Protecting Michigan's Water

The last remaining investigative newspaper in Michigan, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, has run an editorial that is both scary and hopeful. The scary part is information about some major loopholes in the public trust pacts that treat our lakes and streams as commodities and allow companies to remove unlimited amounts of water so long as it is in containers that hold less than 5.7 gallons of water. You can read the editorial here.

The hopeful part is that various citizens groups and a few elected officials are waking up to the threats. Read the story, then contact your elected officials and alert them to these issues. Remember, without legislative actions to close these loopholes, whenever Nestle's wants to take water from your water table, the courts will have to base their decisions on the law, and the law currently is based on the pacts.