FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David Holtz
July 25, 2007
313.300.4454
CORPORATE
INTERESTS ERODING PUBLIC’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO PROTECT GREAT LAKES
MI Supreme
Court ruling threatens public control over water resources
The Michigan Supreme Court’s 4-3
decision today in Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation
vs.
Nestle Waters North America, Inc puts Michigan at grave risk of losing its
ability
to enforce environmental laws and protect our natural resources.
“Four justices have cast their vote in
favor of
big business and against citizens, local governments and communities,”
David
Holtz, Clean Water Action Michigan Director. “Coming on the day new
bills were
introduced in the Michigan Legislature to protect Michigan’s
waters, the Court’s ruling puts a giant exclamation point and a new
urgency on
the need for the public to keep control over Michigan’s waters. Michigan’s
future is much more at risk today because of the court’s attack on Michigan’s
constitutionally protected natural resources.”
Justices Taylor, Young, Corrigan and
Markman—the Court’s
right-wing ideological activists —were in the majority in striking down
the
Michigan Environmental Protection Act’s (MEPA) provisions allowing
citizens to
sue to enforce environmental laws, or so-called “standing”. Three dissenting opinions by Justices Weaver,
Kelley and Cavanaugh all concurred that the majority’s decision was at
odds
with the Michigan Constitution, which places a duty on the Michigan
Legislature
to protect natural resources.
Citizens have
used MEPA to produce
such public interest victories as halting Shell Oil’s plan to
indiscriminately drill for oil and natural gas in the Pigeon River Country
State Forest
in the late 1970s.
Other MEPA-based victories include blocking Mason
County from dredging damaging
new
channels in a river in 1975, and forcing developers to comply with
environmental standards in building condominiums along Lake Michigan in Manistee in the late 1990s. Today’s ruling flowed from a 2001 lawsuit
brought by Mecosta County residents who challenged water mining
operations by
Nestle that were impacting nearby streams, wetlands and a lake.
“When the Legislature in 1970 enacted
MEPA and authorized
citizens to sue to protect Michigan
environment under our laws, lawmakers were fulfilling a constitutional
duty,”
said Holtz. “The
Michigan Supreme Court—in a brazen power
grab and feat of judicial activism—today said the interests of
companies like
Nestle trump the people’s representatives and the state’s Constitution.”
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