At MEC's August 21 board meeting, our board approved four new applications for MEC membership. These groups are the Mott Community College Environmental Club, Michigan Mountain Biking Association, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and the Michigan Chapter of Republicans for Environmental Protection.

The Mott Community College Environmental Club is MEC's newest student group, formed to help increase campus awareness of environmental issues. The group has been successfully educating the Flint community through an annual Earth Day Celebration and is currently researching a campus wide recycling program.

The mission of the Michigan Mountain Biking Association is to promote responsible mountain biking and to work toward the goals of common land access and natural resource protection through interaction with policy makers, the cycling industry, race promoters, mountain bikers and other trail users. The group has 1,600 members within nine chapters across Michigan.

The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians has experienced tremendous growth in population and land use within its service area. This growth brought forth the importance of environmental concerns and how these issues relate to their members' environmental health. Therefore one of the Tribe's program goals is to protect the environment and health of the Tribal members through promotion of the sustainable use of the natural environment, protection/restoration of clean water, clean air, and natural habitats, education, and advocacy for Tribal concerns.

Michigan Chapter of Republicans for Environmental Protection is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public and elected officials about the need to protect our environment and natural resources. REP America has been effective at challenging state leaders to make Michigan a leader once again in the national effort to protect the environment.

MEC welcomes all our new member groups and will profile them in depth in future Member Spotlights. For additional information on these and all of MEC's member groups, visit our website at http://www. mecprotects.org/members.html.

Questions for political candidates

Protecting Michigan's water will mean changing the way we approach development and voting in good candidates this November. Here are five things to ask your local candidates:

Will you direct money to communities where people already live and work instead of wasting tax money to pay for new suburbs-a common sense "fix it first" strategy to development?
Will you protect wetlands and other natural areas that perform vital hydrologic functions like filtering polluted water and replenishing groundwater?
Will you find ways to coordinate land use planning with surrounding communities to better protect all of Michigan's diverse landscapes?
Will you coordinate road building and other construction projects with water resource management activities and make sure all new projects abide by community land use plans?
Will you take advantage of cluster zoning ordinances and other tools to encourage more compact development that mixes retail, commercial and residential development?