May 2025

by Scott Brown

MWA e-Newsletter Editor

For those of us who recognize the immense value of the multi-faceted contributions that our inland lakes and rivers make to Michigan’s increasingly ‘blue’ economy and culture, the failure of our state legislature to enact legislation that would have established a statewide septic system code represents represents a tragedy of increasingly dire proportions. Strident opposition from county health departments, the real estate industry, and from “don’t tread of me” politicians who believe that any form of environmental regulation represents a threat to the exercise of individual liberty, helped ensure that the common sense legislation that was introduced in the last session of our state legislature did not even come up for an up or down vote.

For the Great Lakes state whose vast natural heritage of immensely valuable freshwater resources – our extraordinary inland lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands and groundwater aquifers that contribute billions of dollars of vital services to Michigan’s economy – we find ourselves in the embarrassing and increasingly dangerous predicament of being the only state in the United States of America who continues to allow billions of gallons of raw, toxic toilet bowl waste to flow unimpeded into our precious freshwaters each year from hundreds of thousands of dysfunctional septic tanks.

Representing a increasingly dire threat to the health our citizens and to the innate capacity of our freshwater resources to continue to provide immensely valuable economic and ecological services to Michigan’s increasingly blue economy, our collective lack of willingness to enact and enforce a common sense statewide septic system code has already resulted in the fact that many of our rivers and streams host levels of e-coli and other pollutants, including PFAS, that represent a serious threat to the health of anyone who comes into contact with what represents an increasingly toxic brew of life threatening substances. This author is reminded of the intensely polluted rivers that flow through heavily populated urban areas of India where even momentary contact with the water threatens the onset of severe illness or death.

The enactment and implementation of a well funded, common sense statewide septic system code will go a long way to helping resolve the fact that one quarter, or 330,000 of Michigan’s 1.3 million septic tanks spill almost six billion gallons of E. coli and harmful chemical contaminated wastewater into our freshwater treasures each year due to the fact that they have not been properly maintained or pumped out on a regular basis. The severity of the problem in Michigan is effectively illustrated by the fact that roughly half of our rivers and streams have been contaminated with human fecal matter derived Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria levels that greatly exceed the minimum concentrations that are known to be responsible for the onset of a dangerous array of debilitating human diseases.

It is also important to note that the overall ecological health and water quality of thousands of our inland lakes is also threatened by the extreme levels of water clarity threatening phosphorus and nitrogen that originates from tens of thousands of near shore residential septic tanks that have not been properly maintained in decades. The increasing frequency of toxic blue-green algae blooms, also known as cyanobacteria, that are observed in Michigan represents a reliable indicator of the increasingly dire need to remedy a situation that allows billions of gallons of toxic raw sewage from 300,000 dysfunctional septic tanks to flow into our precious freshwaters each year.

It is important to point out that the Great Lakes state – Michigan, endowed with a vast treasure of life sustaining freshwater, is the only state in America that has not established a statewide code for regulating the construction. inspection, and periodic maintenance of septic systems. In the continued absence of a statewide septic system code, only 11 of Michigan’s 83 counties have passed local ordinances that regulate the construction, inspection, and maintenance of residential septic tanks and their associated drain fields.

For those of us who understand and appreciate the vast contributions that our freshwater resources make to Michigan’s ‘blue’ economy and culture, it is difficult to understand how otherwise responsible state legislators can allow hundreds of thousands of failing septic systems to continue to degrade tens of thousands of freshwater ecosystems – our lakes, our rivers, our streams, our creeks, our wetlands, and our ground water aquifers – while at the same time presenting a significant health threat to the people of Michigan.  Readers of this newsletter can be assured that Michigan Waterfront Alliance will continue our pro-active efforts to convince state law makers of the increasingly dire need to enact legislation that would establish a state septic system code.

Readers of this newsletter are encouraged to contact their respective state representatives or state senator to encourage them to support the enactment of a statewide septic system code – the capacity of our freshwater resources to contribute to a healthy, prosperous ‘blue’ economy and culture for future generations of Michigan citizens depends on our success!