Protecting The Great Lakes and Michigan's Water

On November 13^th, after 15 months of reviewing violations of Enbridge’s 1953 easement to operate Line 5, Governor Whitmer and the Department of Natural Resources revoked and terminated the 1953 easement allowing Line 5 to operate in the Straits of Mackinac. This was a huge victory, and is something that Clean Water Action and our allies have been demanding and working towards for years. We are celebrating this victory, but the fight to decommission Line 5 continues.  Here are the most relevant moving pieces and next steps.

In states across the country, Clean Water Action is tackling the PFAS pollution problem. PFAS (per- and polyflyoroalkyl substances) is known as the "forever chemical" because it persists in the environment and in our bodies. It is associated with a range of health harms from cancers to liver impacts to reproductive issues.  PFAS can impact communities in a variety of ways so we will be share updates from spots across the country in the coming weeks to highlight some of these local impacts. Stay tuned and let us know if you'd like to get involved locally!

In a very memorable episode of Seinfeld, Kramer and Newman take off in Newman’s mail truck loaded down with empty pop cans to return in Michigan for a tidy profit of 10 cents per can. The scheme was hatched in Jerry’s apartment, and their initial run was to be a sort of test to see whether or not a massive operation of muling pop cans into Michigan to defraud our bottle bill program was feasible.