Great Lakes Law

Students working in Wayne Law’s Transnational Environmental Law Clinic challenging massive highway expansion in midtown Detroit

The following student post is by Patrick Tully (B.A., University of Massachusetts; J.D., Wayne State University Law School, expected 2014). While in law school, Patrick received a Wayne Law public interest fellowship to work with Massachusetts Department of Conservation, Office of the General Counsel. He also interned at the Michigan Court of Appeals and worked a large Michigan law firm, where he will be returning to practice this fall. Patrick was one of the Wayne... Read more →

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy keynoting Michigan Law conference on public health and environmental law

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will be in Ann Arbor this Thursday, September 26 to give the opening keynote for the Environmental Law and Public Health Conference at the University of Michigan. The conference is sponsored by Michigan Law's Environmental Law and Policy Program and Environmental Law Society. The conference will explore the relationship between environmental protection and public health, with panels focusing on children’s health, industrial siting, and urban agriculture. Conference proceedings will be available... Read more →

Searching for solutions to environmental injustice

Low income and minority communities across the country from Detroit to Los Angeles continue to struggle for environmental justice. The relatively strong pollution control laws and legal enforcement tools that work in most settings consistently fail to remedy the ongoing problem of toxic hot spots, dirty air, and polluted rivers that disproportionately afflict these neighborhoods. This week, a new Title VI Civil Rights administrative complaint was filed by the Center on Race, Poverty and the... Read more →

Water access and shut-offs in Detroit: a legal analysis – guest post by Matthew Clark

Water affordability and access is a complex and contentious issue, even in regions that enjoy a relative abundance of freshwater. Widespread poverty, state tax policy, and years of infrastructure underinvestment have made water shut-offs a pressing challenge in Detroit. This guest post by Matthew Clark summarizes the legal issues and offers some suggestions for policy reform. Matt will be graduating from Wayne Law this spring, and his experience includes clerking with a local law firm,... Read more →

Michigan Supreme Court to decide case involving divestment of a public park on the shores of Lake Michigan

This is a guest post by Nick Schroeck, Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. Nick is the lead attorney for the environmental groups in the Supreme Court case described below. The Michigan Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument in Carol Drake and Clellen Bury v. City of Benton Harbor and Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Corporation to address whether the City of Benton Harbor may lease a portion of Jean Klock Park... Read more →

New study shows that black Americans in Midwestern metro areas are far more likely to live within a mile of a polluting industrial facility than white Americans

A new study has provided empirical evidence of what many environmental justice advocates have long known – black Americans are far more likely to live near pollution than white Americans. The disparity occurs in most parts of the country, and in cities, suburbs, and urban areas. However, the racial injustice is most terrible in Midwestern metro areas, where black Americans are almost twice as likely to live within a mile of a major pollution source... Read more →

Environmental groups and EPA step up the fight against tar sands oil refinery pollution in the Great Lakes

Tar sands oil gives coal some competition for the title of dirtiest fuel. From mining to refining to burning, tar sands oil is an environmental disaster. The Great Lakes is becoming a center for refining imported tar sands oil, which comes from western Canada. As a result, refinery pollution is threatening our water and our communities. BP’s Whiting Refinery on the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana has become a focal point in the legal... Read more →

Michigan issues new state rules to limit mercury emissions from power plants

Michigan has just announced new statewide rules to significantly limit mercury emissions from power plants. While the rules aren’t ideal, they are a significant victory on a critically important environmental and public health issue. Mike Shriberg, Policy Director of the Ecology Center, has worked on this issue for many years, going back to his former work with Environment Michigan. Mike was kind enough to offer this guest post on the new mercury emission rules. In... Read more →

Putting the Civil Rights Act to Work for Environmental Justice

This guest post is by Chris Winter, Co-Executive Director & Staff Attorney of the Crag Law Center in Portland, Oregon. Chris and I went to law school together, and despite his Pittsburgh roots, he moved out west after graduation. After several years in private practice with Stoel Rives LLP, Chris founded the Crag Law Center to provide affordable legal assistance to groups working on environmental and natural resource issues. Chris had a huge victory this... Read more →