Cathode ray tubes, are the guts inside a standard television or computer monitor. An average CRT has 15 pounds to 20 pounds of lead, according to Garrett Jones, sales manager at Great Lakes Electronics Recycling, a Detroit-based business.

That lead - plus smaller amounts of mercury, cadmium and other toxic metals - is what state Rep. Chris Kolb, D-Ann Arbor, wants to keep from polluting the land, air and water.

Ingested lead causes brain damage, and researchers say U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards prove CRTs leak lead from landfills.

“Right now, we’re throwing hazardous waste into nonhazardous landfills,” Kolb said. “The future cost is lead leaching through the air, water and soil. We need to look at how to dispose and recycle these materials.”

Michigan is among 29 states considering e-waste legislation. Maine, Massachusetts, California and Minnesota already ban CRTs from landfills.

California’s law is the first to ban e-waste from export to foreign countries with looser environmental protections, a problem dubbed by critics as the dirty little secret of the high-tech revolution.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, spurred by Kolb’s legislation, formed a task force to study the broader issue of e-waste, which is “practically anything that plugs in and beeps at you,” said Lucy Doroshko, a DEQ recycling specialist.

An advance disposal fee, similar to that collected when new tires are sold, is one idea. Funding, logistics, educating the public and regulation all are unanswered questions, Doroshko said.

Estimates vary on total e-waste, but technological advances prompt consumers to push aside old TVs and computers at increasing rates. While as much as three-quarters of old electronic equipment sits idly in attics, basements and garages , owners eventually let it go.

The DEQ task force is due to provide its recommendations, but Kolb said he’s targeting CRTs now because they contain large quantities of lead and can be easily sorted out of the waste stream.

But Dan Batts, president of the Michigan Waste Industries Association, said the proposal is premature.

“I think we’ve got the cart out ahead of the horse here in doing an all-out ban,” he said.

Batts also questioned whether research actually proved that lead leaches from electronics in landfills.

Martha Knorek, Ingham County’s solid waste coordinator, said long lines at semi-annual electronics recycling collection sites demonstrate a huge demand for electronics disposal in mid-Michigan.

But, it can devise plans to limit or even reduce the amount of waste brought into the Great Lakes State.

The Legislature is considering a number of laws that would provide greater protection to Michigan’s natural resources and to residents dependent on those resources. Senate Bill 721 is one of those vehicles.

The key element in the proposal is a $3 increase in the tipping fees charged at landfills.

The Saline City Council approved in a 6-2 vote a resolution opposing SB 721 on the grounds that it would only increase the cost of rubbish pick-up in the city. Mayor Pro-tem Phyllis Martin and Councilman Rick Kuss voted against the resolution.

The city is charged $11.72 per household per month for solid waste services from Waste Management. City Administrator Larry Stoever told Council in a memo that the increase in fees would translate into a $10 increase per household for rubbish pickup.

“A very rough estimate is that this tipping fee could increase solid waste costs for Saline in the neighborhood of $30,000-$50,000 per year,” wrote Stoever.

He indicated that about 10 percent of the revenue generated by the tipping fee increase would go to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for an annual litter study. Five million would be used for “tax incentives for recycling goods.

“The remainder or about 80 percent would be funneled back to county government, which would have sole responsibility for determining how such funds would be allocated,” Stoever explained.

Cities then would apply to the county for grants to help fund recycling programs.

The City of Saline’s waste contractor has a curbside recycling program that gives residents the opportunity to recycle without having to drive to a separate facility. While there is a limit on the number of rubbish containers that will be picked up by Waste Management workers, there is no limit on the amount of recyclables that are placed at the curb, according to DPW Director George Danneffel.

The Michigan Municipal League opposes SB 721 on the grounds that it would create a new tax for residents who live in communities that have funded local recycling programs for years. In his testimony before the Senate, Joseph Fivas, manager of transportation and environmental affairs for the MML, said that “SB 721 will impose significant new costs on our communities, without demonstrably improving our recycling program performance.”

Mary Lirones, chair of the city’s Environmental Commission, was vehement in her comments about SB 721 and the Council resolution.

“Michigan’s tipping fees are low, and that encourages imported solid waste,” Lirones told the Council. “Saline needs more research on this-this is the kind of thing that you should have the Environmental Commission looking at.”

The case dealt solely with the water bottling plant.

But as the Michigan Farm Bureau convened its annual meeting, some delegates wondered whether the ruling might lead to restrictions on groundwater use for irrigation and other agricultural purposes.

“It threw a red flag in front of us, that’s for sure,” Farm Bureau President Wayne Wood said.

Dan Vogler, president of the Michigan Aquaculture Association, asked whether someone taking a dislike to his Wexford County trout farm could get a judge to shut it down out of concern about excessive water use.

Many farms pump water at rates exceeding the 400 gallons per minute that Root found excessive, said Scott Piggott, manager of agricultural ecology for the Farm Bureau. But he said irrigation is a seasonal practice, unlike the bottling plant’s constant pumping.

Added Larry Walton, a seed corn and soybean grower from St. Joseph County: “I can’t imagine at this point what the impact (from the ruling) will be … but it’s certainly something that makes you sit up and take notice. In my area, just about every farm has irrigation.”

There’s no reason to believe Root’s decision will set a legal precedent that could harm agriculture, said Jim Olson, a Traverse City attorney.

He represented the community group and waterfront property owners who sued to stop the Ice Mountain withdrawals.

“If anything, it favors Michigan agriculture and industries by protecting them and their common water resource from those who would seek to divert and export it for sale,” he said.

Farmers said some people might argue that putting water in an agricultural product shipped out of the Great Lakes basin amounts to an unlawful diversion.

Even before the Ice Mountain ruling, farmers were getting the message that water availability cannot be taken for granted — even in a state surrounded by the Great Lakes and dotted with lakes and rivers.

Quarrels over groundwater, some involving farms, prompted the Legislature to established a dispute resolution procedure. Lawmakers also voted recently to compile a groundwater inventory with data from high-capacity users, including farms.

Farm Bureau leaders say their members recognize the need to conserve water and use it wisely.

“It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy.

“And God, I know, I’m one.”

All right, so it’s not that bad. But in one year, I’ve collected enough paper in the form of agendas, diagrams, spreadsheets, letters and notes to build my own pipeline to Lake Michigan, or at least a giant straw.

Over here are thirsty people needing water. Over there is a big lake. All you have to do is connect the two. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong. For the battle is not over water, but power - and I don’t mean electricity.

Start with the basic fight - Green Bay trying to make money selling water to the suburbs; the suburbs wanting water as cheaply as possible. It’s in Green Bay’s interest to get the suburbs as a partner on a new pipeline, sharing the cost in some undetermined fashion. And don’t let the technical talk scare you; it’s water, it flows through a pipe, and if it can get to Green Bay, it can get to De Pere and Bellevue and Ledgeview.

But it’s not in Green Bay’s interest to sell the suburbs cheap water. That would allow them to lure industry, and build their tax bases at Green Bay’s expense. So Green Bay’s Water Commission came up with enough pipe-plugging cork to handle Sammy Sosa’s bats for a lifetime.

And what the suburbs want is not to have rates skyrocket. They’ll go up no matter what, but having to pay for a new pipeline would really goose them.

A cheap water deal would help.

So Green Bay wants to sell high, and the suburbs want to buy low.

Add to that Ashwaubenon’s concerns that it’s being taken for a ride.

Ashwaubenon uses 33 percent of the suburban water. But it only has one vote in the CBCWA. So if the other members decide on an expensive pipeline, Ashwaubenon would have no recourse. So it’s trying to play both ends against the middle - make a deal on its own with Green Bay, or force the CBCWA into doing the same.

What nobody wants to happen, of course, is for both Green Bay and the suburbs to build new pipelines. That way lies financial fiasco, and as somebody said, “if we have two pipelines to the lake in 10 years, every politician involved ought to go to jail.” (I’d just settle for having them build the pipelines themselves. By hand.)

The true solution, of course, is exceedingly simple. A metro water district, based along the same lines as the Metropolitan Sewerage District.

However, Green Bay is still sitting on pride and past spending. We went to the lake first, and the suburbs could have gone with us back in 1955, Green Bay says, ignoring the fact that “the suburbs” in those days (except for De Pere) were mostly covered by cow flop. There was no reason to go; water from the wells was cheaper, populations weren’t high and the wells were safe and inexhaustible, right?

Well, wrong.

So we find ourselves still battling, not for just the one year that I’ve been covering the issue, but for many years before.

And I have no hope whatsoever that we won’t hear more arguments for the coming year.

For when it comes to the water talks, the proverbial glass is always half-empty.

A portion of the funds would be used to design and prepare a building to house the grape research center.

Walsh said the appropriations bill reflects his work to bring money to much needed areas of Wayne County. The appropriations bill includes more than $200,000 for projects at Newark-Wayne Community Hospital in Newark and $100,000 to Wayne County for a feasibility study at the former Newark Developmental Center in Newark.

Other projects earmarked by Walsh in the House spending plan include $80,000 to Wayne County for relocation and renovation improvements to the Leavenworth-Northrup Carriage House in Wolcott; $300,000 for demolition and new facilities construction and improvements at Sodus Point Park in Sodus; $500,000 to construct a new livestock building at the Wayne County Fairgrounds in Palmyra; $250,000 for the development of a Sodus Bay comprehensive watershed management plan; $600,000 to the Water and Sewer Authority for construction of a waterline in the towns of Sodus and Huron; and $230,000 to the Water and Sewer Authority for sanitary sewer overflow improvements for the town of Palmyra. The Center for Environmental Information in Rochester also would receive $250,000 for a Lake Ontario coastline remediation and restoration initiative.

Boehlert said he’s pleased $6.25 million was set aside for his district.

“The tremendous opportunity I’ve been given to serve this district for the last 21 years, also provides New York state the seniority in Washington needed to bring this funding home,” Boehlert said. “I’m pleased to be able to bring funding for much needed projects and economic development back to the area. I particularly wish to commend Rep. James Walsh, my friend and colleague, for his efforts and partnership in these important economic development activities. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, deserves credit for his help with the Cornell and Tompkins County projects.”

Boehlert also is seeking $750,000 for the Cayuga Lake Watershed to provide critical support for technical assistance and implementation of agriculture and non-agriculture best management practices, in addition to community outreach and education and $2 million to Cayuga Community College Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology for the creation of cutting-edge three- and four-dimensional, interactive digital images of contamination on military bases nationwide, including sites such as Seneca Army Depot.

To finance it, the group, which includes public, private, business, agricultural and environmental groups, is proposing a broad fee or tax: All homeowners would pay $36 a year and businesses $150.

“We thought a flat rate was the right way to start out,” said Craig Johnson, a lobbyist for the League of Minnesota Cities, one of about 60 groups involved.

Whether Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators go along with that approach -or even the amount the group says is needed-is unclear.

“That is a vast amount of money to come up with at this point,” said Rep. Michael Jungbauer, R-East Bethel.

One of several legislators who got a peek at the initiative, Jungbauer said he favors a strategy that would have water users or polluters shouldering more of the burden.

But that’s a problem, according to group members, who point out that 86 percent of the pollution that now funnels into lakes and streams is essentially urban and rural runoff, meaning there’s often no identifiable source. If there’s no one to point a finger at, they add, there’s no one to dun.

At this point, the group would have individual homeowners pay an extra $3 a month on their water bills. Homeowners with septic tanks would pay an extra $36 a year on their property tax bills. Businesses, regardless of size, would pay $150 a year.

The money would pay for the three stages of a highly complex, ongoing effort to clean up lakes and rivers, which often are tainted with nutrients such as phosphorus, pollutants such as mercury, and sediment.

The federal Clean Water Act mandates the state identify lakes and streams that fail to meet certain water-quality standards, cite the specific problems and causes, and make reasonable progress toward improving them.

So far, the state has assessed 5 percent of its streams and 12 percent of its lakes. About 40 percent of those water bodies or river stretches, or 1,774 in all, have been determined to be impaired, a pollution rate that’s close to the national average.

About one-fifth of the money that’s being sought would be used to assess the state’s water and to study how to improve water quality in particular waterways. The other four-fifths would be used for actual restoration, which could mean new community wastewater treatment plants, upgraded septic or storm water systems, or improved agricultural practices.

“The key thing for us is, these federal mandates are coming regardless of what the state legislature does,” Johnson said. “This whole process is about trying to make sure there are some resources for communities to deal with this huge federal mandate.”

“As we go forward, what we are trying to do is avoid the train wreck that would occur if we don’t develop a systematic process for identifying and restoring these impaired waters,” said former state Sen. Steve Morse, the group’s chair.

Even if the state weren’t required to make the improvements, it would make sense, according to Corrigan and Lisa Thorvig, the MPCA’s assistant commissioner.

When a water body has been deemed impaired, restrictions aimed at preventing additional pollution kick in until a restoration plan is completed, severely limiting economic development options, they said. Then, once a plan is approved, other requirements come into play.

Water clarity influences property values. The study looked at 1,205 residential property sales on 37 lakes in the upper Mississippi River watershed.

Before coming up with the general approach to paying for the effort, the group looked at dozens of alternatives.

“We struggled for hours on the issue of fairness versus simplicity,” Johnson said. “We didn’t see how we could get a complex system in place for this legislative session.”

Saying it’s important to clean up the state’s waters, group members agreed the resources aren’t there to do that successfully and that it’s better to proceed cooperatively rather than waste time with a more confrontational approach.

Other draft conclusions include:

The state should aim for a comprehensive assessment of state waterways every 10 years.

Voluntary clean-up options will be preferred over new regulation.

The MPCA, with other agencies, should develop an implementation plan for the entire process.

The impaired waters program should give preference to waterways that can be made part of larger projects.

At the MPCA’s request, the process was designed and managed by the Minnesota Environmental Initiative, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization that will not lobby for or against the eventual recommendation. The MPCA is providing staff and financial support.

“In other parts of the country, this has been a contentious process,” said Peter Frosch, MEI’s project manager. “Here in Minnesota, we have an opportunity to do it another way.”

“I think it’s a critically important issue for the people of Minnesota and our abundance of water resources,” said Kris Sigford, water quality program director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “The blessing is the curse, in this sense. We are blessed with an abundance of water, more than any other state in the lower 48. With that comes the responsibility to be stewards for those waters.”

“From our perspective, (the impaired waters initiative) is our number-one priority,” said Corrigan, the MPCA commissioner.

Environmentalists at a press conference in Green Bay outlined opposition to the 114-page act crafted by Republican lawmakers to stimulate economic development and help the state pull out of a financial tailspin.

Buried in the jobs document are provisions to allow landowners to alter the course of streams and the banks of lakes and rivers in a way that will threaten fisheries, the environmentalists said.

“Every selfish property owner can do what they want. There’s nothing here for the general public,’’ said Ken Murray, of the Green Bay Area Great Lakes Sport Fishermen. “If everyone had a nice, clear shoreline with a nice little beach, wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“But what a dead lake you’d have. I think this is a ‘to hell with the environment’ bill.’’

Legislators hoped to advance the law quickly through the Senate and Assembly.

Language in the bill would overhaul the process of passing state administrative rules and issuing air permits. It also would modify current rules on navigable waters to streamline the permitting process.

Other provisions range from a new, 180-day deadline for Public Service Commission rulings on deregulation petitions to a new requirement for commercial credit agreements to be in writing.

Opponents said the law will deregulate a variety of critical environmental rules regarding water and air quality and eliminate public hearing and comment periods associated with many permit changes required for development.

Rebecca Katers of the Clean Water Action Council, said the act needs more time for study.

The process has not been as democratic or open as it should be,’’ Katers said.

This (act) allows builders to interpret the laws for themselves (as to) whether they are degrading scenic beauty.’’

“Duluth is known as one of the most forested cities in the United States,” said Richard Gitar, a hiker and an association volunteer. “This would enhance that reputation.”

The trail would be about 40 miles long, almost all of that on public land. It would wind from Fond du Lac to Hawk Ridge through woods, along streets and to and from scenic outlooks along Duluth’s craggy ridgeline.

Several access points will be used, such as the Lake Superior Zoo parking lot and the Hartley Nature Center. The trail will be a simple, 18-inch wide footpath with no camp sites.

The association has said it would like to get approval soon enough to start building the trail. Although it has been mapping the trail and talking to neighbors for several years, a few problems remain.

Association executive director Gayle Coyer said the association still is rerouting some sections, such as around the antenna farm and near a historic cemetery in Fond du Lac.

All 10 city Planning Districts passed resolutions of support. Still, a few neighbors asked at the Planning Commission’s in a meeting that the trail be rerouted, especially near the antenna farm.

“I’m in favor of the trail, but I think we need a little more time to fine-tune the route,” Tom McDonald said.

In other business, an agenda item that drew neighborhood attention on Park Point was withdrawn. Commission President Roger Wedin said the Sand Point Boat Club had withdrawn a petition to vacate some public open space to build a boat-lift facility. He said the club decided to proceed with a different type of request.

Some naturalists and Park Point residents opposed the petition because the land is a prime site to watch birds on Hearding Island.

Mercury works its way up the aquatic food chain and into the human body in a toxic form. The threat is especially great to the offspring of women who have high levels of mercury — hence the advisories that urge women of child-bearing age and children to space out some fish meals and avoid others completely.

Airborne deposits account for the bulk of mercury, which occurs naturally in coal and rises out of it as it burns. Regulation has been sought since at least the 1990 Clean Air Act;  the Environmental Protection Agency seemed poised to order a 90-percent cutback in mercury emitted from coal-powered plants in 2008.

Instead, the long-term goal will be a 70-percent reduction by 2018, EPA said. By one estimate, that means 300 more tons of mercury coming down with the rain over the next 5 years.

This undercutting of the next generation’s health is compounded by the EPA’s plan to put mercury into a cap-and-trade program, rather than forcing each plant to scrub mercury out of its smoke. Although mercury moves in the air worldwide, many studies show heavy local impacts. Reducing mercury in the Great Lakes food chain requires at least some cleanup at power plants here and upwind; any trading program ought at least to be regional.

The risks involved with mercury fall mostly on the tiniest Americans. Their future should count for more than this weak effort offers them.

Committee approved the measure by a 12-1 count. Chairwoman Rep. Nancy Hollister, R-Marietta, said she expects the bill will be put up for a full House vote.

The bill establishes permitting procedures for all structures built past the lake’s high water mark and declares public property to begin “where the waters of Lake Erie make contact with the land.”

Officials at ODNR for years have used the high water mark — the Lake’s highest water mark in the past 100 years — as the boundary between public and private land. The state has required property owners building past that line to pay for land leases.

Members of the Ohio Lakefront Group have insisted the state’s authority doesn’t begin until the lake’s low-water mark, and have said the department’s actions in requiring the leases are tantamount to stealing private land.

Bill sponsor Rep. Tim Grendell, R-Chesterland, said the latest version of the legislation ignores the high-water/low-water demarcations for private property boundaries and instead recognizes the water and submerged land as the responsibilities of the state.

Environmental groups called that decision a transfer of public land to private homeowners.

“This is a drastic, overreaching solution to what is, if anything, a management problem,” said David Scott of the Sierra Club. “Solving these problems with ODNR does not require redrawing boundaries.”

Mark Squillace, a law professor from the University of Toledo, called the legislation “a land grab of historic proportions, one that purports to deny the citizens of Ohio access to the lake.”

ODNR director Sam Speck told the committee he has serious concerns about how the new bill would affect public access for swimmers, boaters and fishermen.

But Grendell said citizens already have limited access to beaches adjacent to private property, and House minority leader Rep. Chris Redfern, D-Catawba Island, challenged Speck to find any location where this bill would further limit public access.

“Even upon approval of this … the public will not be wanting for access,” Redfern said. “Wading along the shoreline — that is allowed, and property owners don’t object to that.”

The bill also eliminates land leases for non-commercial properties and allows construction permits to remain valid for the life of a structure — both major points the homeowners fought for.

The legislation also includes reorganization of ODNR’s coastal management office and simplification of permitting requirements, which department officials requested.

ODNR officials conceded the bill will likely pass the House today, and said they plan on working with Senate officials to correct problems they see in the proposal.