LANSING, Mich. — The Senate on Thursday approved a budget supplemental bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Bumstead that would invest $3.3 billion in total funding to preserve and protect Michigan’s water quality, infrastructure and vital natural resources.
“Today the Senate took action toward ensuring our state’s water infrastructure will undergo improvements that will benefit every Michigander for generations to come,” said Bumstead, R-Newaygo, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. “We must seize this unique moment to make a transformational change for the better. I am hopeful my colleagues in the House of Representatives and the governor lend their support quickly, so we can get to work.”
Senate Bill 565 would provide $1 billion to replace lead pipes across the state, $700 million to upgrade local drinking water and wastewater facilities and $85 million to ensure students have access to safe water by installing filtered water stations inside schools. The plan also addresses the harmful impacts of PFAS chemicals and would dedicate $100 million in grants to remove the chemicals from so-called orphaned sites.
Bumstead’s water plan would also invest hundreds of millions of dollars to:
- Repair dams in critical condition to mitigate and avoid costly catastrophes like what happened in Midland last year;
- Assist communities with upgrading and replacing water treatment infrastructure and help homeowners to replace failing septic systems;
- Conduct surface water monitoring, including for wetland mitigation; and
- To implement recommendations included in the Groundwater Use Advisory Council Report.
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.
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