Should tourism support environmental protection?

It’s too early to know if national and international attention on Flint’s municipal water crisis may tarnish the Great Lakes region’s image of pure water.

But there is a tie between the perceived quality of water and its value, experts say.

“I hope that the tourist industry gives back funding for protection and remediation,”  said Joan Rose, Homer Nowlin Endowed Chair of Water Research at Michigan State University. That’s a worldwide approach “we have to do in the future,”  she said. For example, there should be a tie between tourism and Peru’s challenges with sewage treatment and water reclamation at Machu Picchu....