After years of neglecting the billions of gallons of sewage overflowing into Michigan's waterways each year, state lawmakers have approved a ballot initiative that environmental groups say will lead to better protection of one of Michigan's most precious and valued natural resources-water. While the $1 billion sewer bond proposal will not eliminate the state's sewage overflow problems, it is a positive step. The rest will be up to Michigan voters in November.

"Many of our sewers are more than a century old, and they're acting more like sieves than pipes. It's ridiculous that we continue sending billions of gallons of raw sewage into our drinking water sources and recreational areas 30 years after Congress passed the Clean Water Act," said Cyndi Roper, Clean Water Action's Michigan Director. Clean Water Action (CWA) is one of the MEC groups that built support for and refined the proposal as it worked its way through the legislative process.

Last fall, just prior to the Michigan Legislature's consideration of this bond package, CWA released a report that boosted the state's previous estimate of 9 billion gallons of annual sewage overflow to nearly 50 billion gallons. The overflows are the primary cause of beach closings that have plagued Michigan shorelines for years.

The bond proposal will be on the November 2002 ballot. The state would be authorized to borrow up to $100 million a year for each of the next ten years. Ninety percent of the money would go into the existing State Revolving Fund (SRF), which provides low-interest loans to municipalities to make improvements to public wastewater/stormwater systems. A promising addition to the program will require 2% of all SRF money ($6-$8 million annually) be made available for projects that are designed to reduce nonpoint source pollution and encourage non-structural projects to reduce stormwater flows into public systems.

In addition, up to $10 million annually would go into a new Strategic Water Quality Fund. This new program, also in the form of available loans to local units of government, would target projects to reduce the volume of stormwater that over- whelms public water systems during rain events, such as the footing drain disconnections, and programs de-signed to assist in the replacement of failing on-site septic systems that are impairing local lakes and streams.

"MEC believes sewage overflows are a symptom of a larger problem-urban sprawl. As our population has spread across the state, it has strained sewage infrastructure to the point of breaking, resulting in massive sewage discharges and impairment of our bathing beaches," stated James Clift, MEC Policy Director. "This proposal begins addressing the issue by concentrating our efforts on fixing existing infrastructure and using natural systems to avoid having to build new infrastructure in the future."