Governor Whitmer today announced a $500 million comprehensive water infrastructure investment in Michigan’s water systems. This is a significant investment after decades of under investment in Michigan’s underground infrastructure.
This investment confronts the large infrastructure issues that Michigan faces, such as lead-laden water service lines, PFAS contamination, undersized sewers, failing septic systems, unaffordable water rates and constrained local budgets. This initiative will allow communities to access needed funds for necessary and timely infrastructure projects.
This investment includes a proposal combining federal dollars for lead service line replacement in low-income communities ($102.1 million) with bonding authority for water quality protection ($290 million), one-time General Fund appropriation for drinking water infrastructure and innovation ($105 million), and asset management grants ($2.9 million) to help communities develop, update, and improve their plans for wastewater and stormwater systems resulting in a comprehensive water infrastructure investment of $500 million in Michigan’s water systems. The MI Clean Water investment will be done without raising the taxes of Michiganders.
This is a bipartisan initiative that will need some minor legislative approval. MITA staff will be working closely with the Legislature and Governor to ensure that the necessary bills are passed so that this money can flow into communities for next year’s construction season. This will also be the focus of the Fix MI State campaign over the next couple of months.
If you have any questions, please contact Mike Nystrom, Executive Vice President at mikenystrom@thinkmita.org or Lance Binoniemi, Vice President of Government Affairs at lancebinoniemi@thinkmita.org. They both can be reached at (517) 347-8336.
