Great Lakes Law

Minnesota appeals court upholds the state’s new ballast water permit despite challenge from environmental group

The Minnesota court of appeals has affirmed the state agency’s issuance of a new ballast water permit, despite an environmental group’s challenge that the permit does not do enough to protect Lake Superior from aquatic invasive species. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s ballast water discharge permit allows ships to delay new treatment technologies to prevent biological pollution until 2016, leaving Lake Superior vulnerable to more invasive species for another seven years. The Minnesota Center for... Read more →

Better protections for wetlands in Michigan and the Great Lakes

The National Wildlife Federation’s recent report, Protecting and Restoring the Kidneys of the Great Lakes: An Assessment of Wetlands Programs in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, has reinvigorated ongoing efforts to improve wetland protection in Michigan. Michigan is one of two states that has a federally delegated wetland protection program, but for budgetary and political reasons the state is considering dropping its wetland protection program, leaving only the federal government to do the job (and... Read more →

Genesee County’s proposed Lake Huron water withdrawal would drain public resources and undermine regional cooperation

The following guest post on Genesee County’s proposed Lake Huron water withdrawal is by Nick Schroeck. Nick wears several hats – attorney and regional representative at the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center, board member of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, and professor at Wayne State’s new Environmental Law Clinic. He is also a former Sea Grant Fellow with the Great Lakes Commission. Nick’s work focuses on water protection at the local, regional,... Read more →

Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment

The Environmental Law Institute’s July 2009 issue of The Environmental Law Reporter is focused on “The National Environmental Policy Act at 40: How a Visionary Statute Confronts 21st Century Impacts.” The articles in the issue came from a joint conference sponsored by the Environmental Law Institute, George Washington University Law School, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. My article, Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment, 39 Environmental Law Reporter 10667 (2009), proposes a new state-based... Read more →

Reforming bottled water safety and labeling rules

While most of my work on bottled water is focused on the environmental impact of water withdrawals from aquifers and streams, there are also important issues of safety and labeling in the bottled water industry. Those issues were the subject this week of a Congressional hearing and federal Government Accountability Office report. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), held a hearing on the “Regulation... Read more →

Supreme Court rules that mining waste can be dumped into waterbodies as “fill” under the Clean Water Act

In its second Clean Water Act case of the term, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the mining waste can be dumped into waterbodies as “fill” under the Clean Water Act. The mining company, Coeur Alaska, sought permission to dispose of waste from its Kensington Gold Mine into nearby Lower Slate Lake as “fill” and not “pollution” under the Clean Water Act. Thus, the company claimed that discharge of the mining waste was only... Read more →