Obviously, Michigan has made headlines lately for some not so great news regarding their water supplies. basin has been used as a resource for industry, agriculture, shipping, It also has been The Integrated Report satisfies the listing requirements of Section 303(d) and the reporting requirements of Section 305(b) and 314 of the CWA. Looking back five years, the same magnitude of change happened on April 25, 2014, when smiling city officials raised glasses of water to toast a switch that altered 100,000 lives. The permit for CAFOs includes rules on when a farmer is allowed to apply manure and fertilizer on frozen ground and how much manure and fertilizer is allowed to be applied on farm fields at all. Some still do. Residents here enjoy a relatively high quality of water with few opportunities for contamination. “The river is loaded with nutrients, it's loaded with bacteria,” he told Circle of Blue. Critics of the operations, like Borrello and the, The Pine River is at the heart of this pollution debate. The most recent testing of Flint’s drinking water, sourced again from Detroit, marked lead at four parts per billion, well clear of the 15 that requires action. 1/3 have been proven to have a toxic effect on aquatic life, wildlife, Image Copyright (c) 1997 Index Stock. Measurements from the 1966 study had shown elevated chloride concentrations in the Flint River, still true in 2014. “One of the big suspects is all the road salts,” says Terese Olson, an associate professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. All rights reserved. Tim Keeton, a biology professor at Alma College who is part of Borrello’s monitoring team, says the biggest roadblock in their work is getting around the Michigan Farm Bureau. “Not because we forgot to. NSF 42, 53, 58 and 401 – Is it necessary to buy a certified water filter? records may reflect updates since that date. 303 facilities could not be mapped but are included in this list. Water from the Pine River flowed slowly beneath him as he looked out over a bridge. The Detroit River provides all the water consumed by Warren residents. Heavy In Gratiot County, Borrello and Keeton said the Farm Bureau has done everything it can to stop the public from blaming CAFOs for pollution in the Pine River. Plaintiffs in some of the many lawsuits still in progress have challenged the move in court. “If you talk to people that kind of sit down and do the math and study the environment around here, they're going to say, no, it's got to be mostly feedlot manure applications.” >>>>>. The Section 303(d) list includes Michigan water bodies that are not attaining one or more designated use and require the establishment of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) to meet and maintain Water Quality Standards. People are exposed to pollutants by ingestion of foodstuffs or contaminated “The regulations that these feedlots have to deal with are very different than what most industries have to deal with,” he said, adding that any farm with thousands of animals on it is “an industry and it needs to be treated as such.”. to interfere with reproduction in birds and lake trout. Flint should just make it brutally apparent to everybody.”.