U.S. Water News Online
LANSING, Mich. -- The Michigan Supreme Court has put limits on a long-standing state law that allows Michigan citizens to sue over drilling, dredging and development they think would damage the state's environment.
The ruling came in a case involving a multinational company's right to take groundwater for its Ice Mountain bottling plant in Mecosta County. Local residents had sued Greenwich, Conn.-based Nestle Waters North America and its bottled water operation in 2001 over potential damages to nearby waterways.
In its 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Court of Appeals decisions that said the residents had the legal standing to sue the company over how its water withdrawals might affect the Dead Stream and Thompson Lake.
But it disagreed with the lower court's ruling that the residents also had the legal standing to sue over a nearby lake -- Osprey Lake Impoundment -- and three wetlands, saying residents didn't prove they used those areas.
Justice Marilyn Kelly criticized the majority's decision, writing in her dissent that "it extinguishes a valid cause of action for no reason other than its belief that the cause of action granted by the Legislature is too broad."
A Nestle spokeswoman said the court simply was being consistent with an earlier ruling that limited the law's scope.
But David Holtz, director of Clean Water Action Michigan, said the court's ruling makes it even more important to pass legislation protecting Michigan's waters. A package of bills was introduced this week in the state House to strengthen a permit system for water withdrawals.
"Four justices have cast their vote in favor of big business and against citizens, local governments and communities," Holtz said in a release. "Michigan's future is much more at risk today because of the court's attack on Michigan's constitutionally protected natural resources."
In their majority opinion, Justices Robert Young, Clifford Taylor, Maura Corrigan and Stephen Markman said citizens can claim an environmental injury only when they can show that someone's actions would directly affect their recreational, aesthetic or economic interests.
The opinion also threw out the Court of Appeals finding that many of the streams, lakes and wetlands in the area where Nestle is operating are joined by an inextricable, hydrological link.
"If the hydrological links are as the trial court found, then a reduced flow or water level at one point in the interconnected hydrological system will have a measurable effect elsewhere in that system. But plaintiffs still must establish how they have suffered a concrete and particularized injury in fact within this interrelated ecosystem," the four justices ruled.
The decision hinged in part on a 2004 ruling by the same four justices.
Although the 1970 Michigan Environmental Protection Act says "the attorney general or any person" can file suit "for the protection of the air, water and other natural resources ... from pollution, impairment or destruction," the justices in their 2004 ruling rejected the idea that the act allows just anyone to sue to halt pollution or other environmental degradation.
Nestle spokeswoman Deb Muchmore said the ruling simply reflected that 2004 decision.
"In no way does this ruling change the fact that MEPA lawsuits can move forward where the plaintiffs do have standing," she said. She added that Nestle complies with state environmental regulations and has not caused adverse effects through its water withdrawals.
Nestle opened a water bottling facility in Stanwood in 2002 about 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and bottled 226 million gallons of Ice Mountain water last year. The water comes from wells in rural Mecosta County and from one of Evart's municipal wells.
Local residents argued in their lawsuit that Nestle's groundwater withdrawals damaged the environment because they lowered water levels and reduced flows in neighboring lakes, streams and wetlands.
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