Water Advisory Council Recommends Macomb, St. Clair Counties Pitch In

Macomb and St. Clair counties should appropriate thousands of dollars to keep an extensive water-monitoring system in southeastern Michigan afloat through 2012, a regional water advisory council suggests.

The Water Resources Advisory Council met for the second time this week and agreed upon a set of recommendations to safeguard drinking water throughout next year. Among the suggestions, each county should contribute $50,000 to maintain the St. Clair River-Lake St. Clair Drinking Water Protection System, according to Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel.

The because of necessary maintenance costs at each of the 13 monitoring sites and a projected depletion of the monitoring fund by December. The high-tech monitoring system frequently checks for toxins flowing from Lake Huron into St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River and Lake Erie–the bodies of water from which drinking water is pumped to virtually every household and business in the region.

Pollution detection can take place as far upstream as Port Huron, but the system sends signals through Mount Clemens, and Grosse Pointe Farms, reaching as far as .

The Water Resources Advisory Council, formed by Hackel, comprises experts from the Macomb and St. Clair County health departments, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development and Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, also referred to as SEMCOG.

Apart from the counties appropriating money, the council also recommends the 13 municipalities with intake sites become financially responsible for maintaining the monitoring equipment in their boundaries.

“Although not a long-term solution, this agreement ensures that the safety of our drinking water will be protected for at least another year,” Hackel said in a prepared statement. “It also gives us more time to develop a partnership to sustain this system well into the future.” 

The elaborate monitoring network launched in 2006 with federal, state and local money. The next step in this process is for St. Clair and Macomb county officials to approve the allocation of money for this system at undetermined dates.