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Welcome to the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club!
The Sierra Club Michigan Chapter is your statewide voice for the nation's oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization. Our members are some 20,000 of your Michigan friends and neighbors. Inspired by nature, we work together to protect our communities and the planet.
Our current conservation priorities include:
If you're looking for help to stop a new proposed CAFO or to stop a CAFO that's polluting in your community, this new webpage addition is for you.
Congratulations Michigan DEQ for an important court victory
This win in the Circuit Court of the County of Newaygo assures that concentrated animal feeding operations will still be treated the same as other potentially polluting industries. The time has come for Michigan Farm Bureau and the other plaintiffs in this lawsuit to stop trying to gut the laws and instead work with their members to figure out how to clean up CAFOs, build better livestock operations, and protect Michigan's precious waterways. You may download a copy of the court's opinion here.
Stopping the Michigan Coal Rush
ACT NOW - Your comments needed to move Michigan toward a Clean Energy Future by saying NO to New Coal-Fired Power Plants! State Agencies are taking comment NOW on whether there is a need for Consumers Energy and Wolverine Power Cooperative proposed power plants and whether cleaner, renewable electric generation sources can be used instead. Please Act Today!
Two proposed coal plants were blocked in Michigan in May, but lots more work to do! On May 1st, LS Power announced that it is suspending its plans to build a 750 MW coal fired power plant in Midland, and just days later Northern Michigan University asked the state to void its permit to burn coal in its planned Ripley Heating Plant cogeneration facility! A concerted effort to block these plant proposals brought by Sierra Club and our many colleagues in Clean Energy Now is helping helping to move Michigan toward a cleaner, renewable energy future instead of dirty old coal technologies! Read more here!
At her Tuesday February 3, 2009 State of the State address, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm took bold action that sends all currently proposed coal fired power plants back to the drawing board. Read more here!
Contact Lee Sprague, Jan O'Connell or Tiffany Hartung to learn more and to volunteer!
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Moving to a Clean Energy Future
Governor Granholm's announcement included her plan to reduce the state's use of fossil fuels to make electricity by 45% by the year 2020. Read more here!
Sierra Club has been working for a Clean Energy Future in Michigan, and legislative action on September 18th moved Michigan towards that goal. When Governor Granholm signs the energy package Michigan will become the 28th state in the nation with a renewable portfolio standard, will require energy efficiency in both electricity and natural gas, and will require integrated resource planning by electric utilities. During the 20 months of debate on this legislation, Sierra Club volunteers spent hundreds of hours lobbying legislators, sent thousands of letters, emails and made hundreds of phone calls, and wrote letters to the editor to urge support for a strong clean energy future. The energy package is a first step for Michigan, but as Legislative Director Gayle Miller explains there is still much to do.
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Cleaning our Water, Protecting our Communities
Our Great Lakes State has a lot at stake when it comes to water quality. Right now Sierra Club’s Michigan Water Sentinels are working on two of the biggest threats to our waters, and you can help with these efforts. Download our Summer 2008 Mackinac newsletter, which focused on our Great Lakes.
1) Large scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs or factory farms) are hurting water quality in Michigan’s lakes and streams, including the Great Lakes. These massive factory farms produce more sewage than small cities, but they don’t have to follow the same clean up rules. Sierra Club is working to document pollution violations and to get enforcement of clean water laws to stop the toxic waste from these operations. We’re also working to strengthen our laws to prevent pollution from these facilities. You can help Sierra Club clean up CAFOs in Michigan and track the pollution from these facilities – contact CAFO Water Sentinel Lynn Henning or Rita Jack to find out more.
2) Metallic mining is making a resurgence in the Upper Peninsula, and Sierra Club’s Michigan Water Sentinel volunteers are monitoring water quality in streams near the sites of new proposed sulfide mines to provide critical documentation of current clean water quality. (Defending precious resources from contamination depends on knowing what’s at stake.) You can help with this vital effort – contact Rita Jack to learn more.
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Safeguarding Wild Places
Michigan has the largest State Forest system in the country. And recently the Department of Natural Resources started developing plans that will determine what lands are protected, how habitat is managed, where to locate recreational areas, and how much logging occurs (and where). With the timber industry demanding increased logging, the growing idea of using wood for biomass energy, plus competing pressures on the land for recreational and economic development activities, Michigan’s state forests are facing a critical crossroads.
Your knowledge and concern for Michigan’s public forests can help move our forests in the right direction and protect our natural heritage. Do you know a special place on Michigan’s state forest lands that deserves special protection? You can help to nominate and work to protect high conservation value forests by contacting Sierra Club Forest Policy Specialist Marvin Roberson here.
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