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Victory! Public Financing for Howard County Elections in 2022!
On Monday night, the Howard County Council overturned Kittleman’s veto, and we now have a Citizens’ Election Fund (CB30) to enable candidates to run without deep pocketed special interest money. Why does Clean Water Action care about how elections are funded? CB30 makes it possible for candidates to run for office without courting large dollar amount donors. In fact, it forbids participating candidates from getting donations over $250 from any individual. That means that candidates can campaign to the general public, not a couple of wealthy donors. We believe that democracy is stronger when
Lazy summer days, serious clean water updates
Even during the slow summer months, our work continues to push Maryland forward for water quality and to fight against rollbacks on the federal level. With all of the changes happening on the federal level, it is a breath of fresh air to work in Maryland where most of our policymakers get the importance of protecting our streams and rivers. Here we may vehemently disagree on how far a policy should go, but we do not have fundamental disagreements about science or the human need for clean water. Here's what Clean Water Action has been up to in Maryland in the past month: Baltimore City Climate
Michigan’s Outdated and Dangerous Combined Sewer Systems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
