Water for All of Michigan (WFAM) partners—Clean Water Action, FLOW, People’s Water Board Coalition, and the Sierra Club—have united to identify, analyze, and advance financing and funding options and policies for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure that prioritize equity, end shutoffs of residential drinking water in metropolitan Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor, and beyond, and protect Michigan’s… Read more »
The many chemical contaminants in Michigan’s groundwater, coupled with the lack of environmentally sustainable federal and state chemical policies, continue to put Michigan at risk. An example is trichloroethylene (TCE), a cancer-causing manufactured chemical that has contaminated groundwater at more than 300 locations in Michigan. In 2020, Minnesota became the first state in the country to outlaw many remaining uses of TCE. Michigan should follow suit.
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? According to a poll undertaken by the International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Board in 2018, approximately one-fifth of surveyed residents of the Great Lakes Basin do not. If the same ratio applies to Michigan, about 1.5 million adult residents of the state are uncertain where the water they drink originates. During Michigan’s 2021 Drinking Water Awareness Week, May 2-8, filling knowledge gaps is a critical priority. The source of your drinking water is crucial, and so are threats to its safety and legal and environmental defenses to its contamination.
Recent news that a final cleanup has begun to remove the infamous green ooze that leaked onto a Detroit area freeway in December 2019 is a reminder that Michigan policy still fosters many sites where toxic contamination remains in groundwater. The policy has drawn little attention, but it is a serious problem for Michigan. FLOW’s recent groundwater report, Deep Threats to Our Sixth Great Lake, spotlights its implications, and calls for a change in state law to protect our groundwater and public health. Click here for the report’s Key Facts sheet.
Across Michigan and the United States—in both cities and small towns—residential water rates have skyrocketed. Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders are behind on paying their water bills, and we’re calling on the State Legislature to extend a water shutoff moratorium.
On World Water Day, it’s worth asking this question: Why is it that we only begin to understand what we have at the very moment it is gone? This question defines the crisis around water in the Great Lakes. The stories and statistics around water poisoning, pollution, and scarcity are staggering. Recent water disasters have been all too common: the Flint lead-in-drinking water tragedy, the thousands of residential water shutoffs in Detroit and beyond, the 2014 toxic algal bloom that shut down the Toledo drinking water system, and the countless other community water supplies poisoned from chemical contamination from PFAS and other pollutants. Time and time again, the reaction from residents is: How could this have happened in America?
For over three years, FLOW has analyzed and reported on one of the biggest gaps in Michigan’s environmental protection safety net—groundwater protection. Now, during National Groundwater Awareness Week 2021, we are reaffirming and expanding upon our call for stronger state groundwater protection policies and actions. We’re also releasing our new report, “Deep Threats to Our Sixth Great Lake.”
When Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivers her State of the State address at 7 pm tonight—virtually, in compliance with Centers for Disease Control guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic—we hope she continues to voice strong leadership to protect our Great Lakes and ensure access to clean water for all. Fresh water, for drinking, hand washing, and for recreation, is more important than ever before, as our national struggle to contain the Coronavirus reveals our deep, societal inequities.
It’s natural to stand on the shoreline of one of the Great Lakes and admire their vastness and majesty. But another abundant water resource in the basin is out of sight and rarely commands such appreciation. That’s groundwater. Between 20-40 percent of the water budget of the lakes (the total water flowing in and out of the system) originates as groundwater. Without this unseen water, the Great Lakes would be dramatically different from those we know. Strengthening public appreciation of and public policy protecting groundwater is a fundamental part of Great Lakes stewardship.
In nature, there is often a long time between the planting of seeds and the ripening of fruit. In 2020, the public policy and action seeds FLOW began planting a decade ago turned into wins for the people of Michigan, public water, and the paramount value of our environment.
