Public Lands In the News

 

By Bob Gross

Proposed bills in the Michigan Legislature could open state forests to logging and mining if not specifically protected.

House legislation introduced by Rep. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, said Daniel Leland, citizen outreach director for Environment Michigan, would force the Michigan Department of Resources to "allow logging in any place where it's not illegal to do so."

With Proud Lake as a backdrop, Ann Arbor-based Environment Michigan on Thursday announced what it's calling the Million Acres Project, an effort to permanently protect at least 1 million acres - 1,562.5 square miles - of state forests, parks and waterways.

Leland pointed to efforts by the state to sell the east unit of Proud Lake Recreation area - a 546-acre parcel of property - to Commerce Township. The state is asking $14.6 million for 480 acres. The balance is being considered by the Walled Lake Consolidated School District.

He also mentioned efforts to establish a nickel sulfide mine on the Yellow Dog Plains in the western Upper Peninsula. The mine would in part be under the Salmon Trout River, the last known habitat of the coaster brook trout - a lake-run variety of brook trout - on the south shore of Lake Superior.

"We are seeing intense efforts by special interests ... that are pushing for vastly increased logging and sulfide mining on some of the most pristine public lands in Michigan," said Leland.

As a first step, Environment Michigan is asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to require the DNR to designate 10 percent of Michigan's 4.5 million acres of state land as protected natural areas.

The Wilderness and Natural Areas Act signed by Gov. William Milliken in 1972, said Leland, allows such designations - up to 450,000 acres of state land. The areas that have been protected since the law's passage total 56,000 acres, he said, just 12 percent of what could be protected.

No state land, said Leland, has been protected under the act since 1988.

The second objective is to protect another 550,000 acres, an area about 32,000 acres or 50 square miles smaller than Oakland County.

Leland said the organization will contact about 50,000 Michigan residents and ask them to put pressure on the governor and the Legislature to protect state lands.

"Our goal is to have the lands that are in public hands remain in public hands for all of us," he said.