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Effective Organizing
In 1995 six citizens groups joined with Pleasanton Township in Manistee County and formed the Michigan
Energy Reform Coalition, now a project of the Institute, to challenge the lax state oversight of the industry.
Through grassroots organizing, economic analysis, investigative reporting, and communications, the Coalition has been effective in Lansing and across northern Michigan. It now has 30 organizations and eight townships, representing more than 200,000 citizens.
The group has achieved improvements in policy at the state level, and the reduction of environmental harm
at the local level. Citizens are much more aware of their rights. Local political leaders are exerting more
authority over industry activities. The media has become well-versed in the issues, and oil and gas development is a running story in newspapers, television and radio. The following list of achievements the Coalition has helped garner is striking:
•The Legislature has approved six new laws to reduce environmental damage and financial harm to mineral
owners. Twelve more reform bills are pending.
•The 22,000-acre Jordan Valley in Antrim County remains off limits to drilling.
•New public health regulations are being adopted to protect citizens from hazards posed by hydrogen sulfide,
a poisonous byproduct of oil and gas drilling.
•The state ended an $8 million-a-year subsidy to the energy industry.
•An audit by the Department of Natural Resources found that several companies had wrongfully withheld
millions of dollars in royalties from drilling on public lands. The Attorney General has filed suit to ensure
repayment.
•The Department of Environmental Quality established regulations to reduce noise from compressor stations.
What's Coming Up
The Coalition's next goal is to establish a planning process that minimizes damage in sensitive environ-
ments before drilling and exploration starts. Momentum for such a program is building at the grassroots and in
the Legislature.
Michigan pioneered the nation's most progressive energy development policy in 1980, when it established
the Pigeon River Hydrocarbon Development Plan. The landmark agreement among state regulators, citizens,
and the industry safeguarded 83,000 acres of state forest in Montmorency, Otsego, and Cheboygan counties
while enabling the industry to reap more than $400 million in oil and gas revenues.
Though it is viewed as the nation's best land use plan for extracting oil and gas in sensitive environments,
it has never been used again in Michigan. The Coalition is working to revive the effective principles of the
Pigeon River model -- thorough environmental assessment, innovative planning, strong state leadership, and
active public participation -- and apply them across nine watersheds of northern Michigan. Legislation to that
end is now pending in the state House of Representatives.G
CONTACT: Hans Voss at the Institute, 616-882-4723. |
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