Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on November 1, 2005, to require the Department of Environmental Quality to consider impacts on ground and surface water movements before granting a water withdrawal permit to a public water supply system that uses more than 2 million gallons per day, or 5 million if from the Great Lakes and connected waterways. The department would have to reject proposals if the system would not meet standards proposed by Senate Bill 850, unless there was no feasible and prudent alternative, and the environmental impact of the withdrawal would be balanced by its public benefit

The vote was 36 in favor, 0 opposed and 2 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 684 at Senate Journal 110)

Click here to view bill details.

Senator Brater's statement is as follows: Mr.President and members, earlier today, we voted on the water package and I had intended to make some concluding remarks before final passage of Senate Bill No.857, which I was not quick enough on the button, so I'd like to make them at this time if I could. It's basically just to summarize that the water protection legislation that passed today provides new protections for our water-dependent natural resources and, at the same time, upholds the public trust doctrine in the Michigan riparian law. There are improvements that can be made and we will continue to work on this package. There are several ways in which the bills represent real progress in protecting Michigan's water resources, and I think that it's very important to emphasize, as we conclude the Senate portion of the work on these bills, that this was a very important consensus-building process; that we had many diverse groups on-board, including a huge environmental coalition of groups that came together from various points of view. Also the business community and the agriculture community in the state of Michigan all worked together through the workgroups and the committee process to come to this consensus today. So I think it is a very historic process to see all of these groups working together, and I just wanted to congratulate all of the groups that were involved from the environmental, business, and agriculture communities. I hope to see this move forward in the other chamber.

Rep. Sheen, having reserved the right to explain his protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement: "Mr. Speaker and members of the House: No Vote Explanation on Water Bills This is not about clean water or protecting the Great Lakes. It is about regulating water withdrawal from residents and businesses. This is not a time to make any more regulations to make it any more difficult or expensive to do business, create jobs, or for families to live in Michigan. This legislation may be carefully crafted to protect current businesses and residents, but it opens the door to future regulation, higher costs of doing business, and further erosion of private property rights. I can not support more job killing regulations, increased costs, and further erosion of private property rights."