Tag: groundwater

SepticSmart: Leelanau County Board Wisely Votes to Protect Fresh Water and Public Health from Septic Pollution

Published on June 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

Image courtesy of Leelanau.gov.

Editor’s note: This opinion article by FLOW Legal Advisor Skip Pruss was originally published in the Traverse City Record-Eagle on Sept. 4, 2022. During SepticSmart Week, which runs through Friday, FLOW is sharing updates on efforts to protect fresh water and public health from uncontrolled septic system waste, as part of an annual educational campaign that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched a decade ago, with the State of Michigan, other states, communities, and organizations, including FLOW, as partners and participants. Stay tuned during SepticSmart Week to www.ForLoveOfWater.org and FLOW’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the latest articles, videos, and fact sheets. In case you missed it, here is additional coverage this week from FLOW: SepticSmart Week: Progress on Protecting Public Health and Fresh Water and Get SepticSmart to Stop Pollution, Save Money.

By Skip Pruss, FLOW Legal Advisor

In August, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners voted to task the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department with drafting an ordinance requiring the inspection of septic systems upon the transfer or sale of a home. The bipartisan vote endorsing this ordinance came after years of rancorous debate and unsuccessful attempts at passage.

Skip Pruss, FLOW Legal Advisor

The vote was a hopeful sign of progress, demonstrating an understanding that malfunctioning septic systems can affect surface water and groundwater locally and statewide, potentially burdening communities with avoidable harmful economic, health and environmental outcomes.

Scientific studies have found human fecal contamination affecting 100% of our river systems in the Lower Peninsula and that substandard, failing, or nonexistent septic systems are the primary driver of human fecal bacteria found in our rivers and streams. A study this year found that as many as 27 percent of all septic systems in Michigan households may be failing.

Scientific studies have found human fecal contamination affecting 100% of our river systems in the Lower Peninsula and that as many as 27 percent of all septic systems in Michigan households may be failing.

The Great Lakes surrounding Michigan hold 95 percent of all fresh surface water in the United States and 84 percent of all fresh surface water in North America. Leelanau County, a peninsula within a peninsula, has the most freshwater shoreline of any county in the Lower Peninsula.

Remarkably, Michigan, seated at the very heart of the Great Lakes, is the only state without a state law setting minimum standards for the construction, maintenance and inspection of septic systems. Counties and local governments have had to step up, enacting local ordinances in recognition that a septic system inspection requirement would help identify failing systems, protect groundwater, reduce contaminated wastewater migration to our beautiful lakes and protect property values.

Remarkably, Michigan, seated at the very heart of the Great Lakes, is the only state without a state law setting minimum standards for the construction, maintenance and inspection of septic systems. Counties and local governments have had to step up, enacting local ordinances.

The good news is that, despite daily indications of bitter polarization in our politics, our community’s concern for safeguarding our Great Lakes is a deeply shared value, an important area of common ground that bridges the political divide — as affirmed by the vote of the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners. The State of Michigan and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also have proclaimed Sept. 19-23 to be SepticSmart Week and are providing outreach materials encouraging homeowners and communities to inspect and maintain their septic systems.

For Love of Water (FLOW), the Traverse City-based law and policy center, has focused on the protection of groundwater and its relationship to Great Lakes water quality. FLOW’s recent work includes creating and moderating the Michigan Groundwater Table, an 18-month collaboration among local government organizations, state agencies, environmental and justice organizations and Michigan’s universities to identify key groundwater-protection strategies and make recommendations for their implementation (See related storymap here).

FLOW continues to focus on the protection of groundwater and its relationship to Great Lakes water quality.

Among the findings of the Groundwater Table is that septic system performance writ large is, in fact, an infrastructure issue.

With the influx of state and federal funding targeted at water infrastructure support, this may be a particularly opportune time to revisit statewide solutions, including provisions for low-income assistance to address substandard systems.

Meanwhile, hats off to the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners for recognizing that protection of this extraordinary, globally unique natural endowment that is our Great Lakes is an environmental, economic and public health imperative.

About the author: Skip Pruss is a legal adviser with FLOW and formerly directed the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth. You can reach him at pruss@5lakesenergy.com.

Stay tuned during SepticSmart Week to www.ForLoveOfWater.org and FLOW’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for daily updates. To get you started, here is today’s tip from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reminding all of us: Don’t Strain Your Drain! 

SepticSmart Week: Progress on Protecting Public Health and Fresh Water

Published on June 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

Graphic courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Editor’s note: During SepticSmart Week, which runs through Friday, FLOW is sharing updates on efforts to protect fresh water and public health from uncontrolled septic system waste, as part of an annual educational campaign that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched a decade ago, with the State of Michigan, other states, communities, and organizations, including FLOW, as partners and participants. 

Stay tuned during SepticSmart Week to www.ForLoveOfWater.org and FLOW’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the latest articles, videos, and fact sheets. In case you missed it, here is additional coverage this week from FLOW for:

U.S. EPA–Top 10 Ways to be a Good Septic System Owner (Click on image for larger version).

Michigan’s lack of a statewide sanitary code ranks the state dead last in preventing pollution from failing septic systems. With an estimated 130,000 failing or malfunctioning septic systems in the state, the status quo is a threat to public health and Pure Michigan. That’s why FLOW has been taking action with you and key stakeholders during the last few years to educate and empower the public and key stakeholders and pursue solutions.

This week presents another key opportunity to make a difference. Join FLOW starting today through Friday for SepticSmart Week, an annual educational campaign that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched a decade ago, with the State of Michigan, other states, communities, and organizations, including FLOW, as partners and participants.

Stay tuned during SepticSmart Week to www.ForLoveOfWater.org and FLOW’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for daily updates.

State of Michigan’s 2022  Proclamation on SepticSmart Week 2022 (Click on image for larger version).

Each day this week, FLOW will release SepticSmart Week content, including original articles and videos providing facts, tips, and inspiration to help you be part of the solution to this shared challenge of not only septic system pollution, but also the broader challenge of surface and groundwater contamination in Michigan. (If you are unsure about what a septic system is or how it works, start here).

Slow, But Perceptible Progress on a Septic Code

FLOW’s action on septic system pollution began with our 2018 groundwater report, The Sixth Great Lake, which emphasized that in addition to releasing an estimated 9.4 billion gallons of poorly or untreated sewage into the soil and environment each year, failing septic systems release household chemicals that residents pour down their drains. Our report called for a uniform statewide sanitary code in Michigan.

In November 2019, FLOW and our partners and allies hosted a Michigan Septic Summit, attended by over 150 public health experts, scientists, local government representatives, nonprofit organizations, and interested citizens. We noted that the Summit “underscored a growing resolve in the state to do something meaningful about septic system pollution. Historically, when Michigan’s various interests have come together in good faith to solve an environmental problem, they have succeeded.”

The Michigan Septic Summit “underscored a growing resolve in the state to do something meaningful about septic system pollution. Historically, when Michigan’s various interests have come together in good faith to solve an environmental problem, they have succeeded.”

Since then we have continued to educate and empower the public and key stakeholders with the information and impetus to take action on septic system policy in order to protect public health, local communities, lakes, and ecosystems—especially groundwater, the source of drinking water for 45% of Michigan’s population.

The Michigan Groundwater Table Builds Consensus on Need for Protection

FLOW in January 2021 created and for a year convened the Michigan Groundwater Table, composed of 22 knowledgeable and influential stakeholders from local government, academia, and regulatory agencies.

The Groundwater Table’s work culminated with FLOW hosting a livestream event—Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible on World Water Day & Every Day—last March and then in June with our release of a report, Building Consensus: Securing Protection of Michigan’s Groundwater, and accompanying story map. The report contains consensus findings about the status of Michigan’s groundwater and also recommendations on how to improve its protection. The Groundwater Table agreed it should be a priority to develop a statewide initiative to enable inspection and repair of septic systems, including funding to empower local health agencies to conduct periodic inspections and facilitate compliance and to assist homeowners in replacing failing systems.

FLOW continues to educate and empower the public on the need for a statewide septic system policy in order to protect public health, local communities, lakes, and ecosystems—especially groundwater, the source of drinking water for 45% of Michigan’s population.

Progress on statewide septic policy in Michigan has been slow, but it is perceptible and continues. Acting on a recommendation from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and with the backing of FLOW and many other environmental groups, the Michigan Legislature this year approved $35 million in low-interest loans to help homeowners pay for replacing failing septic systems. It’s a down payment on a problem that will require much more investment to fix.

Contact State Representative Jeff Yaroch, a Republican from Macomb County, to express your support Michigan House Bill 6101, which would create a statewide septic code.

Additional progress is the tentative scheduling in Lansing of a September 28, 2022, meeting of the Michigan House Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Committee to consider a proposed statewide sanitary code. Although House leadership to date has not signaled an intent to pass the legislation–Michigan House Bill 6101–this year, its introduction and potential consideration is a recognition that the problem is not going away—and that state level action is vital. Contact the bill’s sponsor, State Representative Jeff Yaroch, a Republican from Macomb County, to express your support for a statewide septic code.

FLOW continues to work with the public and partners—community leaders, scientists, public health experts, academics, environmental advocates, realtors, and state and local lawmakers—to seek solutions to unregulated, polluting septic systems. Public education is vital to solving the longstanding problem. 

Stay tuned during SepticSmart Week to www.ForLoveOfWater.org and FLOW’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for daily updates. To get you started, here is today’s tip from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reminding all of us to “Think at the Sink!”

 

Groundwater, though Invisible, Is Critical for Our Survival

Published on June 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts, News

Groundwater painting by Glenn Wolff.

What’s the natural resource that is critical to the survival of billions of human beings but invisible to the vast majority of them?

The answer is groundwater, both in Michigan and globally. Out of sight, but not detached from our economy and health, groundwater plays a critical role in Michigan communities, supplying 45 percent of Michigan’s population with drinking water. Yet groundwater is a neglected and much-abused part of our state’s natural endowment.

This year, groundwater will be in the spotlight on the annual World Water Day, March 22. Since 1993, World Water Day has underscored the importance of safe, clean, and affordable water, and the threat to human health and survival among the two billion people on Earth who lack access to it.

In the buildup to March 22, groups around the world will hold events and launch projects on the groundwater theme. On World Water Day itself, the United Nations World Water Development Report will be released, recommending policy direction to decision makers. A United Nations Groundwater Summit will take place in December 2022.

The UN catalogues the following global groundwater challenges:

Agriculture: About 40 percent of all the water used for irrigation comes from aquifers. Especially in water-scarce countries, the provision of cheap energy for pumping groundwater for irrigated agriculture can lead to groundwater depletion and declining water quality, with potentially severe consequences for those who now depend on groundwater irrigation. Furthermore, the use of fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture is a serious threat to groundwater quality.

Borders: Most of the world’s large aquifers cross international borders. Some 468 transboundary aquifers have been identified worldwide; hence, most countries share groundwater resources. Globally, of the eight largest aquifers under stress, six are transboundary.

Finite: There are limitations to groundwater use, such as groundwater quality and high costs of abstraction (from deep aquifers). Furthermore, groundwater is not always available in sufficient quantities in the places where there is the highest human demand for water. For instance, the Asia-Pacific region has the lowest per capita water availability in the world, with groundwater use in the region predicted to increase 30 per cent by 2050.

Natural and Human Pollution: The potential threats to the quality of groundwater are natural contamination and contaminant sources from land use and other human activities. Two of the most widely spread natural contaminants are arsenic and fluoride. Naturally occurring arsenic pollution in groundwater affects millions of people on all continents. Therefore, groundwater quality needs to be assessed and monitored regularly. Human-caused contamination includes the effects of agricultural intensification, urbanization, population growth and climate change.

World Water Day’s groundwater focus is timely observance for Michigan, which faces a groundwater crisis. Consider:

  • There are an estimated 26,000 contamination sites needing state funding for cleanup, and at the current rate of remediation, they won’t all be addressed for decades.
  • Although 1.25 million private water wells supply drinking water to more than two million Michiganders, there is no regular safety testing of that water.
  • High-risk toxic chemicals, including TCE, which has contaminated groundwater in more than 300 known Michigan locations, are still in widespread use.
  • Michigan is the last holdout among the 50 states in protecting groundwater and surface water from failing septic systems, of which an estimated 130,000 exist in Michigan and whose pollution has been linked with disease.
  • Michigan laws protecting groundwater are fragmented.


FLOW’s commitment to educating Michiganders on the importance of protecting groundwater and encouraging them to act reaches back several years. In 2018, we published our first groundwater report, The Sixth Great Lake: the Emergency Threatening Michigan’s Overlooked Groundwater Resource. In 2021, we published a second, Deep Threats to Our Sixth Great Lake: Spotlighting and Solving Michigan’s Groundwater Emergency. We also built a groundwater story map and posted fact sheets about the value of groundwater. And we hosted a groundwater webinar.

In addition to pursuing policy reforms strengthening groundwater protection, FLOW is currently involved in two major groundwater projects. We have formed and convened the Michigan Groundwater Table that includes experts and advocates from a cross-section of interests. Members of the table are reviewing groundwater issues and attempting to identify common findings and recommendations.

FLOW also is a partner with Michigan State University’s Institute of Water Research in a project commissioned by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to assess the economic impact of state policies that leave contaminated groundwater in place rather than cleaning it up. At such locations, responsible parties restrict access to drinking water and exposure to contaminated soils, meaning contamination remains and, because it is out of sight, such pollution may spread.

There is much more to do to protect Michigan’s groundwater, and World Water Day is a good opportunity to learn about that.

Great Lakes groups band together to challenge Nestlé and water crises in Flint and beyond

Published on June 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

“My grandson that’s not here tonight, that’s twelve years old, he was to be an academic ambassador to go to Washington in the year 2014 and 2015. Well he was an A-B student but by the time the lead began to corrode his brain, he was no longer an A-B student. He was a D-E-F student,” said Bishop Bernadel Jefferson of her grandson, one of the thousands of children affected by the lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water. Bishop Jefferson, who is with the Flint group CAUTION, was one of the speakers on the Friday night panel of the Water is Life: Strengthening our Great Lakes Commons this past weekend.

Bishop Jefferson has been a pastor for 27 years and an activist for 25 years. She is married with ten children and ten grandchildren. She was one of the first signers of the emergency manager lawsuitagainst Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in 2013. Her passionate talk brought tears to many eyes of the 200 people gathered at Woodside Church for the summit. At the same time her talk energized the audience. Her message of doing this work for all children and the importance of coming together reverberated among the crowd. Bishop Jefferson said of the gathering, “Tonight we make history. We did something they didn’t want us to do and that was to come together.”

Water justice for Great Lakes communities

Maude Barlow gave an important keynote speech on Friday night on water justice struggles around the world and her work with other water warriors to have the UN recognize the human rights to water and sanitation. Jim Olson from FLOW gave an impassioned talk about Nestle in Michigan and the importance of the public trust. Indigenous lawyer Holly Bird talked about her work with the legal team for Standing Rock, water law from an Indigenous perspective, that governments need to honor the relationships that Indigenous people have with the water and how that can be done without someone controlling or owning water.


(Photo above by Story of Stuff: Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians)

Lila Cabbil from the Detroit People’s Water Board, who many affectionately call Mama Lila, talked about how the water fights are racialized in Michigan. “The fight we have in Michigan is very much racialized. We need to understand that truth and we need to speak that truth. Because what is happening even as we speak in terms of how Flint and Detroit is being treated would not happen if it was a white community.” She pointed out how the crises are being condoned by the silence of white people. She took a moment to remember late activist Charity Hicks who was a leader in the fight against the shutoffs and who encouraged people to “wage love”.

(Photo right: Lila Cabbil from the Detroit People’s Water Board)

In Canada, the lack of clean water is also often racialized. There are routinely more than 100 drinking water advisories in First Nations, some of which have been in place for nearly two decades. At the start of her talk on Saturday, Sylvia Plain from Aamjiwnaang First Nation taught the audience how to say “aanii” which is “hello” in Anishinaabe. The Great Lakes region is predominantly Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatami). She talked about how Aamjiwnaang First Nation has had methylmercury in the sediments in their river for a couple of decades. Plain also talked about how the Anishinaabe have cared for the waters and land for thousands of years.

Wearing a Flint Lives Matter t-shirt, Saturday’s keynote speaker (starts at 23:00) Claire McClinton from Flint Democracy Defense League, further described the water crisis in Flint. She pointed out, “In Flint Michigan, you can buy a gallon of lead free gas, or a gallon of lead free paint, but you can’t get a gallon of lead free water from your own tap.”


(Photo above by Story of Stuff: Claire McClinton of Flint Democracy Defense League)

Marian Kramer of Highland Park Human Rights Coalition and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, told Saturday’s audience about her work to fight the shutoffs in Highland Park, a city within Metro Detroit where at one point half of the homes had their water shut off.

Nestle’s bottled water takings

Rob Case from Wellington Water Watchers of Ontario and Peggy Case of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation both talked about their grassroots organizations and the local resistance to Nestle’s bottling operations. Peggy Case pointed to the larger issue of the privatization and the commodification of water. “The dots have to be connected. We can’t just look at bottled water. The right to water is being challenged everywhere. The privatization of water is a key piece of what’s going on in Flint,” she explained. The state of Michigan is suing the city of FLint for refusing to sign a 30-year agreement that requires the city to pay for a private pipeline to Detroit that will not be used by residents. 

In Evart, Michigan, two hours northwest from Flint, Nestlé pumps more than 130 million gallons (492 million litres) of water a year from the town to bottle and sell to consumers across the state and country. Last year, the corporation applied to increase its pumping by 60 percent. Nestlé’s current pumping and proposed expansion threatens surrounding wetlands and wildlife in the region, which at the same time violates an 181-year-old treaty that requires Michigan state to protect the habitat for the Grand Traverse Band and Saginaw Chippewa tribal use.

Nestlé continues pumping up to 4.7 million litres (1.2 million gallons) a day in southern Ontario despite the fact that both of its permits have expired – one permit expired in August and the other expired more than a year ago. The Ontario government is required to consult with communities on Nestlé’s bottled water applications but still has not done so. The Ontario government recently made some changes to the bottled water permitting system including a two-year moratorium on bottled water takings and increased bottled water taking fees (from $3.71 to 503.71 per million litres) but local groups and residents want more. They are calling for a phase out of bottled water takings to protect drinking water. The Council of Canadians is calling Nestle’s and other bottled water takings to be an election issue in next year’s Ontario election.

Summit speakers and participants were outraged that governments allow Nestlé and other water companies to take, control and sell water for a profit while failing to secure clean water for residents in Flint, Detroit, and many Indigenous nations.

Days before the summit, the Guardian reported that Nestle only pays an administrative fee of $200 in Michigan while Detroit resident Nicole Hill, a mother of three, has her water shut off every few months and has to pay “more than $200 a month” for water.

During the summit, participants took a pledge to boycott Nestle and single-use bottles of water. Immediately after the summit, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation announced the organization was joining the boycott. To join the boycott, click here.

NAFTA and the commodification of water

Trade agreements like NAFTA perpetuate and entrench the commodification and privatization of water. Water is defined as a “tradeable good,” “service” and “investment” in NAFTA. Water must be removed as a tradeable good, service or investment in any renegotiated NAFTA deal.

As a tradeable good, NAFTA dramatically limits a government’s ability to stop provinces and states from selling water and renders government powerless to turn off the tap. Removing water as a “service” would help protect water as an essential public service. When services are provided by private corporations, NAFTA provisions limit the involvement of the public sector. Removing water as an “investment” and excluding NAFTA’s Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions would make it much harder for foreign corporations to use trade treaties to sue governments for laws or policies that protect water. Canada has already been sued for millions of dollars for laws protecting water.

A vow to end to Nestlé water takings

Over the weekend, participants of the summit listened to these moving and inspiring presentations and participated in workshops on Blue Communities, challenging the corporate control of water, the colonial enclosure of water and more. The gathering included local and Great Lakes residents as well as water justice, Great Lakes and grassroots organizations including our Guelph and Centre-Wellington Chapters of the Council of Canadians.

One thing was clear at the end of the summit: participants were ready to take action to end to Nestlé’s bottled water takings in Great Lakes, work to have the human right to water implemented and bring water justice to all who live around the lakes.
 
To watch the videos from the summit, visit FLOW’s Facebook page.
Emma Lui's picture
Emma Lui is a FLOW board member and Water Campaigner for the Council of Canadians. To learn more about her and her work, please visit the Council of Canadians website.
 
 

Policy Brief: The Case for a Statewide Septic Code in Michigan

Published on April 25th, 2024 by - Blog Posts, Reports & Media Releases

Policy Brief: The Case for a Statewide Septic Code in Michigan (Download PDF)

Michigan is located at the heart of the most extensive fresh surface water system in North America, which comprises about 90% of all fresh surface water in the region. However, it is the only state in the US that does not have a statewide septic code.

According to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), Michigan has more than 1.3 million septic systems, which represent a danger to public health and the environment when they fail.

A septic code would set minimum standards for septic tank construction, maintenance, and inspection. State and local governments have been working towards implementing policy solutions for the past two decades, but they have yet to succeed. Out of Michigan’s 83 counties, only 11 have inspection requirements. House Bills 4479 and 4480 have been introduced to address the dire situation.

Download our policy brief to learn more about this important issue, and how the state of Michigan can move forward to protect groundwater.

Green Infrastructure: Smart solutions for stormwater runoff

Published on April 16th, 2024 by - Blog Posts, Reports & Media Releases

Download the brief: Stormwater Utilities (pdf)

Over the past few decades, Michigan has faced an increase in unpredictable storm events. Unfortunately, our existing stormwater infrastructure is not built to handle the frequency and intensity of these storms, creating problems with water runoff and flooding. 

This, in turn, has led to problems such as water pollution, algal blooms, beach closures, threats to public health, and increased infrastructure costs to taxpayers. Polluted runoff also contaminates the environment and endangers aquatic life. Stormwater utilities can be a part of the solution, by enabling communities to fund modern, green stormwater infrastructure and protect the environment and public health.

In the brief above, dive in deeper as FLOW explores the issue and possible solutions to solve it. FLOW is working to develop a legislative solution to enable small and mid-sized communities in Michigan to legally establish stormwater utilities and secure a reliable source of funding for this crucial infrastructure. Stormwater utilities are an essential tool for managing and mitigating the negative impacts of stormwater runoff, including flood damage, erosion, and pollution.

 

AG Nessel’s lawsuit against Allegan County CAFO

Published on March 29th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

By Carrie La Seur, FLOW Legal Director

It’s getting warm this spring down in Allegan County. In late February 2024, attorneys in the Michigan Attorney General’s office brought an enforcement lawsuit against J&D Brenner Farms, an Allegan County dairy operation and successful scofflaw until this year. EGLE has been trying since 2016 to get Deb Brenner to apply for a wastewater discharge permit for her livestock confinement. An eight year grace period seems pretty generous, but all good things must end.

Brenner, who doesn’t seem to have incorporated but calls the place J&D Brenner Farms, keeps an estimated 650 dairy cows. Michigan’s regulations for Confined Animal Feeding Operations (usually referred to as CAFOs) distinguish between “Large CAFOs” – for dairy operations, stabling or confining more than 700 mature dairy cows – and “Medium CAFOs” – 200 to 699 mature dairy cows. Different regulations apply, unless you just don’t bother to file a permit application at all. Then you get a series of increasingly firm letters from EGLE, followed by – wait for it – an unpleasant one from the Attorney General.

The problem is, of course, that those 650 Brenner cows produce 6-9 million gallons of waste annually. It’s not just manure (although it’s a lot of manure, equivalent to 1% of the sewage produced each day by metro Detroit), it’s also every other kind of waste that a dairy operation produces. Under the permit definition, “manure” means what you think it means, plus anything someone throws in with it for disposal. This might include growth hormones, antibiotics, milkhouse cleaning chemicals, chemicals added to manure storage lagoons, birthing fluids and blood from calving, silage leachate, contaminated storm and wash water, copper sulfate used to keep cows’ hooves healthy, even diesel fuel tossed in to keep down bugs and algae. A fairly toxic stew.

All this muck has to go somewhere. Anyone who’s explored the upper Midwest in spring knows where. The big dump of CAFO waste is already underway this year, pouring vast amounts onto fields as an inexpensive fertilizer. The law requires careful measurement of how much fertilizer a given field needs, but unlike commercial fertilizer, which is more expensive all the time, CAFO waste has to be disposed of to free up space in lagoons for more of the same. Up to a point, it’s fertilizer. But all too often, it’s waste disposal, and the more the better.

To understand how Brenner got away with ignoring the law for so long, let’s look at another central Michigan large livestock operation in nearby Ionia County. Van Elst Brothers CAFO in Lake Odessa reports 4,995 hogs, qualifying it as a Large CAFO. They produce 2 million gallons of liquid waste a year. They don’t have a discharge permit either, but that doesn’t matter, because the Van Elsts have a quasi-magical status called a No Potential to Discharge Determination.

 

There are three basic requirements for No Potential to Discharge for a Large CAFO:

  1. The CAFO can’t have any reported discharges of CAFO waste to surface waters in the last five years, from the confinement site or the application fields. As a side note, this isn’t great motivation for self-reporting of spills that require emergency response.
  2. It must be “verified” as observing best practices under the Michigan agriculture environmental assurance program – a black box verification by the state ag agency, without public disclosure or any renewal process, so that once you’re in, you’re in forever.
  3. In practice, EGLE only grants No Potential to Discharge status to Large CAFOs that “manifest” all their waste, meaning that they “sell, give away, or otherwise transfer” it to a third party (sometimes very closely connected, but legally separate) for field application. This way, the CAFO operators can figuratively (and, we hope, literally) wash their hands of their waste.

Which brings us to the fascinating topic of Manifested Manure. Technically, Large CAFO operators are supposed to have the person who trucks away their waste fill out a 4-page form promising that they’ll be pious and law-abiding after driving away with a load of CAFO waste no one will ever follow up on. It’s the ultimate honor system.

The CAFO operator keeps the form, like a medieval Roman Catholic dispensation absolving them of any guilt for eventual water pollution, and the waste hauler makes the problem go away. The location of the “manifested” fields never makes it into EGLE’s database. The hauler has no reporting obligations. No inspector will call. Imagine if nuclear waste was handled this way. We’d all glow in the dark.

If only Deb Brenner had taken EGLE’s suggestion, back in August 2016, to apply for a No Potential to Discharge request by October 1, 2016, all this embarrassment could have been avoided. If she’d simply transferred all her CAFO waste to, for example, Brenner Excavating up the road for disposal, and cleaned up the site enough to pass an inspection, she’d be sitting pretty today rather than hiring lawyers. The Van Elst Fact Sheet and Basis for Decision Memo is a thin 3-pager, not a high bar at all. And we haven’t begun to talk about the many permitted CAFOs with long rap sheets of violations that seem to pass under the enforcement radar.

Let’s be clear: FLOW applauds the AG or EGLE for undertaking a well justified enforcement action. We’re proud that Michigan is doing better than its neighbors at controlling CAFO pollution. But when Michigan still estimates that roughly half its surface waters are contaminated by E. coli bacteria, fish kills from CAFO waste are a regular occurrence, and many fish are unsafe to eat, the public deserves better than regulatory loopholes big enough for a fleet of manure spreaders to parade through.

Groundwater Awareness Week: March 10-16, 2024

Published on March 14th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

Here’s a riddle: what resource is critical to our public health, environment and economy and invisible to the naked eye? That should be easy. The answer is groundwater.

By its nature out of sight, and therefore out of mind, groundwater is an indispensable resource in Michigan and around the world, but frequently wasted and polluted because the effects of these actions take years to manifest themselves.

Since 2018, FLOW has made groundwater protection a top priority. This week’s Groundwater Awareness Week gives us another chance to make the case that we need to take care of groundwater if we are to take care of ourselves.

Sponsored by the National Ground Water Association, which calls for attention to “the responsible development, management, and use of groundwater,” the week should focus on the need to strengthen groundwater protection.

Key Facts About Michigan Groundwater

  • Groundwater supplies 45 percent of Michigan’s population with drinking water.
  • About 20-40% of the water in the Great Lakes originates from groundwater.
  • There are an estimated 26,000 groundwater contamination sites that need state funding for cleanup, and at the current rate of remediation, they won’t all be addressed for decades.
  • Although 1.25 million private water wells supply drinking water to more than two million Michiganders, there is no regular safety testing of that water.
  • High-risk toxic chemicals, including TCE, which has contaminated groundwater in more than 300 known Michigan locations, are still in widespread use.
  • Michigan is the last holdout among the 50 states in protecting groundwater and surface water from failing septic systems through statewide policy. There are an estimated 130,000 failing systems in the state, discharging human waste, household hazardous wastes, pharmaceuticals and other pollutants to groundwater and surface water.

FLOW’s groundwater programming has included three reports, a groundwater story map and two webinars.

53% of groundwater aquifers are losing water

Published on February 6th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

A resource invisible most of the time to Michigan residents may be coveted more and more by other regions of the U.S. 

It’s called groundwater.  Found underground in cracks and spaces in soil, sand and rock, groundwater is vital to human health and the environment. And while Michigan has an abundance of groundwater, significant regions of the United States are using theirs up at alarming rates. A January article in Nature magazine reports that more than half of the groundwater aquifers in the United States (53 percent) are losing water.

“Groundwater levels are declining rapidly in many areas,” said the article’s co-author Scott Jasechko of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “And what’s worse, the rate of groundwater decline is accelerating in a large portion of areas.”  

The primary culprits in the worsening state of US groundwater are agricultural withdrawals and population growth. Coupled with climate change, current uses of groundwater are expected to overtax it, creating local or regional shortages and potential emergencies.

The quantity of Michigan’s groundwater is not currently at risk. There is enough groundwater to supply the 45% of the state’s residents that rely on it for drinking water. The volume of groundwater under the U.S. side of the Great Lakes basin is roughly equal to the volume of Lake Huron. And approximately 40% of the volume of the Great Lake originates as groundwater.

But could parched states of the South and West make a bid for some of Michigan’s groundwater? The Great Lakes Compact prohibits large-scale water diversions through pipelines, vessels and trains, but political pressure will likely grow to share our groundwater abundance.

Plummeting groundwater levels elsewhere make it all the more important for Michigan and the other Great Lakes states to use water sustainably – and to stop creating “dead zones” where contamination makes groundwater unfit for use.

Instead of sending groundwater elsewhere, Michigan will likely invite residents and businesses to relocate and use groundwater here. But that can happen only if Michigan improves its groundwater stewardship (PDF).

Large-Volume Groundwater Withdrawals and the Public Trust

Published on January 4th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

A fish kill in Oregon may seem to have little to do with Michigan waters – but if you look closely there is a close connection in law.

As the result of large-volume groundwater withdrawals like that in Oregon’s Deschutes River, western states have documented the serious impairment of streams, their ecosystems, fish, and the public right to fish. Michigan should also undertake this same type of documentation in order to prevent the loss of our own water resources and important public rights in our lakes and streams.

This kind of robust data collection and information can show the connection between groundwater withdrawals and their causal impact on our public trust resources and protected public uses like fishing, canoeing, and swimming. 

Faced with such factual and scientific clarity, most state courts (Wisconsin, Arizona, California, Hawaii) are readily expanding public trust law to limit groundwater withdrawals that diminish flows and levels and water quality on lakes and streams, and cause harm to fish and fishing or other protected uses.

In Michigan, the Supreme Court in Schenk v City of Ann Arbor recognized over 100 years ago that it was unlawful under the common law of groundwater for a landowner—in that case a city—to withdraw and divert water off-tract if this measurably diminished the flow or level of a creek, stream, pond, or lake, or interfered with others’ riparian uses. 

Michigan’s Constitution, article 4, section 52, declares that our state’s water and natural resources are of paramount public concern and interest. Michigan’s groundwater law and the Great Lakes Compact recognize that groundwater, lakes, and streams are a singular hydrological system. There is no ethical, scientific, or legal reason why the impairment of public trust resources or interference with public rights and uses of our lakes should not be ruled unlawful by our courts in Michigan under the common law public trust doctrine.