Lake Huron Dreaming

In this, the third winter where I’ve spent considerable time on the shore of Lake Huron, I’ve started to see the problem with our relationship to the Great Lakes is that they are too often an abstraction. It’s not that the people who live in this part of the world lack affection or even love for the Great Lakes.  We care.  But unless you live near them and see them most days, they are an idea, a memory, or a hope. Several people have planted this thought in my mind as I interviewed them for a new book.  They want a healthy planet and they work for it in their inland communities, but they observe that they don’t think often about the Great Lakes.  They think about the river that snakes through their city or the inland lake on which their cottages are planted. When the Lakes themselves are part of your daily life, you not only think about them constantly, you are tied to them emotionally.  You’re vulnerable to them and you recognize how vulnerable they are. This doesn’t mean you do anything more than someone in Mt. Pleasant or Marshall does for them.  There is the potential, though, that you’ll feel more urgency to protect them.  If we had a handful of members of Congress and Great Lakes governors who spent much of their lives on the Great Lakes, we might see better government policies affecting these waters. In the meantime, those of us who enjoy the privilege of at least occasionally waking up within earshot and sight of them have the responsibility to convey this vulnerability...

The Gift

In a season of gift-giving, it’s timely to remember that the people of the Great Lakes Basin inherited the greatest freshwater gift in the world. We are slightly more than half a percent of the population of the world, but live among 20% of the surface freshwater of the world. That’s a great asset – and an outsize responsibility. There is nothing like them, as authors and poets attest: In The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas, author Jerry Dennis wrote, “To appreciate the magnitude of the Great Lakes you must get close to them. Launch a boat on their waters or hike their beaches or climb the dunes, bluffs, and rocky promontories that surround them and you will see, as people have seen since the age of glaciers, that these lakes are pretty damned big. It’s no wonder they’re sometimes upgraded to ‘Inland Seas’ and ‘Sweetwater Seas.’ Calling them lakes is like calling the Rockies hills.” In Moby Dick, author Herman Melville wrote, “For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand freshwater seas of ours–Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan–possess an ocean- like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits.” Poet Alison Swan said, “To know Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, one must visit them in all kinds of weather, at all times of year, and at all times of day, and even then they turn up surprises.” Writing about what it means to be a Middle Westerner, author Kurt Vonnegut observed, “But the more I pondered the people of Chicago, the more aware I became of an enormous...

Our Land, Not Government Land

One of the most misleading attacks on the public domain has been raging for decades, but worsening since the turn of the century.  The idea that public land is somehow “locked up” and harmful to community prosperity has fanatic adherents in Lansing and Washington. The truth is a different story. Quoting from a release issued by a group of mostly retired natural resource professionals, the Michigan Resource Stewards, who approved a resolution underscoring the importance of public land to Michigan’s people, quality of life, and economy: “Citing numerous benefits that come from public land, the Stewards encourage policy makers and advocacy groups to recognize that public land in Michigan is of paramount importance to our citizens for health, quality of life and prosperity, today and for the future.’ “The group’s resolution cites economic benefits including the state’s $22 billion annual return from tourism, $20 billion from forest products on public land, $5 billion hunting and fishing industries as well as other benefits which include revenues and jobs from oil and gas, metallic minerals, sand and gravel, and other natural resources on public land. It notes as well that property with access to public land generally sells at a premium. “Much more than an economic commodity, the Stewards point out that public land ‘provides habitat for a great variety of wildlife which poll after poll shows is of critical importance to Michigan citizens,’ and that the ability to engage in a wide variety of recreational pursuits such as hunting, fishing, camping, snowmobiling, birding, mushrooming and a host of other activities on public land represents ‘a birthright and a priceless heritage...

Public Servants

A friend sent me sad news last night about the passing of a longtime Michigan DEQ/DNR employee.  In addition to being sad about his death, the news prompted me to reflect on the many men and women I’ve known who, like him, are deeply committed to building a better world and make all kinds of sacrifices to do so.  Our politics too often demonizes “bureaucrats” — when public servants are the rule at all levels of government. I knew Fred Clinton best when he was head of the DNR’s resource recovery program in the 1980s.  Garbage dumps that leaked poisons into water and air had created a crisis, and it was time to fashion policies that provided an environmentally sound alternative.  Fred had ideas — initially, to emphasize waste incineration but ultimately to foster recycling and waste reduction programs across the state.  When the voters of the state approved a $660 environmental bond in 1988, it contained $150 million for recycling and improved solid waste management — and Fred was a big reason for that. The real point here, however, is more than his policy thinking.  Wandering over to the DNR from the Governor’s office, I frequently sat with his staff as we discussed proposed laws or rules or legislative personalities.  I no doubt missed the day to day conflicts inherent in any office, but the staff in his shop were a team, almost a family, it appeared.  There was an atmosphere of respect.  Fred and his crew believed in what they were doing and did it well. Fred was deceptively intense about his work.  He generally spoke calmly...

At Long Last, Have They No Sense of History?

Writing a book about Michigan’s environmental history was inspiring. It revived my hope to look back at a time in Michigan’s history when almost no one in public life cared about conservation, when forests, fish and wildlife were being recklessly plundered, and to see how an initially small group of citizens forged a movement that propelled Michigan to national leadership. The subtitle of the book characterized “Michigan’s Rise as a Conservation Leader.” If I were to write the book today, the subtitle would be entirely different. It would address how Michigan’s shortsighted, shallow and venal public officials have forfeited our leadership.  In their public statements and official actions, they resemble their greedy, feckless predecessors who ran the state in the 1800s.  They have forgotten the lessons of history, if in fact they ever bothered to study them. And they are condemning a generation of Michiganians to having to rebuild what they are destroying. The latest of many insults is a piece of legislation that would put polluters in charge of drawing up environmental regulations. The legislation, SB 652, is a nightmare of corrupt intent and impact. At a time when toxic threats from the past are reemerging and new ones are converging on our state, the legislature would let special interests determine which matters deserve environmental standards and how protective the standards would be. In other words, not protective at all. This approach to policy would be comical if it wasn’t so ominous. Thirty years ago, it would’ve been considered dead on arrival before consideration by the legislature. Now it gets a serious hearing and could become law. This...