To locate your state representative, visit the Michigan House of Representatives site. Write letters to editors of local newspapers to explain the need for Drain Code reform. Simple Request Leads to Mega Project Rural residents in the marshy Thumb area of Michigan know that their vast acreages of corn, beans, and sugar beets exist primarily because of an extensive network of drainage ditches. Everyone in the Thumb also knows that drains will not pull standing water off of fields properly if local officials, called drain commissioners, fail to keep drains clear of natural debris. Dead trees fall in, pile up, and obstruct water flow.
Beavers build dams.
Pretty soon drains back up, and farm fields are again at risk for flooding. Such high water headaches were exactly what most of the 211 residents of the Thumb's Lapeer and St. Clair counties wanted to prevent when they signed a petition in 1990 calling for county drain commissioners to clean out the Mill Creek drain. Upper portions of Mill Creek did not flow well because of 27 major obstructions, mostly log jams and beaver dams. That's because, under a far-reaching water law called the Michigan Drain Code, county drain commissioners are free to run with residents' requests and charge them, literally, millions of dollars more than they ever expected to pay. An intercounty drain board, set up to manage the two-county petition, came up with a much more intensive plan, however.