Rep. Dan Scripps
The Great Lakes may have a strong new voice in Michigan State House Rep. Dan Scripps. The first-term Democrat has introduced legislation that he says would strengthen citizen protection of the state’s groundwater through the public trust doctrine.
Check out this piece from The Great Lakes Town Hall’s Gary Wilson. It’s an engaging interview with Scripps, covering his political motivation, his legislation, why the Great Lakes Compact falls short, and a reaction to Chicago media criticism of Michigan’s carp response as being “hysterical.”
My favorite answer came when Scripps was asked whether or not environmental priorities should take a back seat to the economy.
“This is a false choice given to us by the people who defend the status quo because it’s in their narrow self-interest to do so. Our economy has been, and always will be, tied to healthy natural resources. No business wants to settle in a state where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water. No one wants to visit a state with polluted beaches, or fish in rivers and lakes where all the trout and salmon have been pushed out by the Asian carp.”
“Nobody benefits if we allow our water to be bottled and sold off for profit?” Strange thing to say…the property owner benefits, the stockholders benefit, and the person receiving/drinking the bottled water benefits. If the well operation is run and water bottled in a sustainable fashion, then quite a few people benefit. It makes no business sense to drain a well dry as they’d have no more water to bottle….