A divided Michigan Supreme Court somehow reached a unanimous ruling in late July that left Michigan's 34-year-old Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) standing, if slightly less helpful to the public cause than before.

Splitting their thoughts among four different opinions, the seven justices let stand the law's chief feature-the power of any citizen to go to court to prevent or halt pollution, impairment or destruction of the state's natural resources. When enacted in 1970 under the leadership of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, MEPA was hailed nationwide as a monumental accomplishment in the effort to protect the environment through citizen action.

MEC was one of the groups that supported a friend of the court brief, authored by MEPA expert Jim Olson and colleague Scott Howard, urging the court to leave this provision intact.

The decision came in a case brought by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) over a state Department of Environmental Quality permit authorizing the Cleveland Cliffs Corporation to destroy nearly 80 acres of wetlands near Marquette with waste rock from expansion of an existing mine. A trial court ruled that NWF did not have standing to sue to stop the permit because it did not suffer "particularized injury." The Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the trial court ruling, saying that MEPA made a broad grant of standing to citizens to protect the environment.

Four of the seven Supreme Court justices, all Republicans, ruled that NWF did have standing to sue in the Cleveland Cliffs case, but argued that MEPA goes beyond constitutional limits. The remaining Republican justice, Betty Weaver, strongly dissented from the majority opinion in her own 34-page opinion.

"I dissent from the majority's analysis of 'standing' and 'judicial power' because this analysis utterly ignores the will of the people expressed in Article 4, Section 52 of our Constitution," wrote Justice Weaver. "The majority disregards the intent of the Legislature, erodes the people's constitutional mandate, and overrules 30 years of Michigan case law…"

Democratic justices Marilyn Kelly and Michael Cavanagh also dissented from the majority opinion, arguing that MEPA gives any citizen standing to bring suit.