Michigan Energy Reform Coalition

Courtesy of The Michigan Land Use Institute

The readers of this newsletter are well aware that since the late eighties, northern Michigan has been the scene of the most intensive natural gas development in the United States. More than 5,000 wells have been drilled, most of them in Antrim, Crawford, Montmorency, Oscoda, and Otsego Counties. The wells are tied together by an elaborate industrial infrastructure of roads, pipelines, compressing stations, and processing plants that now sprawl across more than 500,000 acres. The north woods, a magnificent sweep of quiet forests and serene lakes, is being turned into a vast energy colony.

At the present pace of development, northern Michigan could have 9,000 natural gas wells by the end of the decade. And even though half of the wells to date have been drilled on state forest land, nearly all of the development has occurred without public hearings or substantive review of the consequences to the environment and communities.

The Anglers have been an ally of the Michigan Environmental Trust, Ltd. (METL) from the beginning of its lawsuit which has achieved most of its initial goals. We and METL have now become partners in the Michigan Energy Reform Coalition, a statewide organization that is a project of the Michigan Land Use Institute, a non-profit economic and environmental policy research organization based in Benzonia.

In addition to The Anglers and METL, other partners include three townships, Trout Unlimited, Michigan Environmental Council, Friends of the Jordan River Watershed, Center for Wildland Conservation, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Counsel, Michigan Communities Land Use Coalition, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, and the Pigeon River Country Association.

The goals of the Coalition are to strengthen oversight of the oil and gas industry, reduce environmental damage from development, and increase economic returns from communities and property owners. The Coalition seeks to modernize public policy and curtail the harm being done to communities, landowners, and one of the last great intact forest ecosystems in the United States.

The Coalition plans to achieve its goals with a highly visible campaign to give citizens equal voice in decisions, and substantially increase the responsiveness of the state and the oil and gas industry to community and environmental concerns.

The specific goals, defined in the by-laws, are to:

Improve land use management and reduce environmental damage by supporting stronger oversight of oil and gas development, and by ending the conflict of interest in which the state governments simultaneously the promoter, a direct beneficiary, and the primary regulator.
Increase economic returns to counties and townships by establishing a non-renewable energy tax modeled after similar programs in several other states. The tax will be shared among townships and other local government agencies. The tax revenues could be designed to:
(1) improve land use management in Michigan;
(2) purchase land for parks and wildlife habitat corridors;
(3) purchase development rights to conserve farmland, protect wildland, and preserve open space.
Provide severed rights property owners with just compensation and much greater authority to decide how their land is used. Just compensation includes sharing royalties and taxes between the surface and mineral owners.
Protect our rivers, streams, and lakes by requiring the industry to prepare development plans, based on the Pigeon River model, before new wells are drilled or any additional permits are issued in sensitive watersheds. Such plans must be approved by a balanced committee of citizens, industry representatives, and members of DNR and DEQ staff. RWOL

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