Michigan Senate passes bill restoring EGLE’s authority to set water quality standards • Michigan Advance

Senate Bill 663sponsored by state Senator Sue Shink (D-Northfield Twp.), would eliminate that provision and give the agency the opportunity to update standards to align with those at the federal level.

“Michigan is the heart of the world’s most extraordinary and precious freshwater system. Regardless of a person’s political leanings, Michiganders value the Great Lakes, inland lakes, waterways, groundwater and tributaries that shape the great state we love and see every day,” Shink said. “Passing this bill gives EGLE back the authority to make rules that protect us from harmful chemicals that enter our waterways and find their way into our drinking water, our wildlife and our own bodies, where they can cause serious consequences to our health.”

The law that signed by then Governor Jennifer Granholma Democrat, was then known as “bipartisan agreement to protect Michigan’s water resources (which) also streamlines the administrative processes of rulemaking and hearings…”

The proposal was supported by business and pushed by Republicans who argued that the agency, then called the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), had usurped the powers of the legislature in its efforts to combat pollution.

The same argument was rejected in a series of rhetorical questions by Senator Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) on Wednesday.

“Who here seriously believes that the agency somehow lacks power?” McBroom said. “That any of our administrative agencies lack power? Who here has gone door to door and into your counties and said, ‘I can’t wait to come to Lansing and give the agencies and bureaucracy of the state more power over your daily lives?’ What farmer has come into the lobby or come into your office and asked, ‘Could you please ask the DEQ to issue more regulations?’ Who has ever heard a business in our state say, ‘Please. I need more administrative state?'”

Senator Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) responded to McBroom’s broadside.

“I’m sure you’ve all seen in your time in Lansing that sometimes the legislature doesn’t act quickly. Sometimes there are powerful forces that prevent the legislature from acting, and sometimes even when action obviously needs to be taken. Sometimes it’s the influence of money on decisions in Lansing,” Irwin said. “I know everyone feels like the water beneath them and the air above them is theirs because they’re standing on their property, but we have to recognize that that water flows between us, that air floats between us. It’s a resource that we share. It’s a resource that we need to share.”

Irwin then recalled the PFAS contamination of thousands of residents in his district when a Wixom-based coatings company Discharge of waste into the Huron River in 2018, which then flowed downstream and became the state that issues a “do not eat” recommendation for fish in the river in Livingston, Oakland and Washtenaw counties.

“I would have loved it if DEQ had had the authority to deal with emerging contaminants when we found out that the NPDES (National system for the elimination of pollutant discharges) “The permit issued by the City of Wixom resulted in pollution traveling downstream and entering the bodies of over 100,000 people – men, women and children.”