Ecological disasters do not wait for political elections. And Line 5 at the Straits of Mackinac seems oblivious to the campaign calendar. To date, the Band-Aid fix-it approach for line 5 has only resulted in Band-Aid size – oh, I mean dinnerplate size — bare metal spots on the pipeline itself. The law is clear…. Read more »
Tuesday, FLOW submitted comments regarding the draft 2017 Lakewide Action and Management Plan (LAMP) for Lake Huron. We are concerned about the LAMP’s failure to address a major threat to the waters and ecosystem of Lake Huron: the Enbridge Corporation’s Line 5 pipelines traversing 4.6 miles on the bottomlands of the Straits of Mackinac. You… Read more »
Some of my favorite childhood memories include hiking trips across Northern Michigan and taking in the beauty that is our Great Lakes. As my own children grew up, we regularly went on family trips across Michigan because I wanted to make sure the natural wonders of our state could be passed along to the… Read more »
FLOW is forever spreading awareness. It is our job to educate people about public trust and about what is happening with the Great Lakes in the world today – the joys and potential threats, and what we can do about our water. Part of that awareness is through social media. We teamed up with Eightfold… Read more »
Observations by some that the State of Michigan has no regulatory authority over hazardous liquid pipelines is correct to the extent that it is understood in the context of safety regulations — standards, inspection and enforcement; safety code enforcement is covered by the federal PHMSA law, regulation and agency. However, it is not true that… Read more »
What Are Harmful Algal Blooms? Harmful algal blooms (HABs) represent a grave systemic threat to our waters, underscoring the inextricable connection between water-energy-food and climate change, and the need for comprehensive and holistic policies and regulations. The slimy green algae excrete toxins that threaten our drinking water, fish populations, and water recreation. Urban, industrial, and agricultural phosphorus… Read more »
Extreme Energy Extraction and Transportation As humanity approaches the end of Earth’s conventional, easy-to-reach oil and gas, we are now turning to the fossil fuels that are most difficult to reach and process. The fossil fuel age continues thanks to extreme energy extraction processes, such as the mining of oil sands bitumen (i.e. from… Read more »
What Happened to Flint’s Drinking Water? The city of Flint, Michigan, suffered a man-made public health crisis caused by failed public policy. Toxic levels of lead in Flint’s drinking water beginning in early 2014 harmed the developing brains of young children and caused massive hardship for city residents, who were advised to avoid using the… Read more »
Latest Posts + News Reports + Policy Briefs Line 5 Citizen Toolkit Meet the New Flow
Filling a void left by the state, a Great Lakes law and policy group and its scientific advisors released a report today calling on the Snyder administration to take interim steps – including the immediate temporary halt of oil flowing through two aging pipelines in the Mackinac Straits – and swiftly pursue an “action plan”… Read more »
