs.

Invasive species prevention is one of the few truly bipartisan issues in Michigan. In fact, the unanimous approval of a bill to create an Invasive Species Council prevented any member of the Legislature from getting a 0% on the Michigan League of Conservation Voters' Michigan Environmental Scorecard. The 2005 Ballast Water Statute also passed the Senate unanimously, and only one representative voted against it. Among those voting for it were two co-sponsors of SB 1212, Senators Tom Casperson and Joe Hune, who were representatives at the time. Given their support for the 2005 law and the Invasive Species Council, its perplexing why they would flip-flop their positions now and co-sponsor a bill that would effectively repeal the Ballast Water Statute which they helped enact.

So, we must ask, who would benefit from weakening ballast water requirements from oceangoing vessels? Obviously, that would be oceangoing vessels which would no longer have to refrain from discharging ballast water. However, according to DEQ statistics, less than 1% of port operations in Michigan are from oceangoing vessels. This means that we would be risking a $7 billion fishery, a $12.8 billion dollar economy, and tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of jobs so that less than 1% of ships which dock in Michigan can avoid the inconvenience of not polluting our waters with invasive species.

Michigan has long been a leader in protecting the Great Lakes from invasive species. As The Great Lakes State, it’s up to us to set the bar for other states about what’s expected of them to keep the Great Lakes healthy. How can we ask Chicago to stand up to shipping interests and close the Chicago locks to keep out Asian carp, when we’re caving to them and letting invasive species into the Great Lakes by weakening our ballast requirements? Michigan has too much at stake - too many jobs - to stop being a leader now.

Of Judges and Rivers
By Drew YoungeDyke
This article first appeared in Riverwatch, published by the Anglers of the AuSable, and in Michigan Trout, published by the Michigan chapter of Trout Unlimited.

When you were waist-deep in your favorite river on Opening Day, you may have recalled literature you’ve read which described the scene before you. You may have thought of something from Jerry Dennis, Tom McGuane, Jim Harrison, or Ernest Hemingway. Maybe you recalled the following Robert Traver line from the intro to Trout Madness: “For lawyers, like all men, may be divided into two parts: those who fish and those who do not.”

Well, probably not, but Traver was the pen name of Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker.  The Michigan League of Conservation Voters actually put that theory to the test this Spring with its newest accountability tool, Green Gavels, which summarized and rated every conservation and environmental decision the Michigan Supreme Court has made in the last thirty years.

Michigan LCV has partnered with faculty and students from the University of Michigan Law School (Voelker’s alma mater) to present Michigan Supreme Court decisions in an easily understood format. Students have researched and summarized cases dating back to 1982, and Michigan LCV applied an analysis to the summaries to help readers quickly understand the impact that the Court can have on Michigan’s natural resources. The results were published online at www.michiganlcv.org/greengavels shortly after the trout opener. 

Anglers know as well as any the role that judicial decisions can play in conservation. It is anglers who see dead fish on the banks after a dam releases sediment, a rainbow-colored sheen after fuel is spilled, or foam gathered against a log after surface runoff drains who-knows-what into the streams we fish. Angler organizations are often the first to challenge a permit which will threaten a river and enforce a permit which will save one. 

The Anglers of the AuSable v. DEQ decision was a defining moment in conservation and Michigan law as to how we protect our rivers from pollution. The case examined whether Merit Energy could clean one watershed by discharging partially-contaminated into another, and whether citizens could sue to block a permit which would allow it. In a 2010 decision authored by Justice Alton Thomas Davis, the Court ruled that citizens could challenge a permit under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act and that discharging contaminated water into the AuSauble watershed was an unreasonable use of water. After the 2010 elections, though - in which Justice Davis lost and a new anti-conservation majority was elected - the Court vacated Justice Davis's opinion in April 2011. 

It has not always been this way, though: in 1979, the Court ruled in favor of the West Michigan Environmental Council, the Pigeon River County Association, Trout Unlimited and other groups to deny permits which would have allowed oil and natural gas drilling in the Pigeon River Country State Forest. It wasn’t until after the legislature threatened to gut the Michigan Environmental Protection Act that drilling was eventually allowed, and the long fight over drilling which preceded the WMEAC v. NRC decision helped to establish the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund as a compromise in 1976. In fact, Justice Voelker’s “Testament of a Fisherman,” made it into the court record in that case when read by angler Dave Smethurst. When Voelker found out that his writing made it into the record, he exclaimed, “We got the sons-a-bitches, didn’t we?”

While Green Gavels will not initially cover cases dating back to Voelker’s tenure on the Court, I’m sure that he would have earned a “Green Gavel” or two.  This tool is retrospective, but it will inform conservation-minded citizens on issues about which they care deeply. By going back 30 years, it will survey every conservation decision made by every sitting Michigan Supreme Court justice. Citizens will not only be able to understand the impact the Court can have on conservation, but they’ll also be able to see the impact that each sitting justice has had on conservation. Justices will have individual profile pages which list how they ruled in each case, and a scoreboard which shows all of their ratings together.

So that citizens need not be legal scholars to understand Green Gavels, Michigan LCV will provide ratings and analyses on cases and judicial decisions, as well as a glossary of any legal terms used. Aldo Leopold once wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”  While it was tempting to apply that standard to the cases, we recognized that many of them will be decided on legal issues which sometimes have little to do with their ultimate environmental impact. Therefore, we gathered an advisory panel of experienced Michigan attorneys - including a retired Michigan Supreme Court justice - to review our ratings and analyses to ensure that they are fair and objective.

Michigan courts often decide cases with conservation impacts. Few go before the Michigan Supreme Court each year, but those which do have significant impacts. Their decisions impact how all lower courts decide conservation cases, though.
For instance, the Pigeon River Country Association and Trout Unlimited joined in a lawsuit to enforce a consent judgment requiring Golden Lotus’s Song of the Morning Ranch yoga retreat to fully remove a dam which has caused multiple fish kills in its long history, most recently in 2008. Otsego County Circuit Court Judge Dennis Murphy ruled last summer that “remove the dam” means “remove the dam,” but Golden Lotus appealed the decision in hopes that “remove the dam” means “remove part of the dam.” The Court of Appeals denied Golden Lotus’s application to appeal in March. 

In the Upper Peninsula, the National Wildlife Federation, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, and Save the Wild UP are opposing the Kennecott Eagle Rock sulfide mine because it is being dug directly beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River, the spawning grounds of Lake Superior’s rare coaster brook trout. Conservationists worry that acid drainagefrom the waste rock produced by the mine could leach into the river and that the roof could collapse beneath the headwaters. They are appealing Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Paula Manderfield’s decision to deny their challenge.  Kennecott has already blasted into Eagle Rock, a spiritual Ojibwe site. 

Whether this particular cases make it to the Michigan Supreme Court or not, it is important for Michigan citizens  to know the impact the Court has through cases like these because more will certainly come in the future. In fact, just last week, the Court decided that the DEQ could hold municipalities responsible for preventing raw sewage from flowing into the Great Lakes. 

Unfortunately, many Michigan residents know very little about our Supreme Court.  Green Gavels will bridge that information gap by providing citizens across the state with an objective tool to gauge the impact of sitting Supreme Court justices, and our rivers and streams will be better off for it. 

Drew YoungeDyke is the Policy & Communications Specialist for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, a lawyer, and an angler.