May 27, 2017
Why can’t corporations just say it straight? The owners of Eagle Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula can’t say “collapse.” They say “fall of ground incident.” Enbridge Corporation can’t say “gap” in its Straits of Mackinac pipelines. They say “holidays.” These may be industry lexicon, but they’re not adequate for legitimate controversy. When clarity of language suffers, public relations suffer. Suspicions increase. The corporate communication textbook needs a new edition....
May 21, 2017
All public policy issues cycle in and out of relevance. They’re important for a while, recede for a while, and return. Unfortunately, that’s true even for something that makes life possible — health. When I entered state government as an environmental policy advisor in 1983, the furor over toxic waste was peaking. Just three years before, the federal government had evacuated the infamous Love Canal residential neighborhood in New York after the discovery of chemical poisons percolating up from a former dump. The recognition of thousands of such sites across the country prompted Congress to pass the so-called Superfund legislation to pay for cleanup. Michigan had its share of sites – well over a thousand old dumps, factory spills, leaking tanks and more. Each of the major sites generated local controversy and some rose to statewide significance. Neighbors of the sites feared for their health, worrying that cancer might claim them. One of the most ominous threats was the groundwater flow of chemicals from a defunct chemical solvent company, a landfill, and other sources moving toward the drinking water wells of Battle Creek. The possibility that contaminants might taint a water supply serving tens of thousands of people and the Kellogg’s Company was petrifying to those of us in state government. It was doubly so because memories were still fresh of a prior chemical contamination crisis. In 1973, the accidental mixing of a fire retardant known as PBB with cattle feed introduced the toxic chemical into Michigan’s food chain. Eventually, virtually every citizen of the state absorbed PBB into his or her body. The resulting controversy attracted national media...
May 21, 2017
Word came a week ago of the passing of a fierce fighter for a spectacular dune complex in southwest Michigan. The world may not remember Don Wilson, but it should. Because of him and community allies Warren Dunes State Park contains marvels of global significance. I met Don in 1983, near the climax of a long battle between industry giant Martin Marietta and a band of stalwart citizens fighting to preserve a dune area crowned by Mt. Edward. (The story of the fight itself is summarized below in an excerpt from Ruin and Recovery.) Don and I were not immediate friends. Employed by state government at the time, I was suspect to him. I understood why. State officials had belittled him and his fellow dune fighters as hyperemotional. Or as Don put it: “[The state government] historically steps back as industry steps forward to as to accommodate the industry, which is perceived as having the money and power versus the public groups who are seen by the state agencies as financially weak and not organized. Through the years when I was in Lansing, I was occasionally told by DNR personnel not to get emotionally involved. I explained that if I weren’t emotionally involved I wouldn’t be there, that unlike government people I wasn’t being paid so I could be as unconcerned as they.” After the fight ended — with the citizen group Hope for the Dunes winning preservation of 95% of the site — Don and I became friends. That didn’t mean he spared me criticism when he thought I was mistaken. Don wasn’t that kind of man. He...
May 13, 2017
Spotted yesterday in Oak Park, Illinois: a marker denoting the continental divide between the Mississippi and Great Lakes watersheds. To anyone who works on watershed issues, such a divide has great meaning. Rain falling on the west side of the sign will theoretically end up in the Gulf of Mexico, on the east side in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But I wouldn’t expect to find a marker explaining this in a community park. The sign describes the significance of the divide in the settlement of the region by Europeans. Significantly, it also notes that the divide in reality no longer exists. The Chicago diversion routes water on both sides of the sign to the Mississippi river system. It is tempting to try to compare a natural divide like this with the divide in America right now. But the analogy fails, unless a diversion comes along to unite our citizenry. I wonder what that might be. Regardless, there’s something to be said for identifying and trying to point out to the public the key natural features of our...
