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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

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

Clean Water Action supported the passage of new drinking water guidance levels for PFCs and the establishment of the state’s biomonitoring program. We advocated for strong landfill clean up plans and conducted public education and outreach on this ever evolving situation.