State Representative Chris Kolb (D-Ann Arbor) has urged Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Russell Harding to reverse his agency's position and approve a new, protective Washtenaw County soil erosion control ordinance.

Armed with a September 27 letter from the Michigan Attorney General that found this June's rejection of the ordinance by the DEQ legally baseless, Kolb challenged Harding to permit Washtenaw County and other local governments to take the initiative to protect local rivers and streams as well as land resources.

"Local governments that want to go beyond minimum state standards in protecting the environment should be able to do so without interference by the DEQ," said Kolb. "That is especially the case when they are implementing a law tailored by the Legislature to let them do so."

On June 26, DEQ Land and Water Management Division Chief Richard A. Powers disapproved the Washtenaw County grading/soil erosion and sedimentation control ordinance, approved by the county in May 2002. Powers alleged that an amendment to state law approved by the Legislature in 2000 "allows for more restrictive administration of county programs in regard to resource protection, but it does not provide the authority for county ordinances to increase the scope of the Part 91 regulated activities."

But in the September 27 letter to Kolb, Deputy Attorney General William Richards wrote that the law "clearly provides authority for counties to enact an ordinance that is more restrictive than Part 91 and its administrative rules…The legislative history also fails to support a distinction between substantive and administrative requirements…MDEQ cannot properly disapprove a county ordinance adopted under Part 91 on the grounds that it imposes more restrictive substantive requirements."

The 2000 amendments to state law on soil erosion were a legislative response to a controversial soil washout at a golf course on the Lake Michigan shore. Legislators wanted to empower local units of government to prevent and police such abuses because DEQ lacks budget and staff to do so, Kolb said.

"Instead, DEQ management decided to write its own law by ignoring the clear intent of the Legislature and the will of the public," Kolb said.

In his letter to Harding, Kolb said, "I urge you to acknowledge that the Department's original interpretation of the recently-enacted Part 91 amendments was incorrect…I urge you to support, rather than thwart, local initiatives to protect the environment."