“Basically, the tool represented a compromise,” said Jim Olson, a Traverse City-based environmental attorney who litigated the Nestlé court case for Mecosta County residents. He asserts that the tool’s estimates have to be replaced with actual data on stream flows, groundwater levels, and pumping tests. “The model is nothing but a model, which by itself, without site specific background, pump tests, and continuing monitoring, is not reliable.”
“We developed this tool and then we stopped investing in it,” added Tom Zimnicki, program director for groundwater, surface water, and agriculture at the Michigan Environmental Council. Zimnicki also sits on the program’s 23-member Water Use Advisory Council. “We stopped updating it in the way that we needed to. We stopped funding both the tool and the data collection pieces. It fell to the backburner.”
In its most recent report to the Legislature, the Advisory Council recommended nearly $10 million in spending, most of it for hydrological research and data collection. A $5 million budget item to do half of the work awaits action in Lansing.
“The Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool was developed as a screening tool, with the expectation that it would be refined over time,” said Alan D. Steinman, director of Grand Valley State University’s Annis Water Resources Institute, and a member of the team that developed the tool. “I am biased, of course, but I believe it met that goal. The problem is that the state never took on the not insignificant burden of refinement.”
Despite the weaknesses, the state farm community, represented by the Michigan Farm Bureau, a politically influential group, has expressed consistent support for groundwater management. As an active and prominent Farm Bureau member, Larry Walton participated in the program’s development and oversight. “We were at the table when it started,” he said. “We’re still there. Our views are heard and taken into account.”
There’s a reason that farmers, notoriously resistant to government oversight, support the work of the Water Assessment Unit. They’re concerned about water supply. It’s no longer a dispute that as the country warms and dries, Michigan’s ample groundwater reserves are a decided competitive advantage in agriculture. The question facing farmers and the state is whether that advantage can be sustained. Competition for groundwater appears certain to increase as out-of-state food and fiber producers migrate to Michigan from the arid West, much hotter South, and other drying regions of the world.
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September 27, 2021 at 09:07PM
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As Drought Grips American West, Irrigation Becomes Selling Point for Michigan - Circle of Blue WaterNews
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