News
Advisory
For
Friday. July 30
Contact:
Kym
Spring, Clean Water Action (616) 742-4084
Jan O’Connell,
Sierra Club (616) 956-6646
Cyndi Roper, Clean
Water Action (517) 490-1394 (cell)
Grand River Flotilla to Carry
Message Friday to
President Bush:
West Michigan Families Want Clean Water
On
Friday, July 30 at 9:00am at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids at BOAT LAUNCH #2, Clean Water Action, Michigan Sierra
Club
members and community supporters will hold a rally and river flotilla
(canoes,
kayaks) to protest the Bush Administration’s policies on water and the
environment. The Grand River, which is listed as an “impaired
waterway” by
the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, flows through downtown Grand Rapids where President
Bush will be speaking.
Who: Clean Water
Action, Sierra Club
Where: Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, at BOAT
LAUNCH #2
When: 9:00 am
Visuals: Protesters in kayaks, canoes in the
Grand River and on
shore with rally signs.
Story: Right
now up to 50 billion gallons of poorly treated sewage is dumped Into Michigan’s lakes, streams
and rivers each year. Experts estimate
that nearly 8 million Americans get sick every year from swimming in or
drinking polluted waters. This already
poor record is getting worse under a Bush Administration policy that
allows
sewage treatment facilities to discharge a mixture of largely untreated
sewage
with treated sewage when it rains.
This is more bad
news for the Grand River,
the Great Lakes and other rivers and streams. Instead of helping our communities fix their
sewer systems, the Bush policy proposes removing the requirement for
communities to eliminate their sewer overflow problems.
While Grand Rapids
has completed over 95% of a project to improve our water
infrastructure, many
other upstream communities have yet to address their sewage overflow
problems
and the impacts are felt downstream.
--
David Holtz
Michigan Director
Clean Water Action
517-203-0754 East Lansing
313-300-4454 cell
http://www.cleanwateraction.org/mi/index.htm