Public Act 195 of 1999 (Environmental Indicators Act) was signed into law in December 1999. The law requires the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to work with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) to prepare a biennial report on the quality of the state’s environment. The report is to be based on scientifically supportable environmental indicators and use sound scientific methodologies.

On January 28, 2000, the Governor of Michigan requested the Michigan Environmental Science Board (MESB) to evaluate a series of environmental indicators proposed by the MDEQ and MDNR for use in the legislatively mandated report. The MESB report entitled, Recommended Environmental Indicators Program for the State of Michigan, was submitted to the Governor in July 2001. Of the environmental indicators proposed for consideration by the MDEQ and MDNR, the MESB recommended that 21 be included into a statewide environmental indicators program.

The First Biennial State of Michigan's Environment Report (Biennial Report) was transmitted to the Governor and Legislature and in November 2001. The Second Biennial Report was completed in December 2003. The Third Biennial Report, the most recent report, was presented in January 2006.

The Third Biennial Report is divided into three sections: environmental measures, programmatic measures, and emergent contaminants of concern in Michigan. The first section delineates the important ecological, physical, and chemical measures used to track the overall quality of the state’s environment and fulfills the legislative mandate. The second section discusses additional state agency measures that are tracked to fulfill various state or federal environmental programmatic requirements. These latter measurements, while in and of themselves may ultimately detect a change in the overall quality of the environment, are designed more to assess how well a given regulatory program is functioning to correct or control more short-term, localized environmental problems. The third section of the Biennial Report discusses six newly recognized contaminants that environmental and public health experts have an incomplete understanding regarding their potential for adverse environmental and human health effects.

A copy of the Third Biennial Report may be obtained free of charge by selecting the following link and printing it directly off the Internet (This is a very large document and may take a considerable amount of time to open - especially if you only have a dial-up modem. Also, in order to open the document, you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer to access it).

State of Michigan's Environment 2005: Third Biennial Report.  A color slide presentation of the 2005 Biennial Report also is available in Adobe pdf format. Due to the size of the document, the slide presentation is presented in three parts, Part I: Environmental Measures, Part II: Programmatic Measures, and Part III: Emergent Contaminants.

Part I: Environmental Measures

Part II: Programmatic Measures

Part III: Emergent Contaminants

Finally, you may obtain a printed copy of the 2005 Biennial Report by contacting Ms. Amy Butler, Chief, Environmental Science & Services Division.

Third Biennial Report Citation:

Harrison, K.G. (ed.). 2006. State of Michigan's Environment 2005: Third Biennial Report, January 2006. Prepared by KGH Environmental PLC for the Michigan Departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources, Lansing. 100p.

Related Available On-Line Resources:

• Harrison, K.G. (ed.). 2003. State of Michigan's Environment 2003: Second Biennial Report, December 2003. Office of Special Environmental Projects, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Lansing. 84p.
• Harrison, K.G. (ed.). 2001. State of Michigan's Environment 2001: First Biennial Report, November 2001. Office of Special Environmental Projects, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Lansing. 56p.
• Premo, B.J., D.T. Long, R.J. Huggett, D. Premo, W.W. Taylor, G.T. Wolff, and K.G. Harrison. 2001.Recommended Environmental Indicators Program for the State of Michigan, July 2001. Michigan Environmental Science Board, Lansing. x + 88p.