Michigan's environment is much cleaner than 100 years ago, according to a recent study.

Over the weekend I read a very interesting article titled, "Michigan's Environment is Cleaner Than it's Been in More Than 100 Years" by Thomas Doran.

Doran, who is a member of the College of Fellows of The Engineering Society of Detroit and an adjunct professor of civil engineering at Lawrence Technological University, found that Michigan’s environment is arguably cleaner than it has been in more than 100 years.

He reviewed the following factors:

  • Consider how clean our drinking water has become. In the early 20th century, waterborne infectious diseases such as cholera, dysentery and typhoid were leading causes of death, and typhoid epidemics annually sickened thousands in American cities. With technological leaps in filtration — now to the level of filtering microbes and chemical compounds, disinfection and water analysis — these waterborne illnesses have been practically eradicated in Michigan and the United States.
  • The water in our rivers, lakes and streams is also less contaminated than it used to be. Treated wastewater and storm water contain significantly lower levels of contaminants, as technology and control systems have advanced. Some wastewater treatment plants in Michigan discharge water of higher quality than their receiving streams. For example, the PARCC Side Clean Water Plant in Plainfield, Michigan discharges four million gallons of water per day into the Grand River that is of better quality than the river’s water. Other Michigan treatment plants can also produce effluents better than river water much of the time.
  • Wildlife habitats are improving, too. In a 2010 Detroit News article, Jim Lynch chronicled the repopulation of wildlife around Detroit, writing, “After decades of struggling to overcome the Detroit River’s polluted past, a variety of fish and bird species have re-established themselves ... [t]he budding osprey population is joined by increasing numbers of walleye, lake sturgeon and whitefish as well as bird species like the bald eagle and peregrine falcon.”
  • A similar phenomenon is occurring in Michigan streams, rivers and lakes. The Grand River has become a fishing mecca, with bounties of salmon, steelhead, brown trout, bass, catfish and walleye. According to a recent report, the combined sewer overflow pollutant loads in the Rouge River, which flows into the Detroit River, have been reduced by 90 to 100 percent during most events. Further, for the first time in decades, the fish consumption advisory for some species in Wayne County’s Newburgh Lake has been lifted.

The problem is that the environmentalists have been making so much money off of the mostly false narrative they spew that you would never know how much better the environment has become.

Should we strive to keep our environment clean, sure the environmentalists' info is helpful. But if both sides of the argument are not using the same facts, then how can we ever have an honest debate? If the environmentalist will not accept the facts as they are today and the improvements that we've made then there is no real reason to listen to anything they have to say.

Call me today on the Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.

Thank you,
Renk

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