Page 14 - Jon Bumstead News Today

The Michigan Senate has unanimously approved $3.3 billion in water infrastructure spending to replace lead pipes and repair dams statewide while also sending money to a Detroit-area system that has struggled with flooding.

The Michigan House and Senate advanced two bills Thursday aiming to push billions toward water infrastructure and adding school resource officers.

The threat itself is nothing new. It’s just newly known to the public, the result of a rule change that forced water suppliers to start looking harder for the neurotoxin in their water delivery systems starting in 2019.

New rules, imposed after Flint, forced public water providers to look harder for lead leaching into drinking water. Violations of state lead standards are up nearly 50 percent, with new urgency to remove lead from water lines.

Areas receiving the most money from the bill include dam risk reduction, lead service line replacement, and the state’s Drinking Water Program.

The state Senate Appropriations committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that would spend 2-and-a-half-billion-dollars on water infrastructure.

The debate has waged in Lansing for years with one side pushing for local control and another arguing for private property rights.

The original sponsor of a bill made a shocking plea before the Michigan Senate Education and Career Readiness Committee today.

If passed, the Republican bill could impact thousands of additional students across two grades next year. Critics say expanding the controversial law is a mistake, given the disruption to learning among all grade levels during the pandemic.

9 & 10 News May 26, 2021 Update 5/27 – Republicans have revised their absentee voting bill to allow voters to write in their driver’s license or social security number instead of including a copy of their ID. Both sides of the aisle in Lansing have been calling for election reform since the chaos surrounding the November 2020 election. But it’s the details of the reform that have been highly debated and that continues as the legislature pushes a massive package of reform bills. “Bottom ...