Funding Water Quality Activities

SEMCOG's 2007 report, Funding Environmental Protection in Michigan: The Need for Change, summarizes the state of funding for environmental protection programs in Michigan, including past trends and future expectations. This information is accompanied by a series of findings designed to begin discussion on possible changes to the existing structure for funding Michigan’s environmental protection efforts.

SEMCOG's 2003 report, Options for Local Government Funding of Water Quality Activities, identifies various choices available for funding water quality activities. Some of the funding mechanisms described include property or income taxes, special assessments, user fees, grants, and loans.

There are multiple sources of funding available for municipal environmental activities in the form of:

• Grants 
• Loans 

Enabling Stormwater Utilities
At the local level, the option for funding water quality programs through the public (those who most directly benefit from them) is also unstable. More specifically, the issues that surround using fees to support watershed programs have become quite complicated because of a Michigan Supreme Court case known as Bolt v. City of Lansing. SEMCOG is actively engaged in finding a legislative solution to the Bolt issue.