Dave's Blog

I must, however, share this award with those who have also been involved with the ongoing efforts of Toxic Free Shores, TFS. People like Lorol Brackx, Ralph Reich, Bruce Terwilliger, Connie Boris, Marie Mitchell and Mary Kay Worley, who have continued to devote their time and talents to advocate a thorough remediation of the PCB and heavy metal contamination found in St. Clair Shores four and one-half years ago deserve recognition for their continued efforts to enhance the health and safety of the environment, of the aquatic life and of the families in the immediate area as well as those living downstream from the site.

To my family and the families of the aforementioned: Thank you for your continued patience and support as we continue to pursue a thorough investigation, a complete cleanup and ongoing monitoring in St. Clair Shores.

I especially wish to thank the Clean Water Action staff which has been a constant source of support for me, for TFS, and for others facing water quality issues. It is people like Brad Wilson, Cyndi Roper, Sarah Roberts, David Holtz, and Christy McGillivray, and others whose knowledge, skills, and organizing efforts continue to play a vital role through community outreach and education as well as through their ongoing efforts to encourage and support policies and legislation to enhance water quality not only in and around St. Clair Shores, but across Michigan.

For those officials (Gov. Grandholm; Reps. Brandenburg, Levin; Sens. Brater, Levin, Stabenow; and others) who are striving to create and promote legislation that enhances the health and safety of our environment and our families, I commend you.

Over the course of the last four and one-half years, I have learned a great deal about an abundance of issues that are affecting the health and safety of our environment, our water supply and our families.

As a nurse and a mother, I am deeply concerned about the impacts of these issues on our children and on future generations.

The number of children who suffer from such problems as asthma and learning disorders has been and continue to be on the rise.

Studies have only continued to confirm the negative impacts of the persistent presence of toxics in our environment.

Today’s children are discussing what type of medications they are taking and what type of inhalers they are using.

Yet, steps to reduce, remove, or eliminate those known contaminants and the public health threats they generate are hampered by inadequate funding.

For instance, in St. Clair Shores, although PCBs were recently found (May 2005) above 32,000 parts per million in the first three feet of soil, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims this poses no health threat and plans on placing the area on the “National Priority List,” which in my eyes is a mere waiting list for yet another under-funded program (Superfund).

Moreover, funding for research to safely alter persistent toxics such as PCBs is essentially non-existent.

Shouldn’t the protection of our most valuable and vital assets, our water / our children, be our real “National Priority!”

Currently we are working toward legislation necessary to protect our waters from private withdrawals. Did you ever stop to think why such legislation was necessary? Isn’t our drinking water adequate? Have we let things get so bad that we need to have a market for bottled water?

Earlier this year I went to my Township Board to express my dismay over wetland destruction in my township. While I was there discussing the importance of wetlands in protecting our water supply, I mentioned that I still had a persistent water quality issue, black particles in my tap water.

The Board responded by purchasing a refrigerator and bottled water for Township employees.

Consequently, legislation to prevent such large scale withdrawals for the booming bottled-water business is necessary because stricter policies and laws to protect water quality and the funding to ensure proper practices are not.

Allowing large scale withdrawals would only result in an increased concentration of the contaminants already found in our Great Lakes, and thus, in our drinking water supply. This will merely compound the problem.

We can learn from places like Hamburg, Germany, where the lifeless rivers run black.

We must protect our most valuable and vital natural resource, water, from continued insults and the resulting degradation by promoting legislation and policies that limit the influx of toxics, that limit diversions, and that fully fund the remediation and the rehabilitation of our waters.

Furthermore, we must ensure environmental justice for those who cannot afford fancy filtration systems or bottled water and who must rely on our “Great Lakes” for sustenance.

We must also act to protect our native aquatic life.

We must continue our efforts to ensure a safe environment for future generations.