Every Michigan child attending school or childcare centers—over 1.4 million—could soon drink lead-free water.

With 35-1 votes, "Filter First" bills passed out of the Michigan Senate on Tuesday and now head to the House.

This is big. Like, really big. 

It's not often we get to celebrate a truly good environmental win. Sometimes good legislation is dead on arrival. Sometimes it stalls out as a new guard of politicians arrives. And sometimes good policy is paired with the ambivalent or bad.

But on March 30, Gov. Whitmer signed into law $2.5 billion in funding to better water, parks and communities, and it's almost wholly good news. It stems from earlier proposals by Gov. Whitmer and Republican Sen. Jon Bumstead, and it's supported by leadership from both political parties.

On Wednesday morning, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer rolled out a proposal for the largest state budget in history, with billions of dollars being dedicated toward natural resource protection, clean energy, clean water and climate resiliency.

Among the largest environmental investments are $1.22 billion for clean water; $593 million for climate, clean energy and mobility; and $403 million in natural resource protections.

Charlotte Jameson, chief policy officer of the Michigan Environmental Council, issued the following statement in response.

Nearly 1.5 million Michigan children are one step closer to drinking lead-safe water in their schools and daycare centers thanks to two votes in the Michigan Legislature.

Senate Bills 184 and 185 both passed out of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality with 5-0-1 votes on Nov. 30. They head to the Senate floor.

It began with a skim through the Yellow Pages.

Lynn McIntosh needed an environmental lawyer. Her thick phonebook yielded only one: AJ Birkbeck, Fulcrum Law.

So she gave him a call, and a short while later she was driving from small-town Rockford to East Grand Rapids in her rundown ’97 Mercury van.

It’s June 10, early morning. William Wright and Chris Yahanda wake up on a beach somewhere at Wilderness State Park. A few miles away, Lakes Huron and Michigan meet. They eat breakfast with the gulls and lapping waves.

Then, as the sunrise breaks, Wright and Yahanda break out their paddleboards. They wade into the water’s shallows, kneeling on their vessels as if in prayer. Then, once the sandbar drops, they stand and use long paddles to travel south, their feet a minnow’s height from the surface. Their friend, Davis Huber, films them from a boat.

It was the second day of these three friends' 425-mile journey from the Mackinac Bridge above Lake Michigan to, eventually, the Lansing shorelines of the Grand River.

Neither Michigan Senate or House FY22 school budgets included a $55 million appropriation in grants for schools to install and maintain filtered water fountains with bottle fillers and, in some cases, on-tap filters.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s FY21 supplemental appropriation recommended funding this critical program, which would protect nearly 1.5 million children and tens of thousands of adults from lead exposure from their school’s drinking water.

Michigan Environmental Council and its fellow Line 5 legal intervenors plan to appeal the decision of a Michigan Public Service Commission Administrative Law Judge regarding the Commission’s review of Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel proposal.

Judge Dennis Mack ruled Tuesday that the Commission must consider environmental impacts when deciding to permit a tunnel that could surround the Line 5 oil pipeline through the Great Lakes for as long as a century. But Mack also ruled that the Commission cannot consider impacts in the context of climate change or the need for the fossil fuels Line 5 transports.

The intervenors' appeal will go before the Commission.

On Thursday, Feb. 12, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced recommendations for a $67 billion budget for Michigan. If passed, hundreds of millions of dollars will go toward initiatives at the intersection of the environment, health and justice and strengthen the health of people, their communities and the environment.

Many of Gov. Whitmer’s appropriation recommendations mirror those sent to her administration by Michigan Environmental Council and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday recommended a $55 million appropriation in grants for schools to install and maintain filtered water fountains with bottle fillers and, in some cases, on-tap filters. With this proposed funding, nearly 1.5 million children and tens of thousands of adults are one step closer being better protected against lead from their school’s drinking water.

This “Filter First” approach, which is based on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s model legislation, is the most health-protective, cost-effective and immediate way to remove lead from school drinking water. The approach is advocated for by a coalition of environmental, health and education organizations and leaders.