Michigan Environmental and Social Justice Groups Call for a Ban on Industrial Agriculture Polluting Practices

For Immediate Release — March 20, 2019 
Contact: Rebecca Wolf, 202-683-2507, rwolf@fwwatch.org
                Mike Berkowitz, 517-999-1305, mike.berkowitz@sierraclub.org

 

The Great Farms Great Lakes Coalition, including Public Justice, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter and Food & Water Watch, laud proposed legislation to protect the state’s drinking water, sustainable family farms, and rural communities.

  
Lansing — State legislators introduced a bill today that would ban disposing of manure, fertilizer, and waste from livestock operations on frozen or snow-covered soil. Senator Rosemary Bayer and Representative Kevin Hertel introduced the bill — Senate Bill 247and House Bill 4418 — which would protect valuable state water resources from contamination. 

Michigan has close to 300 industrial-scale livestock facilities which, depending on the species, can house up to millions of animals that produce enormous amounts of waste — a toxic slurry of manure, chemicals, pathogens and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. The nitrogen and phosphorus — especially from large-scale dairy operations — feed algae blooms like the one that poisoned drinking water for Toledo and southern Michigan in 2014. This toxic manure runs into the sources of drinking water.  

"There are a lot of threats to water quality in Michigan and the solutions aren't always obvious, but in the case of harmful algae blooms, we know one thing we can do immediately to address the problem," said Gail Philbin, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter director. "A total ban on the practice of applying waste to frozen or snow-covered ground, with no exceptions, will stem a significant source of nutrients that feed the algae blooms that compromise water quality in Michigan every year." 

“Michiganders understand that applying manure to frozen or snow-covered ground is a bad way to treat your neighbors,” said Jessica Culpepper of Public Justice. “Factory farms do it to make an extra buck at the expense of the state’s waterways, and the safety of its people. With the introduction of this bill, the people’s representatives have an opportunity to ensure corporations operating in Michigan are responsible to those who use its waters.”

“Enough is enough,” said Rebecca Wolf of Food & Water Watch. “Allowing factory farms to dump manure on frozen ground where it almost immediately makes its way into rivers, streams and lakes is a ridiculous giveaway to this polluting industry – at the expense of our drinking water. It’s time for Michigan legislators to take a stand and protect the people of Michigan, the Great Lakes, and drinking water from the toxic pollution generated by factory farms.”

On April 17th, members from groups across Michigan will gather at the State Capitol to pressure legislators to take bold action on agricultural pollution by passing this legislation.

###

Governor Snyder Signs Bills Giving Polluting Industries Control Over Environmental Protections in Michigan

Friday, June 29, 2018

Contact: 

April Thomas, 206.321.3850, april.thomas@sierraclub.org

LANSING, MI -- Today Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed into law two bills which allow industry lobbyists to rewrite the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) rulebook and overrule MDEQ permit decisions. Now signed into law, Senate Bills 652-653 will ultimately lead to more environmental and public health disasters like the Flint water crisis, toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, Nestle’s massive Great Lakes water withdrawal, and toxic air pollution hot spots in Detroit. Over two thousand Sierra Club activists contacted Gov. Snyder since the bills were passed to demand that he veto these dangerous bills, but he failed to do so. These bills will prevent impacted communities and residents concerned about industry pollution from having any say in permit and rule decisions.

“Michigan, like the rest of the nation, has already been robbed of our best protections against dangerous air and water pollution since Scott Pruitt took control of EPA,” said Rhonda Anderson, Organizing Manager for Sierra Club. “Now that this legislation has been signed by Governor Snyder, we’ll have our own Pruitt right here in Michigan, with polluting industries in direct control of our state environmental agency. Communities are already facing unacceptable levels of toxins and pollution in our state. The crisis in Flint has yet to be addressed. Now that Governor Snyder has given away control of our environmental protections in Michigan to big polluters, we are facing an unprecedented crisis of environmental injustice and public health.”

Gov. Snyder has also failed to implement recommendations developed by the Environmental Justice Work Group that he himself created following direct recommendations from the Flint Water Advisory Task Force and the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee’s Policy Subcommittee. The Work Group, which includes many prominent environmental justice community leaders, submitted their recommendations in March but have yet to see any response from the Governor.

"These bills give industry lobbyists and special interest groups overreaching powers into public health decisions,” said Michelle Martinez, Statewide Coordinator for the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. “The levels of cancer and cardiovascular disease for our elders, and asthma in children, in areas of Southeast Michigan are costing our families billions of dollars every year, and for some residents forcing them to make harsh decision between medication and other life essentials. Why continue to roll back protections for clean air and clean water now after such staggering crisis like Flint? Instead we should be looking at implementing the Environmental Justice Recommendations put forth-- which have been sitting on Snyder's desk since March-- they provide real solutions, and steps to protect the Great Lakes and safeguard their residents today and in the future."

MDEQ already has a slipshod track record on public health. Allowing polluting industry officials to regulate themselves sets the state up for further health crises and long-lasting environmental degradation.

“The lack of transparency, poor responsiveness to public concerns, and continued negligence of the Michigan DEQ violates basic human rights,” said Mike Berkowitz, Legislative and Political Director for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. “A public forum for community members to call attention to dangerous environmental problems, and to hold in check political pressure on agency staff is absolutely essential. Governor Snyder’s decision to sign these bills is a slap in the face to front-line communities dealing with environmental injustices and will further degrade the DEQ’s already terrible pattern of not listening to citizen concerns.”

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.

ACTION ALERT: Clean Water For Flint!

Demand Clean Public Water for Flint!

On Friday, April 6, Governor Snyder notified the Flint community through a press release that the State of Michigan would no longer provide bottled water once the existing supply ran out, despite continuing concerns about water safety. As of Tuesday, April 10, the supply of bottled water dried up, leaving residents scrambling to secure clean water for drinking, cooking and other daily needs.

Contact Governor Snyder and Lieutenant Governor Calley to tell them Flint needs bottled water until after all lead service lines are replaced, and their accountability and transparency are necessary for all of Michigan! 

Lead service lines are being replaced quickly when weather allows - and replacing the remaining thousands of lead service lines will at least take until the end of 2019. When the pipes are replaced, lead is released into the water supply - potentially spiking lead levels for months after pipes are replaced in neighborhoods housing tens of thousands of Flint residents. There is no safe level of lead in drinking water, and effects are especially dangerous for children and pregnant residents.

The State of Michigan has not earned the public's trust in ensuring the safety of Flint's tap water supply, and has evaded accountability for addressing the water crisis it caused. Examples from 2018 include:

• State officials ignored repeated community demands for transparency about comprehensive water quality measures, including fluctuating levels of lead and bacteria-killing chlorine. 

• Governor Snyder publicly discredited and intimidated researchers examining concerning bacteria levels in Flint point-of-use water filters, including by pulling research funding. 

• Rich Baird, Governor Snyder's lead cabinet employee for the Flint water crisis response, stole a Flint-based researcher's proposal for a comprehensive school water testing program that would intentionally involve members of the school community to build trust in the water testing results. He commissioned an outside researcher to do a watered-down version of the program without a component to rebuild trust. 

• During recent water testing of Flint school faucets, State officials changed the water sampling procedure mid-way through three rounds of testing, apparently to obtain desired results for lead levels in the water. These test results were used by the State to declare that the water crisis was over, which lead to the abrupt end of bottled water for Flint residents. 

• Meanwhile, as Flint residents pay one of the highest drinking water rates in the nation, the State nearly doubled the amount of water that Nestle can extract from Michigan to bottle and sell for profit, despite more thank 85,000 public comments against this move. Privatizing Michigan water is unjust for all of Michigan residents and signals a worrying trend in our state government.

Contact Governor Snyder and Lieutenant Governor Calley to tell them Flint needs bottled water until after all lead service lines are replaced, and their accountability and transparency are necessary for all of Michigan!