Dispatches

Court to DEQ: Enforce the Clean Air Act!
Last June a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., upheld the EPA’s authority to enforce the federal Clean Air Act and require coal-burning power plants in Michigan to dramatically reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, which causes smog and damages health. DEQ Director Russell Harding, who has spent years allying with utility companies to block new clean air rules from taking effect, has announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Sorry, Wal-Mart
Last May Ingham County Circuit Judge Lawrence Glazer ruled that residents have the right to challenge wetland fill permits issued by the DEQ to construct a Wal-Mart outside Lansing. The decision overturned internal DEQ rulings over the years blocking such challenges. Township residents brought the lawsuit with the support of the Michigan Environmental Law Center and the firm of Olson, Noonan & Bzdok. Said Pat Hagen, a lead plaintiff in the case, “This week the rights of bird-watchers, mountain bikers, and residents were put on equal footing with the rights of millionaire developers. It’s about time.”

Share a Car, Lower Costs
A growing number of Traverse City residents are reducing their transportation expenses, and the region’s congestion. While most motorists spend almost $6,000 a year to own and operate a vehicle, members of CarSharing Traverse pay $100 to join, then $2 per hour and 50 cents per mile to use a car owned by the co-op. The program, which is common in Europe and also has taken root in Seattle, Portland, and Boston, was co-founded in Traverse City by Sharon Flesher, a writer and mother, and Bob Otwell, an engineer and Institute board member.

Road Dis-repair
There’s little chance that Michigan’s painful road repair work is going to end soon. The Detroit Free Press reported in a front page story last June that despite spending billions of dollars, more than half the state’s roads have seven years or less of surface life remaining. More than 25% have two years or less. The article was based on statistics pried loose from the Michigan Department of Transportation by the Institute using the Freedom of Information Act.

Better, Faster, Cheaper
Last June, with the help of the Institute and our Chicago-based consultant, Petoskey area residents completed a plan that would solve traffic congestion at one-tenth the cost and in a fraction of the time required to build the proposed $70 million bypass. For a copy of the plan, call the Institute or read it on our Web site at www.mlui.org/projects/transport/
petoskeybypass/petbyps3.html.

Clear and Focused
Hal Fitch, head of the DEQ’s Geological Survey Division, has long opposed new rules to protect the public from exposure to hydrogen sulfide, a dangerous contaminant present in some deposits of oil and gas. H2S exposure can result in numbness, disorientation, respiratory damage, and risk of death. At a meeting of the Michigan Environmental Science Board last March, Mr. Fitch revealed why he is so confident in ignoring the risks from H2S: State employees working in the field have been exposed to high H2S concentrations, and recovered just fine, he said. In effect, if DEQ staffers can take it, says Mr. Fitch, so can the public.

State Forest Logging
State Sen. George McManus (R-Traverse City), who insists he’s no “tree hugger,” proved it again last spring. Acting on behalf of the timber lobby, he pushed for and the Legislature approved a bill that sets record logging levels on state lands. Some 69,000 acres will be felled in the coming year. Sen. McManus forced the bill through his Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources despite facing a packed audience of conservationists, and allowing just one of them to testify.

Easy Choice
A statewide poll by the League of Conservation Voters last spring of 500 Michigan voters found that 82% believe a healthy economy and environmental protection are compatible. A majority also wanted Michigan to strengthen its environmental laws, and favored tougher enforcement of existing laws.

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Standing Up for Public Land
Charge citizens to keep environmentally sensitive public lands off-limits to oil and gas leasing? Believe it or not, industry lobbyists recently pushed to require a hefty $2,000 application fee and block state “land reserve” designations, even though such fees are illegal under the Constitution. Lands in the Jordan Valley and around Ludington State Park are the first nominated under a new program. Last July the Institute and Friends of the Jordan River Watershed provided convincing testimony before the Natural Resource Commission to effectively take the air out of the fee proposal. “It’s a bad idea, even if it were legal,” the Institute’s Hans Voss told the NRC.

Ruling for Sprawl
Charlevoix County’s Marion Township has long valued its serene open spaces and close-knit farming community. When the township needed a new high school, two citizen groups advocated rebuilding the existing school in a Charlevoix neighborhood. But last July the township board and planning commission approved construction of a new school on 74 acres nearly three miles from town. Running to the school will be a new sewer line capable of serving hundreds of new homes and businesses expected to spring up in the vicinity.