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.

The Attack on Northern Michigan Public Land
by Drew YoungeDyke

The Michigan legislature has mercifully adjourned for its summer break, though I’m not sure if there’s much more damage left to inflict. As someone who grew up in northern Michigan, this was a tough week to analyze and write about conservation legislation for a living.

Northern Michigan was hit hard by the legislature’s actions this week and, sadly, some of the legislators representing northern districts were the very ones who voted for the legislation. In what may have been the single worst week for anti-conservation legislation coming out of Lansing, the legislature passed bills which capped the amount of public recreation land in northern Michigan, stripped dedicated funding for future public land acquisitions in northern Michigan, and opened the door for the spread of invasive vegetation.

THE LAND CAP BILL

The Land Cap Bill, SB 248, has a saga all its own. Sponsored by Sen. Thomas Casperson (R - Escanaba) and passed last year by the Senate, the House took it up this Spring. The original bill put a statewide cap on public land acquisition, restricting the amount of public recreation land available. What became abundantly clear during a January town hall meeting in Alpena was that the bill would primarily benefit only those in a position to purchase large tracts of Upper Peninsula land that would be forced into privatization by the bill. (More direct bills, like HB 4577 & 4579 and SB 1021 & 1022, are addressing the issue of payments in lieu of taxes, which proponents of the Land Cap Bill used as an excuse for its passage). 

Conservation groups including MUCC, Michigan Trout Unlimited and Michigan LCV, whose members sent thousands of messages to the committee, pushed for amendments to the bill which would lessen its negative impacts. One such amendment was passed by the House Committee on Natural Resources, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation to exempt the entire Lower Peninsula from the cap, which was offered by Rep. Wayne Schmidt (R - Traverse City).

The House of Representatives rejected that compromise on Tuesday, though, instead adopting one which specifically included the entire northern Lower Peninsula in the land cap. While language in the bill suggests that the legislature should remove the cap once they approve of a DNR land acquisition plan, there is absolutely nothing in the bill which guarantees this will ever happen.

On Wednesday, hundreds of Michigan LCV members sent messages to their representatives urging them to oppose the Land Cap Bill. However, in one of the closest votes this session, the House passed the bill 58-52 - a loss of just four votes! Disappointingly, four representatives from the northern Lower Peninsula could have made the difference and protected their own districts from the cap. Instead, Reps. Ray Franz (R - Onekama), Greg MacMaster (R - Kewadin), Frank Foster (R - Petoskey) and Philip Potvin (R - Cadillac) all voted to put their own districts under the Land Cap, as did Reps. Matt Huuki (R - Atlantic Mine) and Ed McBroom (R - Vulcan).

Several representatives should be commended for voting to protect public land access in their districts: Reps. Wayne Schmidt (R - Traverse City), Peter Pettalia (R - Alpena), Bruce Rendon (R - Lake City) and Stephen Lindberg (D - Marquette) all opposed the Land Cap Bill, and Reps. Jon Bumstead (R - Newago) and Holly Hughes (R - Montague) crossed party lines to oppose the bill. If you live in one of these representatives’ districts, please thank them for standing up for conservation.

THE NATURAL RESOURCES TRUST FUND

When the annual appropriations bill to allocate funds for Natural Resources Trust Fund projects was introduced in February, we heard rumors that politicians would try to remove projects recommended by the Natural Resources Trust Fund Board. The Trust Fund Board was created to take the politics out of the process by which royalties from the sale of oil and gas on state land are used to purchase and improve public recreation land at state and local levels of government.

Michigan LCV members sent hundreds of messages to members of the appropriations committee and they listened, allocating all $39 million to the recommended projects. An amendment was defeated on the House floor to remove four state land acquisition projects and the bill moved to the Senate. The Senate went on Spring Break, and when they returned they passed the bill unanimously. Before they passed the bill, though, they slipped in an amendment removing $4 million for those four state acquisition projects and ignoring the nonpartisan Trust Fund Board’s recommendations.

Last week, the House rejected the Senate’s changes, and this week the bill went into a conference comprised of three representatives and three senators for resolution: Senators Darwin Booher (R - Evert), Roger Kahn (R - Saginaw Twp.) and Morris Hood (D - Detroit), and Reps. Chuck Moss (R - Birmingham), Eileen Kowall (R - White Lake), andRichard LeBlanc (D - Westland). Of those, only Sen. Booher represents a northern Michigan district. Yesterday, the conference decided to approve funding for two eco-regional acquisition projects in the southeast and southwest Lower Peninsula, and deny funding for eco-regional projects in the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula.

Eco-regional projects allow the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) the flexibility to purchase high-priority lands when they become available. Often they include inholdings within existing state land areas that become available after the April application deadline for the next year’s Trust Fund review process. WIthout the flexibility to purchase these inholdings, the DNR will not receive funding to purchase the properties until 2014, by which time the properties may already be off the market. This means that no additional public land will be purchased in northern Michigan this year, even if it is high-priority land that would improve outdoor recreation opportunities in the region. Once again, just like in the Land Cap Bill, northern Michigan was specifically targeted for reduced public land access.

The whole state was impacted by the bill, though; after the conference reported its recommendations, the House voted to approve it but the Senate failed to consider it before it adjourned for its summer break, despite reports that the DNR agreed to the compromise only because it didn’t want to delay approval by the legislature. This means that funding for all of the approved local projects, like building pools and parks, will be put on hold at least until the Senate returns briefly in July. This means that almost a hundred projects across the state which could be employing summer workers, drawing tourists, and improving the quality of life for Michiganders, will have to wait, even though the money used for these projects is constitutionally-protected specifically for these kinds of projects!

PHRAGMITES AND BEACH GROOMING

Senate Bill 1052 - also sponsored by Sen. Casperson - was moved out of committee on Tuesday and passed on Thursday to remove state oversight of beach grooming between the ordinary high-water mark and waters edge on shorelines. While this area is not always public land, it is part of the public trust on Great Lakes shorelines. Amendments have improved this bill since its original version, which would have restricted public access to walk Great Lakes shorelines and damaged shoreline wetlands.

However, the bill that was passed still allows for removal of shoreline vegetation without a permit, which has important consequences for aquatic invasive vegetation like phragmites. Phragmites are an aquatic invasive plant that can spread when they’re improperly removed. While removal may seem like the obvious solution, it can actually make the problem worse if done improperly or at the wrong time. Saginaw Bay residents who are pushing this bill cite the spread of phragmites as the reason why the bill is needed; they want to be able to remove them without a permit.

By allowing statewide removal without a permit, though, the bill could subject northern Michigan bays like the Grand Traverse and Little Traverse to the same problems that Saginaw Bay is facing due to well-intentioned but potentially misinformed property owners. The purpose of the permit is not to prevent property owners from maintaining their beaches; it’s just to make sure they do so in a way that doesn’t harm neighboring property or the public trust in Great Lakes shorelines.

A late amendment to the bill requires the newly-created Invasive Species Council to consider recommendations for the removal of phragmites, but without a permitting process it will be difficult to enforce the council's recommendations. 

WHAT’S NEXT

After passing these bills, the legislature adjourned for summer break. The legislators will return to their districts to meet with residents and some will ask for your votes. They’ll have to explain to you how they represented you and why. When you're fishing, hiking, and camping this weekend, think about what public land means to you. Then ask your legislators, when you see them this summer, where they stood when it came to protecting public land access in Michigan. If you live north of Clare, ask your legislators why they restricted your right to enjoy outdoor recreation on public land or thank them for trying to protect it. And when they ask you for your vote in the Fall, ask them how they voted this Spring.

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE
CONTACT YOUR SENATOR

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/ 

State Reps Want to Drill Last Protected Wilderness in the Lower Peninsula
by Drew YoungeDyke

This post originally appeared on the Michigan League of Conservation Voters blog. Republished with permission.

The Michigan Constitution directs the legislature to protect natural resources as a "paramount" concern to the people of Michigan. Paramount means "above all else," the highest priority. 

Instead, the state House Natural Gas Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Aric Nesbitt (R - Lawton), released a report on April 24 which recommends "drilling and extraction of minerals in currently prohibited areas."

If that quote doesn't outrage you, it should. There are very few truly remote, wild places in the Lower Peninsula that offer the solitude and natural connection sought by hunters, anglers, campers, and hikers, and the habitat required to preserve healthy and abundant fish and wildlife communities. Those few places exist only because they were deliberately set aside from gas and oil development. They include places like the Jordan River Valley, the Mason Tract, and the Pigeon River Country. 

These places are located, however, in the middle of a swath of natural gas and oil deposits that span the northern Lower Peninsula. Wells have been drilled and haul roads have been built through almost every patch of private and public land bigger than 40 acres throughout the region, except for these few unique protected places.

The recommendation in the Natural Gas Subcommittee's report would open these lands to drilling and erase the last pockets of true semiwilderness in the Lower Peninsula. In doing so, this recommendation indicates a profound ignorance of the history of conservation in Michigan, because we've already had this debate. The system currently in place is a compromise that grew out of decades of dispute that resulted in the Natural Resources Trust Fund. 

The Pigeon River Country debate over drilling in the 1970s reached all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. The Court prohibited drilling, but subsequent legislation forced a compromise which allowed limited drilling in the southern third of the 105,000-acre forest and prohibited it in the northern two-thirds. Drilling is also prohibited in the 18,000-acre Jordan River Valley, where in 2007 the DNR acquired mineral rights to the valley through a mineral exchange in order to prevent drilling. The 4,700-acre Mason Tract, along the South Branch of the AuSable River, was donated to the state by George Mason in 1954. Attempts to drill beneath the Mason Tract from an adjacent parcel resulted in a permit denial by a federal judge in 2008.

The Natural Gas Subcommittee's recommendation to open these unique places to drilling indicates either complete ignorance of the debates, the lawsuits, and the compromises that went into protecting them or a callous disregard for the hunters and anglers who love them. Unfortunately, the latter seems more likely; this recommendation is just the latest example of a larger agenda to open up the last wild places in the nation to oil and gas development, as evidenced by the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act introduced in the U.S. House and Senate.

Michigan conservationists have worked for generations to protect the last few pockets of the closest thing we have to backcountry in the Lower Peninsula. We can't rest on their laurels, though. Proposals like this tell us that some politicians will stop at nothing to destroy the last best places in order to raid every last drop of fossil fuel in Michigan. Those of us who care about these places - the hunters, anglers, hikers, campers, backpackers and birders - have to oppose bad ideas like this loudly and vigorously. 

If you'd like to help us fight proposals to open these lands to drilling, you can sign up here for Michigan LCV Action Alerts.