BOYCOTT NESTLE/ICE MOUNTAIN PRODUCTS!

Muskegon Save Our Shoreline (MSOS) has joined forces with Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) in their fight against Nestle/Ice Mountain spring water withdrawals in Mecosta County and the proposed Newago and Osceola Counties. January 3, 2007, MSOS Board voted to donate $250 from the Max Benham Fund to help MCWC. We urge the public to write protest letters to the MDEQ and Governor Granholm to stop the water withdraw and sale outside the Great Lakes basin. Also, please donate to MCWC to help them with their legal fees which are considerable. Boycott Nestle/Ice Mountain products! Urge others to do the same.

MCWC’s website (www.savemiwater.org) has lots of information on how to help. It also has photos of how Nestle’s groundwater pumping has already turned a beautiful lake area into mud flats. The current Michigan laws are not adequate to stop Nestle or other companies from substantial pumping, (250,000 gallons per day). Urge your legislators to enact stronger laws to stop spring/groundwater withdrawal and sale.

State your opposition!

DeHudy Receives Alliance 2006 Advocacy Award

"Darlene DeHudy has volunteered for years in her community to protect Michigan's coastal dunes. Her leadership has protected ecologically sensitive areas from development in Lake Harbor Park in Norton Shores; added 10 acres to the park; and most recently blocked a 600-foot pipeline from tunneling through a 4,000-year-old Lake Michigan sand dune. DeHudy has a special ability to engage community members, regional organizations and the media in efforts to protect coastal dunes."

DeHudy thanks everyone in Muskegon Save Our Shoreline and all others who helped with each issue. Together we made a difference.

Nugent ends court battle for dune pipe

Nugent Sand Co. has abandoned its plan to build a wastewater pipeline through a Lake Michigan dune, ending one of Muskegon County's most contentious environmental debates in recent memory.

The company did not appeal an Aug. 10 Ingham County Circuit Court ruling that supported the state's refusal to permit construction of a 600-foot-long pipeline through a 4,000-year-old dune. Nugent had until last Friday to appeal the court ruling but did not, said Robert McCann, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

"We're glad this issue is behind us," McCann said. "From the beginning, we saw the importance of protecting the critical dunes and that's what this case was about."

Nugent Sand owner Bob Chandonnet and company attorney William Fulkerson did not return calls seeking comment.

Nugent's critics said they were elated the pipeline issue was dead after three years of debate.

"I'm just grateful that Michigan's laws were upheld and I'm grateful that so many people stood up for the environment," said Darlene DeHudy, president of Muskegon Save Our Shoreline Inc.

The court case did not affect Nugent's ongoing sand-mining operation at 2925 Lincoln in Norton Shores. The company has a state permit to mine sand at that site through 2011.

Nugent was seeking a separate state permit to extend a wastewater pipeline from a man-made lake the company created at its 440-acre mining site, through a dune and onto the nearby Lake Michigan beach. The company wanted to pump millions of gallons of treated wastewater out of the lake daily so it could build 65 homes around the water body.

Nugent officials had said they were surprised when the water level in the man-made lake rose 6 feet after mining ceased on the south portion of its property.

A DEQ administrative law judge sided with Nugent and recommended allowing the pipeline, but DEQ Director Steven Chester overruled him last December.

Chester said the firm created the water level problem and, therefore, should resolve it on its own land -- not by building a wastewater pipeline through a state-protected dune. Building the pipeline would have harmed the dune and violated Michigan's Sand Dune Protection Act, Chester said.

According to the DEQ, Nugent could build fewer houses around the man-made lake and still earn a profit of up to $1.9 million.

Nugent officials claimed Chester's refusal to permit the pipeline denied the company its right to a reasonable use of the property.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William E. Collette disagreed.

The judge also rejected Nugent's argument that the pipeline and rock pile that would have held it in place on the beach wouldn't harm the dune because they would only affect a fraction of dunes that stretch for miles along the coast.

Nugent could have asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to hear an appeal of Collette's ruling. But the appellate court would not have been obligated to take the case.