Karen Weaver's Fight for Clean Water November 2017 | Page 20

The average family flushes the toilet 18 times a day. Toilets use about 7 gallons a
flush. That’s 1600 gallons a month! Sewage and drainage costs are often half of a
consumer water bill. And, what goes down the drain is very important.
What we flush down the toilet, doesn’t just disappear. Waste is carried away and can
be treated and even reclaimed as fertilizer.
However, during heavy rains, sometimes the system cannot handle both the sewage
and drainage, so to prevent flooding, untreated waste is released from our sewage
treatment plants into our waterways. The sewage can damage the quality of our
waterways, and make drinking water difficult or impossible to treat. Billions of
gallons of raw sewage choke our streams and rivers every year.
In 2014, broken pumps caused major flooding of sewage throughout Southeastern,
Michigan. Then in 2016, a huge sinkhole caused by failing pipes lead to an
evacuation of several city blocks in Fraser, MI. This error cost Macomb County
millions of dollars. Politicians fought about who should pay. One thing is clear: To
ensure water quality, we have to pay attention to our infrastructure.
The City of Toledo had a water emergency because the raw sewage from Oakland
County, Michigan was released into the Clinton River which flows into Lake St.
Clair. The sewage traveled down the Detroit River into Lake Erie, where it caused
massive toxic algae blooms.
It’s clear that Mother Nature can’t do all the work. And we can’t rely on the pipes to
do all the work. We must participate in extending the life of our water systems, and
the quality of our water. The good news is that there are lots of ways that everybody
can pitch in to improve our water infrastructure.
WATER SYSTEMS, WATER QUALITY
CONT’D