​QUESTION: ARE THERE STATE OR LOCAL REGULATIONS THAT GOVERN THE OPERATION OF BUBBLER SYSTEMS FOR PERMANENT DOCKS? WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE IMPACTS OF USING BUBBLERS?
ANSWER:
For bubblers that are attached to permanent docks and not placed on bottomland, a permit would not be required by the State of Michigan. However, some local municipalities have regulations that ban bubblers. Riparians should be aware that they are taking on considerable personal liability should death or injury result from their use of a bubbler to de-ice an area. Additionally, bubblers should not be used in such a way as to impede navigation by people who are entitled to use the lake. (For example, using a bubbler to block ice fishermen from accessing the lake). Navigation and fishing are public trust rights and enforcement may occur if these rights are infringed upon.
Other devices, such as decorative fountains, bottom diffusers, lake aeration, and any device that moves sediment, such as aqua thrusters/aqua blasters, are regulated activities and would require a permit. Aqua thrusters/aqua blasters and similar devices cause a dredge and uncontrolled fill of lake bottomlands which can have negative impacts on the public trust, riparian rights, and the environment. One of the problems with these devices is that due to wind and currents, the operator is unable to control where the muck and debris will be redeposited. There have been instances of the muck that was blasted off of one property drifting and redepositing onto neighboring properties, which makes these devices difficult to permit. Permit applicants should explore alternatives when considering aqua thruster/aqua blaster devices that allow for them and their neighbors to exercise their riparian rights responsibly while having a minimal impact on the lake environment.
ERIC CALABRO |
INLAND LAKE ANALYST, EGLE WATER RESOURCES DIVISION

This article was taken from the Michigan Waterfront Alliance Update email of 2/15/23. Good stuff to know. . .

Hundreds of Thousands of Failing Septic Systems Contribute
​to an Ongoing Major Public Health Issue in Michigan


Groundwater, and the Waters of our Fragile Lakes, Rivers, and Streams
are Subject to Contamination by Failing Residential Septic Systems
by Scott Brown
MWA E- Newsletter Editor

Attributed to the fact that Michigan continues to be the only state within the United States of America that has not yet enacted a state-wide law requiring regular septic system inspections, and to the fact that only eleven out of eighty three, or 13% of counties in Michigan have enacted local regulations that require regular septic system inspections, hundreds of thousands of failing septic systems continue to be a major source of e-coli and human fecal bacteria laden raw sewage that contaminates ground water, and renders the waters of many our lakes, rivers, and streams unfit for total contact water sports such as swimming or snorkeling. The steadily escalating environmental and public health associated problem is derived from that fact that approximately 20%, or 280,000, of the 1.4 million septic tanks that were constructed in the 1950’s and 1960’s throughout Michigan are now failing. The problem has also been exacerbated by the fact that many Michigan homes, and their now severely antiquated septic systems were built prior to the construction of sewer systems that now serve even the smallest of towns and villages. 
Septic systems, otherwise known as on-site waste water disposal systems, are designed and installed in order to manage and treat the waste generated by toilets before it reaches ground water. In a properly designed septic system, the septic tank serves to remove larger solids from wastewater. Wastewater that flows out of the septic tank is saturated with contaminants that must be removed before the water can safely be combined with surface and/or groundwater. Public health issues stem from the fact that septic tank effluent contains large concentrations of toxic micro-organisms that are capable of making people sick. Moreover, the organic matter present in wastewater effluent creates bad odors, and contains algae growth stimulating nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) that can have a negative impact on aquatic ecosystems. Properly designed septic systems include a disposal field comprised of a mixture of sand, silt, and clay that are often referred to as loamy soils that act to successfully treat bacterial and inorganic compounds. Phosphorus that is produced within the household that passes through the septic tank is also captured within a properly designed disposal field’s soil.

​On-site waste water disposal systems continue to be installed in support of residential and commercial development that occurs in rural settings where sanitary sewer systems are not available. According to Michigan State University Extension, when an on-site waste water disposal system is correctly located, properly designed, carefully installed, and properly maintained, they are capable of serving as effective waste disposal systems that are economical and that do not pose a threat to public health or to the fragile ecosystems of surrounding streams, rivers, and lakes.
Michigan’s on-going failing septic system crisis is best exemplified by Kent County where a volunteer only septic system inspection program allows an estimated 11, 250 failing residential septic systems distributed throughout the county to leak approximately one million gallons of raw sewage into vulnerable groundwater supplies each day. In inland lake inundated Oakland County, as another prime example, where public health threatening cases of e-coli contamination of rivers and lakes are reported on a more and more frequent basis, and where county officials have also yet to establish a program that would mandate regular septic system inspections, approximately twenty-five to thirty percent of the 100,000 septic systems located in Michigan’s most affluent county are known to be leaking. The gravity of the situation is also effectively illustrated by the fact that the results of a 2015 study conducted by Michigan State University researchers on sixty-four Michigan rivers revealed that concentrations of e-coli that were higher than U. S. Environmental Protection Agency permitted water quality standards. The significance of the issue is also amplified by the fact that the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lake, and Energy (EGLE) reports that approximately one half of Michigan’s thousands of miles of rivers and streams suffer from concentrations of toxic e-coli that exceed minimum water quality standards. 
Representing a major environmental and public health issue that promises to escalate in significance as increasing numbers of septic systems fail and begin to leak with the passage of time, past efforts to enact legislation that would have established a meaningful statewide standard for how septic tanks are designed, built, inspected, and maintained have sadly disintegrated in the face of arguments suggesting that in addition to treading on individual property rights, regulating septic tanks in a manner that would require regular inspections and maintenance would be too costly for homeowners, over burden local health departments, and make it more difficult to sell homes.
It is important to note, however, that Michigan Governor Whitmer recognized the significance of the on-going problem and declared the week of September 20-24, 2021 as Septic Smart Week that encouraged homeowners and communities to properly maintain their increasingly vulnerable septic systems. In addition, Governor Whitmer and Senator Jon Bumstead proposed dedicating $35 million of the 2022 state budget to enable the establishment and funding of an EGLE administered program that would make low interest loans available to homeowners seeking to repair, replace, or eliminate leaking residential septic systems.
The latest attempt at passing legislation that would require septic tank inspections was introduced as House Bill 6101 on May 17, 2022 by Representatives Yaroch and Rendon, and was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation. Known as the "septic tank inspection at time of sale act", due to an upcoming election, and perceived wide spread opposition to the legislation, neither the Michigan House of Representative or the Michigan Senate took any sort of action on the bill. Only time will tell if Governor Whitmer and the leadership of both houses of the Michigan legislature will pursue a viable solution to an on-going environmental crisis by enacting a state law requiring property owners to inspect and maintain their septic systems on a regular basis. 
For more information on how failing septic systems are capable of degrading our precious freshwater resources, visit the U. S. EPA’s web page entitled “How Your Septic System Can Impact Nearby Water Sources” . The always wise, inland lakes preservation focused folks from northwest Lower Michigan’s Glen Lake Association have also created a septic smart webpage that contains valuable information regarding the proper maintenance of septic systems.

MDNR – Ice Safety Tips

• Your safety is your responsibility! There is not a reliable “inch-thickness” to determine if ice is safe.
• You can test ice thickness and quality using a spud, needle bar, or auger.
• Strongest ice: clear with a bluish tint.
• Weak ice: ice formed by melted and refrozen snow. Appears milky.
• Stay off ice with slush on top. Slush ice is only half as strong as clear ice and indicates the ice is not freezing from the bottom.
• A sudden cold front with low temperatures can create cracks within a half-day.
• A warm spell may take several days to weaken ice, and cause the ice to thaw during the day and refreeze at night.
• Ice weakens with age.
• If there’s ice on the lake but water around the shoreline, be extra cautious.
• Stronger the current on the lake, the more likely the ice will give to open water.
• Avoid areas of ice with protruding debris like logs or brush.
• Keep an eye out for dock bubblers or deicers as the ice near these mechanisms will be unsafe.
• Always check the ice and be aware of your surroundings

Potential for liabilityA lakefront home owner, or simply a possessor, such as a renter or person staying for free, can be liable under Michigan law for injuries or death as a result of using a bubbler. To be held responsible and liable by an injured person, or the parent of a drowned child (anyone under 18 years old), under simple Michigan negligence law, there must only be a showing of a duty (such as to keep the premises safe), a breach of duty (the ice, or lack thereof, was not safe, and a resulting injury or drowning.
One can also be liable for such injuries or death based on Michigan premises liability law. Here a lakefront home owner or the possessor of the land who uses a bubbler may be held responsible to any social guest (your friends and relatives) by a showing that the land owner or possessor knew or should have known of the condition caused by the bubbler and should have realized that it involved an unreasonable risk of harm, that the guest would not discover or realized the danger until it was too late and that the guest should have been warned. There is a special rule imposing a higher degree of care when any of the social guests are children.
Under Michigan law a trespasser may even hold a lakefront homeowner or possessor liable for a bubbler. To impose liability here for injuries or death of a trespasser, the trespasser or the surviving family must prove that the riparian or possessor knew or should have known that trespassers constantly intruded in the area of the dangerous condition and that the riparian owner or possessor was actively negligent or created the dangerous condition caused by the use of the bubbler.
Additional theories of liability under Michigan law where a riparian homeowner or possessor may be held liable for injuries or death arising out of the use of a bubbler include a public nuisance, a nuisance per se, a nuisance in fact and a negligent nuisance. A public nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public. Unreasonable interference includes significant interference with public health, safety, peace, comfort or convenience, prescribed by law and of a continuing nature that produces a permanent or long-lasting effect. A nuisance per se is an act, occupation or structure that is a nuisance at all times and under any circumstances. A nuisance in fact is a nuisance by reason of circumstances and surroundings. An act may be found to be a nuisance in fact when its natural tendency is to create danger and inflict injury on person and property. A negligent nuisance in fact is one that is created by the possessor’s negligent acts, that is, a violation of some duty owed to the plaintiff that results in a nuisance. A nuisance in fact is intentional if the creator intends to bring about the conditions that are in fact found to be a nuisance.
Lastly, Michigan law allows for liability of a bubbler under attractive nuisance law. To sustain an attractive nuisance case the injured person or family of the deceased must show that the riparian or possessor knew or had reason to know that children were likely to trespass; that the children (being minors) did not realize the risk involved; that the bubbler’s utility to the riparian and the burden of eliminating the condition were slight compared with the risk to children; and, that the riparian failed to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger caused by a bubbler. 

Your LOWIA board wishes everyone a Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year.  Ice should be forming any day now, but we do have the warm weather coming next week.  Be safe out there when ice fishing and beware of the bubblers that some homeowners use to keep the ice open by their property.  We will be posting the latest water quality report from our lake here on our website.  Here is a short understanding of the report from PLM. 

In short, there are no big red flags.  Dissolved oxygen and E.coli were both good.  The only things that were a little elevated were phosphorus (both spring and late summer) and nitrogen (spring).  The phosphorus was not bad, just a little bit elevated in the spring.  The late summer phosphorus was sampled from near the lake bottom so it is expected to be higher.  Regardless, both were not bad numbers…. Just slightly elevated.  The spring nitrogen was only slightly elevated but was back to normal in the late summer. 

​Ho, Ho, Ho from your board.

Understanding and Monitoring Your Well to Make Sure Your Water Is Safe!By: Ashley Mark, MDHHS; Sara Pearson, EGLE; Lon Nordeen, MLSA
There are over 1 million private residential wells in the state of Michigan, serving over 2.6 million people statewide. That is over 30% of Michigan residents! A private residential well supplies water to a single-family home. Water is pumped from groundwater using a water well. To learn more about the types of private wells, well components, and well construction visit the United States Environmental Protection Agency website. 
As a private residential well owner, you are responsible for the quality of your drinking water. It is important to monitor your well system and your drinking water to protect the health of you and your family. Maintaining your well involves regular inspections, testing, and if required, treatment. For more information about how to properly maintain your private residential well system, view the Drinking Water Well Maintenance Fact Sheet.
Proper well maintenance is a great way to protect the quality of your drinking water. However, testing your drinking water for contaminants is the only way to know for sure what is in your drinking water. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) recommends testing annually for Coliform Bacteria, E. coli, Nitrate, and Nitrite. Visit the Care for MI Drinking Water Drinking Water Testing page for more information about what to test for and how to have your drinking water tested. 
In addition to MDHHS recommendations for testing, sometimes it is appropriate to consider testing for other contaminants. If you are a private residential well owner, it is important to understand what natural and human-made contaminants may be in the groundwater that you use for drinking water. For example, if your home is near a potential source of contamination, you might consider expanding what to test for. Learn more about what might be in the groundwater you drink, or contact your Local Health Department to learn about local concerns or recommendations.
Still have questions or want to learn more? The MDHHS Care for MI Drinking Water website is where you can find more information about drinking water contaminants, testing, how to understand test results, treatment options, and more. Here you can also subscribe to receive the Drinking Water and Health newsletter in order to stay up to date on new initiatives happening through the MDHHS Division of Environmental Health’s Statewide Drinking Water Campaign.
In addition to understanding how your well works, maintenance needs, and monitoring that needs to be done to ensure that your well is properly functioning and provides safe drinking water, protecting source water is another important part in maintaining the quality of your water. 
Water is constantly being recycled as it moves through the hydrologic cycle. The water in rivers, lakes and streams evaporates and condenses in the atmosphere to become clouds that eventually release the water back to the ground in various forms of precipitation. Precipitation replenishes our lakes, rivers and streams and also seeps into the ground recharging the groundwater supply. Groundwater discharges into some surface water bodies and some surface water bodies recharge the groundwater. This is a very generalized description of the hydrologic cycle as there are many ways that the water may be used throughout this cycle. For example, rainwater may be collected and used for watering a garden surface water and groundwater may be used in homes, businesses, and industries for many purposes. In your home it is commonly used for drinking, cooking, and washing. 
Once the water is used for these purposes, it is discharged either to a sanitary sewer system for treatment or to a septic system. The septic system is designed to collect solids in the tank and discharge the liquids to the ground. The soils in the subsurface act as a filter removing bacteria like coliforms from water as it moves through the soil and eventually recharges the groundwater. Groundwater may discharge to a surface water body, it may be drawn into a well for use again, or it may remain in the aquifer for quite some time. Overall, it is constantly reused for many purposes. Therefore, Michigan’s Public Health Code and local sanitary codes specify minimum separation distances between a well and a septic tank, septic tanks and wells from surface water bodies and floodplains, and specific construction materials and specifications for both wells and septic fields. A well that is too close to a septic tank may draw in water that is not adequately filtered and pose a health risk from the presence of bacteria. Septic tanks that are too close to surface water bodies can result in unfiltered waste being discharged to the water body causing a health risk to swimmers from elevated coliform bacteria and can also result in the growth of harmful strains of algae that can be lethal. Wells that are too close to surface water bodies may draw in surface water that is not as well filtered as the groundwater and is likely to have other types of harmful bacteria and parasites like Giardia that cause illness in people and pets.  
As water is used and is constantly being recycled, it may be mixed with detergents, hazardous substances, or may even be in contact with naturally occurring hazardous substances like arsenic. Water mixed with some of these substances can be odorless, tasteless, colorless and require more treatment than the typical septic or sanitary treatment offers. Therefore, source water, which is the water that you drink, protection practices become important. Contaminants released to the ground have a high probability of affecting the groundwater and surface water bodies which is why proper disposal of wastes is critical. Some everyday actions that can be taken to protect surface water and groundwater. The US Environmental Protection Agency offers some great suggestions you can take to protect your water.