Groups Criticize Snyder for Allowing Industry Takeover of MDEQ, Failure to Implement Environmental Justice Work Group Recommendations

LANSING, MI -- Groups held a press conference (LISTEN HERE) today criticizing Gov. Snyder for failing to veto legislation which will allow industry lobbyists to rewrite the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality rulebook and overrule MDEQ permit decisions. Now signed into law, Senate Bills 652-653 will ultimately lead to more environmental and public health disasters like the Flint water crisis, toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, Nestle’s massive Great Lakes water withdrawal, and toxic air pollution hot spots in Detroit. Over two thousand people contacted Gov. Snyder since the bills were passed to demand that he veto these dangerous bills, but he failed to do so.

The groups also called on Gov. Snyder to implement recommendations developed by the Environmental Justice Work Group. The Environmental Justice Work Group was created by Governor Snyder following direct recommendations from the Flint Water Advisory Task Force and the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee’s Policy Subcommittee. The Work Group, which includes many prominent environmental justice community leaders, submitted their recommendations over six months ago but have yet to see any response from the Governor.

“These bills show that industries' lobbyists have control of the Michigan government not the governor, not the people! And millions of Michigan residents’ health and safety are going to be put into the hands of company representatives that have profits as their main priority,” said Theresa Landrum, a community activist from Southwest Detroit and Environmental Justice Work Group member 2017/2018.  “We need the check-and-balance system of a strong Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to be independent of company/industry influence. Michigan can not, our children can not afford another Flint Crisis to happen!”

The DEQ already has a slipshod track record on public health. Allowing polluting industry officials to regulate themselves sets the state up for further health crises and long-lasting environmental degradation.

“In the rush to bend over backwards for lobbyists representing manufacturers, the energy industry, and factory farms, our Michigan Legislature has ignored the responsibility to protect the public health and the environment as stated in the 1963 Michigan Constitution, Articles 51 and 52,” said Flint resident Lawrence Reynolds, MD. “The Governor's Environmental Work Group visited rural and urban communities across Michigan and heard about the damages and threats to the public health, public safety, and our quality of life. During our deliberations, the industry representatives on the work group worked overtime to block our chance to assure fair access to permit appeals, transparency in the decision making process, and  accountability for decisions that pollute our air, water, soil, homes, and bodies. These same individuals would not allow even the risk of these exposures in their communities or add another polluting industry, dump, or project near their children's schools and playgrounds.”

These bills will prevent impacted communities and residents concerned about industry pollution from having any say in permit and rule decisions. Citizens and environmental experts should be overseeing the MDEQ, not polluting industry lobbyists.

“Michigan residents can kiss any hope of clean water, air, and soil good-bye,” said Pam Taylor, an activist with Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan who documents water pollution from factory farms in her area. “For the past 20 years, we’ve fought to remove the control of the Ag industry over regulations that keep factory farm sewage out of Michigan’s drinking water supplies, inland lakes and streams, and out of the Great Lakes where it contributes to toxic algae blooms, and this bill undoes much of that good work.  There is little that could have been done, short of removing all environmental regulation, that is worse for Michigan’s environment than this legislation.”

“The lack of transparency, poor responsiveness to public concerns, and continued negligence of the Michigan DEQ violates basic human rights,” said Mike Berkowitz, Legislative and Political Director for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter. “A public forum for community members to call attention to dangerous environmental problems, and to hold in check political pressure on agency staff is absolutely essential.”

“Michigan, like the rest of the nation, has already been robbed of our best protections against dangerous air and water pollution since Scott Pruitt took control of EPA,” said Rhonda Anderson, Organizing Manager for Sierra Club. “With the signing of these bills by Governor Snyder, we’ll have our own Pruitt right here in Michigan, with polluting industries in direct control of our state environmental agency. Communities are already facing unacceptable levels of toxins and pollution in our state. The crisis in Flint has yet to be addressed. We simply cannot afford to give away control of our environmental protections in Michigan to big polluters without facing an unprecedented crisis of environmental injustice and public health.”

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