Explain how the government administration led to decline of control over the local water sources by the local people?
Answers
Local governments have a very important role to play in protection of surface water, ground water, drinking water and wetlands, often filling in the gaps in state and federal regulations. If local government does not do so with local zoning, those gaps may not be addressed. There are various state and federal laws designed to protect water quality. But relying only on state laws may not do a complete job.
“. . . state level [laws] are not enough; they tend to blunt but not stop degradation of the shore, and do not protect entire ecosystems, only resources found on particular parcels” according to Filling the Gaps: Environmental Protection Options for Local Governments (Katherine A. Ardizone et al., Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, 2003).
Local government can be preventative with zoning; a characteristic of zoning that is not always found in state statutes. Often, state laws focus on just one parcel or are in reaction to a problem that has already occurred. In addition, the book Filling the Gaps lists what aspects of environmental protection are not regulated by federal and state and gaps in those regulation – pointing out important roles for local government.
No one level of government can be effective on its own. It takes a cooperative effort. One way to visualize this is with local government in the center, and in a circle around local government are state and federal environmental regulation programs, watershed groups and landowners.
However, there are two caveats to local government involvement in the protection of water. First, is to be most effective one needs to address an issue at the same geography as the topic being addressed. That means local governments should coordinate and come together to protect a resource like water so the actions include the entire watershed or groundwater shed. Otherwise, one is doing only part of the job.
Second, in Michigan’s glacial geology, groundwater, surface water (lakes and streams), and wetlands are interconnected. That means water (and contaminants in that water) travels back and forth between all three: wetlands, surface and ground waters. So the local approach has to tackle all three. Otherwise, one is only doing part of the job.
Prevention of groundwater contamination through zoning often is done with site plan review standards in the zoning ordinance (from Michigan State University Extension) which requires secondary containment and restricting use of dry wells. These techniques were developed in the 1990s through the Groundwater Education in Michigan (GEM) program. Pilot communities were used to develop the site plan review standards which are now available for use everywhere in the state. Preventing drinking water/groundwater contamination is also part of Michigan Wellhead Protection program. This is a proactive effort to identify historic and present possible sources of contaminants within a public water well’s area so the community can monitor those issues. Also, a community uses zoning, fire inspections and other incentives, to prevent future contamination in the well’s area. These strategic activities are spelled out in a community’s wellhead protection plan.
Proactive protection of wetlands and surface water (lakes, rivers) is often an issue of how the shoreline is treated: setbacks, vegetation belts/buffers and density of development (parcel size and impervious surface). What size vegetation belt, and how big a setback, will be determined by doing homework first. It will depend on what the goal is, that is what the problem which one is trying to address is. It will depend on results of looking at primary information about the area lake size and shape (morphology), soil types (web soil survey), slopes, flood information and data from Michigan Surface Water Information Management System. This type of information can be obtained from places like regional planning agencies, county geographic information system (GIS) data, state agencies, soil conservation districts and watershed centers.
Standards used, or adopted into a zoning ordinance, need to be based on this homework, and follow defensible science based standards, and will depend on the goals. For example, the goal may be to protect water from nutrients and other runoff. Or goals may be to protect aesthetics of a resource, or to protect natural habitat. Different standards will result depending on what one is trying to accomplish.
One example of a set of standards was presented in a recent Shoreline Zoning workshops:
Minimum shoreland standards for lake with sewer system (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)