COMMENTARY: Cleaning up Michigan's water

[News]

A Michigan lawmaker introduced a bill to regulate Great Lakes ballast water and has won the support of environmentalists eager to see action taken.

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[minnow]

What about a bill to penalize county`s that have large sewer leaks? That seems to happen once or twice a year.

[Priority1]

The ballast water, Sewer leaks, and intentional sewage discharges, do need to be addressed by the legislature. What gives municipalities the right to send there Sh-- downstream??? Sewage should run in their streets, if they can't process it, but NOT in our rivers lakes and streams. The big problem is the way most cities set their sewer systems up. If there were separate sewers for storm and sanitary there wouldn't be the problems we have now. Most municipalities have combination sewers. Separate sanitary sewers wouldn't need to be near as large as the storm sewers. It all boils down to $$$$. Over the long run not having to treat storm water along with household waste, probably would pay for the separate sewers. Even if the $$$ payback isn't quite there, certainly clean water is worth the investment. Many cities have opted to build retention basins, to hold storm water and sewage until it can be run through their sewage treatment plants. Retention basins help, but unfortunately they are not sized to handle the big storms. My 2 cents and then some.