Q: When does a vote of 80,945 to 75 result in a win for the 75?
A: When a state agency gets to cast the deciding ballot.
Although it wasn’t technically a vote, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) last month approved Nestle Water’s controversial request to pump more groundwater for its Ice Mountain bottling plant despite that lopsided margin. In fact, NPR reports that the 80,945 public comments MDEQ received opposing the proposal set a record.
MDEQ Director Heidi Grether defended the apparent anomaly, noting that “most of (the comments) related to issues of public policy which are not, and should not be, part of an administrative permit decision.” Other MDEQ officials told NPR the agency was merely following the law in making its decision.
The case is of interest to public notice advocates because every one of those comments were received only after the Grand Rapids Press’ Garret Ellison wrote about the proposal following his discovery of a notice about it on MDEQ’s website. Nestle’s request generated no (aka nada) public comment prior to Ellison’s story even though the notice had been posted on the agency’s website for 42 days. Ellison was awarded PNRC’s Public Notice Journalism Award earlier this year as a result of his reporting.
Ironically, a similar situation may be brewing in a state that share’s Michigan’s southern border.
Late last year, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) announced a proposal to eliminate the newspaper notice requirement for certain permits issued under the Clean Air Act. The Hoosier State Press Association and PNRC both submitted comments opposing the proposal.
According to HSPA, 551 organizations or individuals submitted comments opposing the proposal. Only two supported it.
So what did IDEM do?