Eileen Tesch for St. Clair County Drain Commissioner with Cliff Schrader

You need to understand that a lot of residents in St. Clair County claim they are flooding, when in most cases (not all), their houses were built fairly recently in State-regulated wetlands and sometimes in floodplain without any approvals, and many of them know this. This is the majority of cases and these are the people that will repeatedly call the Drain Office to complain when there are large storms or just normal snow melt. They blame the Drain Commissioner and/or their neighbors when it was really their own doing. Developers very often filled large amounts of wetland in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then walked away from any responsibility. Many homes since development slowed down, have been built by single-family residents in wetlands that were previously passed over by buyers. These residents usually got good deals because the land is so wet, which further encouraged them to build houses with the cost savings. What I describe here are the majority of cases that you have read about in the papers, such as the Stocks Creek area in Kimball, which received repeated media attention. This was an exemplary case of wetland being developed, while at the same time, a large amount of wetland being drained and filled in the upper watershed for the benefit of a few large landowners, which resulted in even more water being discharged to Stocks Creek. Drain Commissioner, Fred Fuller, initiated a large drain project on Stocks Creek in response to the resident complaints, although we knew that it was because houses were built in wetland and the storage capacity of wetlands in the upper watershed had been all but eliminated. Drain Commissioner, Bob Wiley, then implemented and finished the Stocks Creek project, which required both State and federal approvals and was quite expensive. Regardless of the illegal wetland draining and filling in the Stocks Creek watershed, I don’t think anyone could have asked for a better drain project. This is just one of many examples of what has happened in St. Clair County. With the building boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was impossible to keep up with all of the wetland filling in St. Clair County. In an effort to limit these requests for huge expensive drain projects, Fred Fuller implemented site plan review standards for wetlands and storm water discharge. Previously, St. Clair County had no storm water standards if you can believe it. Of course the development community complained, but this did help to reduce the number of new drain projects requested to benefit those who knew better than to build on their sites without approvals, and in many cases, were informed repeatedly before they did so. It is the residents of each drain district, not the developers or individual builders, that then pay the bulk of these expensive drain projects because of a few careless individuals who benefit and think nothing of passing on the true cost of their development to all of the other St. Clair County residents. I should add that it is not only residents in each drain district that pay for these drain projects, but usually each township is assessed and also the county at-large. So everyone ends up subsidizing these projects for the benefit of a few. For anyone that is the type to go off on a crusade about the evils of socialism, which I am not one, this is a great example for you that, like many other aspects of our nation, is glossed-over or never mentioned in the debate. Speaking of subsidies, while I support renewable energy solutions, the federal ethanol mandate increased corn prices across the US and spurred the demand for additional drainage of yet more wetland and other marginal land. If drains, like Mill Creek, could just be lowered another foot or so, that would allow mostly large farmers to install lower field tile outlets, or tile completely new land, to lower the water table to get more corn. But understand that this additional production comes at a cost, not only in the form of USDA crop subsidies, but every resident paying drain assessments for these big projects. Currently, about 40% of the US corn crop is used for ethanol production versus food. This has resulted in higher food prices because of the competition with ethanol. So, we subsidize ethanol even further in our food prices. Does this make sense in the big picture? There is a lot to be said for renewable bio-fuels and domestic energy security, but realize that it is partially subsidized by county drain assessments and there is a significant environmental cost to our watersheds and water quality that is not accounted for. How many millions of our tax dollars have been spent on programs to alleviate the “big mystery” of toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie? Just another external cost of tiling more land that is unaccounted for. Another thing to understand about county drains is that this vast network of channelized ditches requires regular maintenance that results in constant expenses to residents. Many of you probably don’t realize that you are paying drain assessments because they are often buried in your property tax statements, or not itemized at all if they are assessed to the township or County at-large. Engineers and contractors have a vested interest in ensuring that channelized drains are perpetuated because they are cash-cows. Big ditches like the upper Black River and upper Mill Creek, with little floodplain and increasing tile drain discharges are prone to a lot of bank erosion and sedimentation, requiring fairly continuous maintenance dredging. This is good if you’re in the drain business. Natural streams with floodplains and wetlands are bad because there’s no money in them. Also understand that Drain Commissioners are empowered and operate according to the Michigan Drain Code, a State law fairly unique to Michigan that, in an early form, dates back to 1837, one of the first laws passed by Michigan to drain swamps for agriculture. It was not originally about development. The latest version of the Drain Code dates to 1956. Yes, It does grant Drain Commissioners broad powers, and that is mostly because of the high priority of the historic effort to drain vast areas of the State for agriculture. It is not some conspiracy or power grab, but they are vested with a lot of power by law. That power can be used for good or bad, or something between, as Drain Commissioners often find it necessary to do. While the Michigan Drain Code has been in-need of serious reform for decades (there have been a few attempts), it does allow for a kind of transformation from a Drain Commissioner to a Water Resources Commissioner with more of a focus on storm water control, water quality, and urban and suburban infrastructure, in addition to agricultural drainage. The provisions in the Michigan Drain Code for this focus on more contemporary water issues allow for a more sensible administration of the law, but are still a far cry from what is needed. Counties that have moved to a water resources commissioner model include Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Genesee. This is something that St. Clair County should seriously consider. So, when you vote, realize that the work of a Drain Commissioner is fairly complex, and ask yourself, who really will do the best for St. Clair County residents; the Drain Commissioner who goes full-bore ahead with channelizing and draining, or the one who takes a more balanced approach.