MUSKEGON – State Representative Mary Valentine (D-Norton Shores) today called for the protection of local beaches and the tourism dollars they generate after hundreds of pounds of trash washed up along the Lake Michigan shoreline, including Muskegon beaches.
"Michigan's land, air and water are part of our heritage and play a vital role in our local economy," Valentine said. "We want visitors to come to West Michigan's beaches, not other people's trash. Attacking the economics of the trash trade is the best way to stop the flood of garbage pouring into our state and preserve our natural resources for future generations."
According to a July 17 Associated Press article, trash has been washing up along Lake Michigan beaches since Sunday. The garbage that washed onto a 10-mile stretch of shoreline overnight Sunday in Mason and Manistee counties included medical waste such as prescription drug bottles and hypodermic syringes Some of the items carry Wisconsin names and addresses. Officials in Manistee County were forced to close a beach where some junk piles had reached 8 inches high. By Tuesday, private beaches in Holland were littered with trash and plastic bags and other garbage also washed up in Saugatuck. The trash has continued to flow south and has washed ashore again, this time in Muskegon. Officials are working to determine where the trash originated.
Valentine today called on the State Senate to take action on a plan passed by the State House over a year ago, which increases the state's paltry dumping charge to the highest in the Midwest. At 21 cents per ton, Michigan currently has the lowest dumping charge of any state in the Great Lakes region. This low dumping charge acts as a magnet for Canadian and out-of-state trash. Garbage from Wisconsin, Canada, Ohio, Indiana, and as far away as New Jersey and Florida comes to Michigan so companies can cash in on bargain basement disposal rates. The House plan also bans new landfills and strictly limits the expansion of existing landfills until 2012.
"We're not the nation's dumping ground," Valentine said. "As long as trash from outside Michigan continues to pour into our state, these types of accidents will continue. Enough is enough. I call on my colleagues in the Senate to pass our tough anti-trash plan and put the brakes on the trash industry's free ride in Michigan."