Sunday, March 3, 2019

Ohioans now have legal right to protect Lake Erie's legal rights

Voters in Toledo, Ohio, just granted Lake Erie rights usually reserved for people, so will Erie's big sister lakes
Lake Michigan 
and the ecosystems which depend on them get the same status?
The [Toledo, Ohio] measure passed easily, which means citizens will be able to sue on behalf of the lake whenever its right to flourish is being contravened — that is, whenever it’s in danger of major environmental harm.
Think of it as any Toledo resident being able to act as a public intervenor to defend its great lake; after all, if corporations are people, then why not the natural world which sustains people and all living things?

Note also that:

Indiana has moved assertively to protect residents' rights to the Great Lakes shoreline.

While it has fallen to Wisconsin public interest organizations and attorneys to guarantee Great Lakes and other water rights which the Walker administration and Republican politics and politicos have repeatedly have given away to their private-sector donors and allies.

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