LANSING - State Rep. Gary McDowell, D-Rudyard, welcomed a Republican plan that seeks to address Michigan's trash problem, but said the proposal to wait for congressional action against Canadian garbage doesn't go far enough.
"Thanks to public pressure, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are beginning to talk about the problem of Canadian trash," McDowell said. "But the fact is their plan delays us from acting now to protect communities in the Upper Peninsula that have been harmed by Canadian and Wisconsin garbage. Families in Chippewa, Ontonagon, Menominee and Dickinson counties have suffered long enough and they deserve relief now. I urge the Legislature to adopt bills that have already been introduced and help protect our communities and our quality of life in the Upper Peninsula."
Democrats have proposed anti-trash legislation that includes increasing the dumping charge from 21 cents per ton - the lowest in the region - to $7.50 and banning new landfills until 2010. McDowell is sponsoring a bill that would make it easier to enforce laws regulating trash entering Michigan landfills. His district includes Dafter, which began accepting Canadian garbage in 2004.
"Our bills will help protect the way of life we treasure in the Upper Peninsula," McDowell said. "Attacking the economics of the trash trade is the best way to fight trash. We cannot pin our future on the faint hope that Congress will act to protect the Upper Peninsula."
The Republican plan unveiled to fight Canadian garbage kicks in only if Congress gives states the green light to block foreign garbage, something that has never happened. It is uncertain if and when Congress will pass bills giving states such power. The Republican plan fails to address trash from other states, such as Wisconsin and Illinois, which made up a third of imported trash in Michigan in 2004.
Republicans have repeatedly blocked the Democratic anti-trash bills from reaching the House floor for a vote. When the bills were first introduced in May, news media reported Republicans as saying that Canadian and out-of-state trash was only a "perceived problem."
Around 4.2 million tons of trash have entered Michigan from Canada and other states since Jan. 1, according to the trash-measuring device, the Trash-O-Meter (www.trash-o-meter.com.) In 2004, Michigan took in more than 6 million tons of Canadian and out-of-state trash - 17 percent more than in 2003, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.
