Visit Michigan’s Thumb

Two Israeli companies have agreed to start water technology pilot projects in Michigan, says Lt. Gov. John D. Cherry Jr.
Cherry recently returned from a week-long overseas trade mission to the Middle East, making stops in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Dubai, and bringing back news of the deals.
 
The two pilot projects, one by EPC Ltd. Onsite Wastewater Solutions, and another by EMEFCY, involve innovative uses of wastewater.

Katie Carey, a Cherry spokeswoman, said the EPC project will occur somewhere in Oakland County. The location of the EMEFCY project is still up in the air, but the Thumb is a possibility, Carey said.
They deal a lot with the CAFOs, and there are some of those in the Thumb,” Carey said. “It’s a possibility. We’re definitely looking at the entire state.”

CAFOs is short for concentrated animal feeding operations, which have been blamed for water pollution in the Saginaw Bay area.

President Barack Obama signed a bill to the rescue of the planet’s largest group of freshwater lakes.

Tucked inside the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act of 2010, the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is the biggest single-year cash infusion a president has committed to the 10,000-year-old liquid assets on which floats the future of Northeast Ohio. That money aims at the toxic sludge, raw sewage, harmful algae blooms, 185 invasive species and damaged habitat that threaten this precious fresh water.

Over in Michigan’s Thumb, the beach muck is so bad that people discuss it around the campfire.

Now folks here have a song to sing around the flames, penned by Clifford Stuehmer, an amateur songwriter from the Detroit area who has a summer cabin in Huron City.

The song, played on an acoustic guitar, is called “Terry Brown, We’ve Got This Mucky Water.”

It’s a plea to State Rep. Terry Brown, D-Pigeon, to do something about the dead algae that’s been fouling Saginaw Bay shorelines in recent years.

Listen to a few verses, and you might recognize the tune as a take-off of the Herman’s Hermits hit, “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.”

• Listen to ‘Terry Brown, We’ve Got This Mucky Water’.