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Of Judges and Rivers

5/25/2012

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Pigeon River
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.  

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Michigan LCV's Green Gavels Rates Michigan Supreme Court on Conservation Cases

5/17/2012

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Michigan LCV's Green Gavels Rates Michigan Supreme Court on Conservation Cases
by Drew YoungeDyke

ANN ARBOR --- The Michigan League of Conservation Voters (LCV), in cooperation with the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan Law School, has evaluated every Michigan Supreme Court decision over the past 30 years for their impacts on conservation and environmental protection. Following that analysis, Michigan LCV worked with a bipartisan advisory panel to apply ratings - red, green, or yellow gavels - to each relevant case so Michigan citizens can quickly gauge the conservation impact of each case and each justice’s opinion.

It is now available to every Michigander online at www.michiganlcv.org/greengavels.

“Green Gavels pulls back the heavy velvet curtains that have surrounded the Michigan Supreme Court for so long and allows citizens to look objectively at how each decision impacts our land, air, and water,” said Michigan LCV Executive Director Lisa Wozniak.

University of Michigan Law students, under the supervision of Professor David Uhlmann, researched and wrote objective summaries of every relevant case. Professor Uhlmann previously served as chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton and Bush administrations.

"Judicial decisions play a significant role in environmental protection by ensuring that our environmental laws are properly implemented. The Green Gavels project will provide greater understanding about the role of the courts in our environmental law system and enable voters to make choices that better reflect their environmental values," said Professor David Uhlmann.

Attorneys on staff at Michigan LCV applied positive, neutral, or negative ratings to each case and to each justice’s rulings. Ratings were then peer-reviewed by the bipartisan advisory panel. The University of Michigan Law School did not participate in the rating process and takes no position regarding support or opposition for any judicial candidates.

Michigan LCV already grades the State Legislature and Governor Snyder through its Legislative Scorecard and “How Green Is Your Governor?” programs, respectively. Green Gavels extends this work to the judicial branch, thereby finally holding each branch of state government accountable, the only conservation organization in the state to do so.

“The Supreme Court’s decisions touch every trout stream, every forest, every park, and every inch of Great Lakes shoreline,” said Tom Baird, a Member of the Board of Directors for the Anglers of the Au Sable and one of the lead attorneys on the landmark Anglers of the Au Sable v. DEQ Supreme Court case in 2010. “Green Gavels is a much-needed project. People need to know the impact that justices have on conservation.”

The Michigan League of Conservation Voters, a 501(C)(4) nonprofit organization, is the leading political voice for protecting Michigan’s environment. Green Gavels can be found on the Michigan LCV website at www.michiganlcv.org/ 

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Last Stand at Eagle Rock

12/4/2011

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This post originally appeared on the Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education Fund Blog.  
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Last Stand at Eagle Rock
by Drew YoungeDyke
A new suflide mining operation in the heart of the Upper Peninsula wilderness is generating controvery over minerals, jobs, rivers, and trout.

On Wednesday, November 25, Ingham County Circuit Judge Paula Manderfield dismissed the case challenging the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s permit allowing Kennecott Eagle Minerals Co. to proceed with its Eagle Rock nickel and copper mine.Conservation groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, the Huron Mountain Club, the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and Save the Wild UP, oppose the project because the mine will be almost directly beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River, the spawning grounds for Lake Superior’s rare coaster brook trout, and it will desecrate a religious site.

The mine facilities will be built on 30 acres in the middle of the Yellow Dog Plains, a pure backcountry wilderness valued by hunters, anglers, hikers, moose, and wolves. Eagle Rock, the site of the mine entrance, is a spiritual place for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. The Eagle Rock mine would extract nickel and copper from sulfide rock, which produces acid. Waste rock would be kept on site, mixed with limestone or cement, and poured into the mine when it closes. Conservationists worry that pollutants could leach from the waste rock into the river.

Proponents of the mine argue that the Kennecott mine and others like it will provide sorely-needed jobs in an area devastated by high unemployment. Each new mine is anticipated to create 200-300 new jobs which will last 5-10 years, the estimated life of the mines. Mine officials contend that new mining practices and water treatment requirements will prevent the environmental catastrophe feared by conservationists. Dan Hornbogen, a Marquette resident and mine supporter, told the Detroit Free Press, “there are no guarantees, but these people know what they’re doing.”

Kennecott certainly knows how to mine – they’re a wholly owned subsidiary of London giant Rio Tinto – but their track record inspires less confidence in their ability to mitigate environmental damage. Contaminated water still flows into Wisconsin’s Flambeau River from waste rock at a Kennecott mine which closed in the 1990s, and Kennecott’s Greens Creek mine is the second-largest toxic waste polluter in Alaska.

Another concern is that the DEQ simply doesn’t have the resources to monitor the mine or to clean up after it if there is contamination. Though DEQ director Dan Wyatt believes that the company’s $17 million dollar bond would cover any cleanup, the DEQ’s appropriations have been drastically cut over the last decade and they’ve abandoned other cleanup sites in Michigan due to a lack of funding.

Environmental integrity is tough to maintain in any economy, let alone a struggling one. As new mining permits are granted, Michigan citizens have to ask themselves whether a few hundred short-term jobs are worth potential permanent damage to our remaining wild places, our woods, our wildlife, and our rivers.

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    Drew YoungeDyke is an award-winning freelance outdoor writer, a regional communications director for national nonprofit conservation organization, the Vice President of the Michigan Outdoor Writers Association, a board member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America, and a member of the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers.

    All posts at Michigan Outside are independent and do not necessarily reflect the views OWAA, AGLOW, MOWA, the or any other entity.


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