FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE More Information:

Monday, April 17, 2006 Cyndi Roper 517-490-1394

Terry Swier 231-972-8856

Gayle Miller 517-484-2372

Proposed Great Lakes Protections Win Support

Leading Environmental Groups Endorse Putting Great Lakes In Constitution

LANSING – Clean Water Action, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation and the Sierra Club endorsed proposals unveiled today to strengthen recent legislation signed into law by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm that protects our Great Lakes and other Michigan waters from diversion.

The Legislative package, unveiled by House Democratic Leader Dianne Byrum at a press conference in Lansing, would prohibit new or expanded exports of bottled water unless they are explicitly approved by the Legislature. The bill package includes new legislation, stiffer penalties for water diversions and a proposed constitutional amendment to protect against Great Lakes water diversions or exports.

“Putting the Great Lakes in Michigan’s Constitution means providing our strongest possible protections for our state’s most treasured asset—our waters,” said Cyndi Roper, Clean Water Action Great Lakes Policy Director. “It is clear to many of us that unless we do this it is likely that large corporate interests and their friends in Lansing and Washington, DC will be unable to resist turning our public waters into private wells.”

According to a news release today from Leader Byrum, the Democratic package will, among other things:

Amend the state's definition of "diversion" to include the transfer of bottled water outside the Great Lakes Basin;

Require all proposed diversions to receive legislative approval, and:

Increase the civil fine for violating the prohibition against diversions to a range of $25,000 to $3 million, up from $1,000.

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In February Governor Granholm signed into law standards for any new or expanded water bottling plants withdrawing more than 250,000 gallons per day. The law provides for water efficiency improvements, public input for diversions outside the Great Lakes basin, and reporting requirements for large-scale water users. The bill did not prevent the sale of bottled water outside the basin and provided an exemption from anti-diversion rules for water exported in containers of 5.7 gallons or less.

“We must eliminate this legal Trojan Horse of water privatization that is threatening our control of Great Lakes waters,” said Terry Swier, President, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. “The current exemption takes us down the path toward more demands by more international companies who want to market and export Great Lakes waters.”

“A company that can claim water as a private commodity if it’s in a 5.7 gallon container is a company that can claim a right to that water in any size container and at any amount,” said Gayle Miller, Legislative Coordinator, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. “Great Lakes waters belong to all of us, our children and our grandchildren, and we must make sure our waters are not privatized and outsourced.”

As the worldwide demand for water increases and the Great Lakes State becomes more and more of a magnet for water export plants, the political clout of international water companies will increase, said Roper. Eventually, she said, we will see special interest money being used to create even larger diversion exemptions for water exports unless we put Great Lakes protections in Michigan’s Constitution.

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