Farmington Hills County Commissioner Announces Bid for Water Commissioner

Oakland County Commissioner Jim Nash (D-15th District) today announced his candidacy for Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner, challenging incumbent John McCullough. 

Nash said he considers the Water Resources Commissioner "the premier environmental agency in the County" and said he will collaborate with all communities in Oakland County and across the region to make our water/sewer systems a national leader in sustainability.

"Some of our communities now feel left out of the process by the Commissioner’s office and that must change," he said. 

Nash has a long history of involvement in environmental issues and causes. While serving on the county board, he organized and hosted six annual Green Building Workshops, passed board resolutions supporting county green policies and protection of the Great Lakes, worked with the U.S. Green Building Council, Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association and the Engineering Society of Detroit and helped create the Regional Partnership for Sustainability, including Oakland, Macomb, Wayne counties and Detroit.

Nash said he will focus efforts on water conservation and mitigating storm runoff through education and economic incentives and collaboration with communities, businesses, builders, sustainability organizations, the academic community and community organizations.

“Long-term answers demand we all work together to find the best solutions,” he said.

Nash said a special focus of his campaign will be a program to install electric generator turbines along sewer mains and water pressure regulation points across the region. He said this would add a system of distributed power generation to the county's power grid that would supply reliable, carbon-free power, especially during peak power periods.

The resulting power generation will save energy costs, attract federal grants, create many skilled trade jobs and make our region a national leader in renewable energy systems, he said, adding “Wherever there is running water/wastewater there is potential energy."

Last month, Nash told the Farmington Observer he would not seek a county board seat this year, because his district, under the county's new reapportionment map, includes only a handful of Farmington Hills precincts. The map divides Farmington and Farmington Hills into three districts, with the west side of Farmington Hills in District 13, central and east Farmington Hills and Farmington in District 14, and four southeast Hills precincts in District 21.