Drilling in the Great Lakes

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PIRGIM Education Fund worked to keep our shores, like this stretch of Lake Michigan, safe from oil and gas drilling. Photo: Great Lakes National Program Office, EPA

From fishing and swimming to a scenic shoreline, the Great Lakes make Michigan a better place to live and provide millions with drinking water. Unfortunately, these lakes are threatened by oil and gas companies that want to tap the minimal stock of natural gas and oil underneath.

PIRGIM Education Fund research documented that oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes could lead to mercury contamination, toxic waste leaks, spills and unsightly derricks that mar an otherwise beautiful shoreline.

Shining The Spotlight On Dirty Drilling
On Jan. 22, 2002, PIRGIM Education Fund Advocate Brian Imus, the Lake Michigan Federation and National Environmental Trust gathered in the capitol rotunda in Lansing alongside a large inflatable oil derrick to urge then Gov. Engler to stop the Michigan Department of Natural Resources from issuing new permits to drilling companies and to highlight alternative, clean energy options.

We followed this event with written testimony to the governor that highlighted the need to prevent new drilling along Michigan's Great Lakes shoreline. This and other media events garnered great coverage statewide, including stories in the Detroit News, the Oakland Press, the Lansing State Journal, the Free Press and the Grand Rapids Press.

Researching Risks And Proposing Alternatives
To highlight the potential hazards posed by directional drilling, PIRGIM Education Fund published and released Dirty Drilling:The Threat of Oil and Gas Drilling in Michigan's Great Lakes in February 2002. This report detailed the public health and economic impacts of drilling and showed that Canada's drilling in the Great Lakes has been neither clean nor safe. It also demonstrated how few oil and gas reserves are estimated to be under the Great Lakes and presented other energy alternatives. We used the report in meetings with editorial boards across the state to demonstrate the negative consequences of drilling.

Due in part to the efforts of our sister (c)(4) organization, PIRGIM Citizen Lobby, on April 5, 2002, the state Legislature permanently prohibited oil drilling in the Great Lakes along Michigan's shoreline.

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