Filter By:
Type
State
Priority
Posted On
Search Results
Our Water Has Waited Too Long
By Michael Kelly, Director of Communications - follow Michael on Twitter - @MichaelEdKelly The Clean Water Act became law in 1972. Since then industry and their allies in Congress have attempted to weaken the landmark law – asking Americans to put their bottom line ahead of protecting our water. In the mid-2000’s, industry got its wish when the Bush administration effectively broke the Clean Water Act and removed protections from nearly 20 million acres of wetlands and more than half the nation’s streams. The Bush administration’s actions put the drinking water for more than 1 in 3 Americans
Derailments and Spills and Protecting Clean Water
By Andy Fellows, Chesapeake Regional Director A CSX train carrying crude oil going off the tracks in Virginia is a news flash that grabs national attention for a moment, but for those involved and for the communities in which they happen, a derailment can be catastrophic, life changing and deadly. 50,000 gallons of oil are “missing,” as officials are uncertain as to how much burned in the blaze and how much ended up in the water. Though no one at this time appears to be injured, the burning oil along the James brings to mind the image of the Cuyahoga River in flames in the late 60’s, a
Michigan’s Outdated and Dangerous Combined Sewer Systems
Many of Michigan’s urban and suburban areas expanded rapidly between the 1920s and the 1950s — an era with different priorities for water management. Many of Michigan’s water systems were originally built as combined systems, meaning the pipes carried both stormwater and wastewater. These systems simply discharged all water directly into local lakes, rivers, and streams, without treatment. Wastewater treatment centers were built later, and the combined sewer pipes were redirected there for the water to be processed before being released back into the water table. Starting in the mid-1950s
Protecting Michigan’s Waters: Infrastructure for the Future
Michigan is the Great Lakes state. As such, Michigan residents are acutely aware of our duty to protect the Great Lakes and our water resources for future generations. There are currently many threats to our water here in Michigan. Most of these threats have been looming for years, but action on them has been pushed off, as our legislature procrastinates and ignores the problems instead of taking the hard steps that action requires. The Flint water crisis brought the dangers of lead infrastructure and poor oversight from the state to the surface and a city was poisoned as a result. Every year
Michigan’s Aging Septic Systems
E. coli is a major bacterial pollutant in Michigan’s water. While E. coli is commonly talked about in reference to combined sewer overflows and large-scale agricultural operations, there is another major source of E. coli in our water that every state in the country other than Michigan has worked to eliminate — leaking and failing septic systems. Michigan is currently the only state that does not require regular inspections of septic systems, and the problem is only getting worse with time. Septic systems are generally found in rural areas where municipal sewer systems don’t exist, or in older
