News

  • Line 5 Advisory Board Meeting June 12th Petoskey
    Bring your attitude and show up to SHUT DOWN LINE 5! Petoskey Middle School 801 Northmen Dr, Petoskey, MI 49770 9am Monday June 12th If you want to use official channels to make a 3-minute statement you will be required to complete a Public Appearance Card before the public comment portion of the meeting. Cards will be available at the meeting.
    • 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Public Comment Period
    • 12:00 – 1:00 PM – Lunch Break
    • 1:00 – 3:30 PM – Meeting Business
  • Line 5 advisory board meeting 3/13 – Wear blue!
    Line 5. We all know the 63 year old oil pipeline that runs beneath the Straits of Mackinaw. (Well, most of us. More and more each day.) We all know how this line is operated by Enbridge, the same company that let nearly one million gallons of oil spill into the Kalamazoo River. We all want Line 5 shut down. This is the summer we turn up the heat; beginning March 13th at noon. Show up and demand or support a decision for the immediate shut down of line 5! The rally will begin at noon, the meeting begins at 1:30. WEAR BLUE!!! – Wear blue clothing in support of a healthy Great Lakes Basin! The meeting will be held at 7109 West Saginaw Highway Lansing, Mi in the Lake Michigan Room.  Previous agendas and meeting minutes can be found here A facebook event has been created by Fen Valley Earth First!, and can be found here Oil And Water Don’t Mix have also put out a public call-out Want to speak during the meeting? Email simonsh@michigan.gov to register for the public comment session. Check out FLOW‘s new fact sheet for some ideas. Even if you can’t or don’t want to speak during the meeting, showing up and holding a sign outside will help, and let’s pack the meeting hall with people dressed in blue as a show of solidarity for clean water! Thanks to models from the Graham Sustainability Institute at University of Michigan, we know what a Line 5 spill would look like. Devastating. Watch below:
  • Line 5 Postcard Series
      Announcing the hot new postcard series for the 2017 summer season! These attractive designs carry a powerful message. Download the pdf below. It works with Avery postcard 4 per page templates, or you can just print it onto card stock and cut it out yourself. Not rocket science. Use the postcards to write comments to your representatives, agencies accepting public comments, agencies not accepting public comments, Heidi’s house, wherever. We can’t tell you what to do. It’s open source.    Line 5 postcards 4/page PDF CACC Line 5 Postcard Series 1: anticopyright N©!2017 The publishers, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, humbly put this post card series at the disposal of those who, in good faith, might circulate, plagiarize, revise, and otherwise make use of them in the course of making the world a better place. Possession, reproduction, transmission, excerpting, introduction as evidence in court and all other applications by any corporation, government body, security organization, or similar party of evil intent are strictly prohibited and punishable under natural law.
  • Snyder appoints former BP Exec to head DEQ
    Today, Governor Rick Snyder appointed Heidi Grether, the former executive of BP America, as the new director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). Grether is the currently the deputy Director of the Michigan Agency for Energy (MAE). Deepwater_Horizon_Oil_Spill_-_Gulf_of_Mexico BP is responsible for one of the largest marine oil spills in history after an oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico exploded in 2010. In her former role at BP, Grether was in charge of supervising Gulf Coast restoration efforts. In April 2014, BP claimed that cleanup was substantially complete, but the United States Coast Guard said that a lot of work remained. Reports from individuals on the Gulf Coast indicate the same. 4677801702_f4d61c98ea_b While the administration is attempting to greenwash the appointee, enviro and other justice organizations around the state aren’t taking the bait. “I am infuriated but not shocked that Snyder chose to appoint someone who had a hand in one of the worst man-made water disasters and cleanup failures in history to head the MDEQ,” said Melissa Mays, Flint resident and activist with Water You Fighting For and Flint Rising. “We have spoken with residents who are still affected by the BP disaster and they expressed concern that Flint water will also not get cleaned up properly. As we sit here in Flint, still unable to safely use our water, reading about who Snyder handpicked to run the MDEQ, we see those fears are more likely to be realized.” “Snyder’s decision to yet again side with corporate polluters over protecting peoples’ health and safety continues to show his callous indifference to the suffering of Flint families and all Michiganders that have been harmed by the culture of putting the bottom-line first at the MDEQ,” said Lynna Kaucheck, senior organizer with Food & Water Watch. And in our own office, CACC board member and volunteer coordinator Jennifer Raymond was quoted as saying, “Snyder’s actions clearly underscore the need for grassroots environmental efforts as our civic leaders are clearly not prioritizing the needs of the environment around us.”
    [caption id="attachment_474" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Clouds of smoke billow up from controlled burns taking place in the Gulf of Mexico May 19, 2010. The controlled burns were set to reduce the amount of oil in the water following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. (DoD photo by Chief Petty Officer John Kepsimelis, U.S. Coast Guard/Released) Clouds of smoke billow up from controlled burns taking place in the Gulf of Mexico (DoD photo by Chief Petty Officer John Kepsimelis, U.S. Coast Guard/Released)[/caption]
    http://flintrising.com/blog-post/snyder-appoints-former-bp-executive-mdeq-director/ https://fenvalleyearthfirst.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/former-bp-executive-appointed-to-direct-michigan-department-of-environmental-quality/
    http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/gov_rick_snyder_appoints_forme.html