celery pond

The count in wetlands from the 1780s to the 1980s, as noted earlier, has shown a decrease of wetland area in Michigan by about 50 percent. A study done in 1990 said that there were only 5.6 million acres in the 1980s compared to a hearty 11.2 million acres in the earlier centuries.

Obviously there is some reason for this disappearance. Most of the loss of wetlands in Michigan has been caused by man’s drainage of them for meeting his agricultural pursuits. And, most of this drainage happened before the Great Depression.

A malaria scare also encouraged the WPA and the Federal Relief Agencies to drain parts of Michigan waters to control what was feared to be malaria-carrying mosquitoes. This drainage occurred mainly in the southern one third of the State where there are also most of the important agricultural lands. Industrialization has been yet another source of damaging many wetlands along different parts of the state, especially around Saginaw River to Lake Erie.

We cannot retrieve what has been lost by these steps. But we can change our thinking today to be intune with the important environmental information that demands that we be responsible to presere our waterways and watersheds, their tributaries and their wetlands. We can learn from the past. We can give ourselves and the generations to follow us a new pattern of retaining wetlands and their surrounding green spaces.

Sourcing again from the article mentioned yesterday prepared in a U.S. Geological Survey by Erin A. Lynch and Marcus C. Waldron, the wetland resources in Michigan were further analyzed in their hydrologic settings. Persistent water supply at or near the land surface creates the wetlands. The location and persistence of the supply comes from conditions of the climate, physiography and hydrology factors which include runoff and precipitation patterns, evaporation potential, configuration of the water table and topography. Precipitation from rain and snow constantly adds to surface waters, including wetlands.

The glaciers largely determined the typography in Michigan. As is well documented, we know that glacial lobes moved through parts of the Great Lakes and deposited heavy layers of drift material. The glacial waters that covered much of the areas of in the Lower Peninsula, today are organized into 35,000 mapped ponds and lakes and 36,350 miles of rivers and streams in Michigan according to a 1987 report by Sweat and VanTil.

If you really look at these areas, nearly all the wetlands and lakes in the lower peninsula are in depressions in the surface of glacial deposits. What great material this would be for a natural history center in South Haven near the wetland of Celery Pond. Let’s try to make this happen by supporting the efforts of the Celery Pond Advocates who want to preserve the wetland.We can learn more about Michigan’s natural history right in our own backyard.

While freshwater coastal wetlands are all over Michigan, their distribution depends on the morphology of the Great Lakes shoreline. Most wetlands, like Celery Pond, developed into lagoons or flood ponds that have formed just landward of the shoreline. Riparian or streamside wetlands travel inland along the flood plains and along banks of tributary streams entering the lake basin.

It is also interesting to note that coastal wetlands are younger than inland wetlands in Michigan. This is due to the fact that glacial ice receded from most of the Lower Peninsula about 12,000 years ago. The Great Lakes actually reached their present water levels only 3,000 years ago.

Therefore, the coastal wetlands are about 3,000 years old, whereas the inland wetlands can be as old as 12,000 years. Imagine how old the wetland that we call Celery Pond might be!

When visiting the MDEQ offices in Lansing recently to do research on the Celery Pond file, an article posted on a bulletin board caught my attention. Asking to have a copy of it, I’ll share some of the valuable contents with you over the next few days. Prepared by Erin A. Lynch and Marcus C. Waldron, U.S. Geological Survey, the footnoted report was under a section on Michigan, Wetland Resources, in a National Water Summary.

Quoting from its text: “Wetlands cover about 15 percent of Michigan. They are ecologically and economically valuable to the State. Wetlands provide shoreline protection as well as temporary flood storage. Wetlands protect water quality by removing excess nutrients and sediments from surface and ground water. Michigan’s wetlands…provide important wildlife habitat and have a significant role in maintaining a high level of biological diversity. Most freshwater fish depend on wetlands at some stage in their life cycle. Birds use wetlands as migratory resting places, for breeding and feeding grounds, as cover from predators.”

Such an article posted in the State capitol’s Department of Environmental Offices shows the preferences of these government specialists. The article went on to list how wetlands benefit the State’s outdoor recreation and tourist industries.

Wetlands, it said, provide “opportunities for activities such as hunting, fishing, trapping, hiking canoeing, birdwatching, nature photography, and viewing wildflowers.” Obviously absent from the wetland opportunities was any mention of endorsing a marina in a wetland such as the Dunkley Redevelopment Plan proposes for Celery Pond made by the City of South Haven and two private developers.

According to a study done by Michigan Resource Inventory System (MIRIS) in 1992 there were more than 6.2 million acres of wetlands classified in different categories. Michigan coastal wetlands vary in their proportions along the Great Lakes, with 28 percent along Lake Michigan having the second highest wetland coverage next to Lake Huron, which has the largest amount of coastal wetland, an estimated 37 percent.

We’re lucky to have such functional and beautiful spaces along our shoreline.  Don’t you think we’re particularly gifted to have one wetland called Celery Pond so close to the downtown of South Haven? 

Wetlands are unique ecosystems. We begin to understand them when we give time to look at what they do as wetlands and what they can teach us.

Celery Pond in South Haven is shown in presettlement maps as having been a marshy area with the adjacent low land areas around it (which we now call floodplains). The wetland marsh was taken on by European settlers to be a boost to the economy, and they decided to use it for agriculture, with anticipated economic gain, by planting celery in its flats. This encouraged forming a dike-like entrance into the wetland so they could control water levels for their produce.

It’s hard to imagine South Haven residents munching on celery, but that was one of the “benefits” that Europeans interpreted as OK in terms of settlement conquests. We can only guess that the Indians, who held nature in high esteem as part of the Great Spirit, would have seen the marsh as part of that Whole, along with being a supplier of fish. Twenty-first century man has government rules to regulate use of wetlands but still tries to convince us that they can be exploited for commercial gains such as a marina development.

Thanks to science and more environmentally appropriate understandings, we know that wetlands affect the water quality of the area, provide flood control, protect bank erosion and serve as a needed habitat for birds, amphibians, fish and insects. What is their purpose beyond this?

According to Delavan Sipes, wetland specialist and editor of Michigan Lake & Stream Assocations Newsletter, to think of moving a wetland or creating an equivalent wetland such as a proposed mitigation site, individuals and city officials need to consider certain things. While these people may think it OK to move a wetland or to exploit it for economic gain, one must really reach inside for answers.

Delavan Sipes believes that if there is no purpose other than economic gain motivating the attempt to alter the wetland, no mitigation should be allowed. He goes on to say that “to destroy a wetland solely for economic gain is an unconscionabe act against nature.”

The Celery Pond needs to be preserved. Both Delavan Sipes and Chuck Nelson from Sarett Nature Center agree that the wetland called Celery Pond should be kept as a wetland. If the efforts of the Celery Pond Advocates succeed, we will maintain the wetland, turning it be a nature sanctuary that can teach all ages about what wetlands do, particularly in relation to our Black River watershed.

All the discussion about what Celery Pond is or is not, are really just people arguing over economic gain vs. environmental protection. It is clear that Celery Pond, so named for economic gain, is really a wetland that can teach us with its outdoor classroom.

With the idea of a marina and interior boardwalk to connect the bike trail to the city, we will fail to learn the lesson of the outdoor classroom that teaches us the about the delicate balances of nature, hydrology, natural history, animal habitats and migration patterns of birds. The classroom is waiting for us to acknowledge its existence. Let’s hold the vision to preserve Celery Pond so that the natural history and ecologocial facts can enlighten us and generations to come.

We have much to be thankful for this year. The Celery Pond is still intact and the blue herons still have their fishing grounds. It is the intention of a growing number of people to preserve this wetland for all to enjoy.

The Celery Pond Advocates benefit was very lively last Saturday night with close to 60 people attending. The South Havenites were glad to meet both Chuck Nelson from the Sarett Nature Center and the wetland specialist Delavan Sipes. These two professionals reminded us to appreciate what we have and to maintain the wetland for our children and the future. With the monies raised at this event, we are moving forward to acquire the non-profit status whose intent is to acquire and manage the wetland and surrounding areas, turning them into a nature sanctuary.

If you care to contribute, please make checks payable to Celery Pond Advocates, PO Box 693, South Haven, MI 49090. We also have caps and bags for sale in both Whimsy and Renaissance stores on Phoenix Street. They’re great gifts for Christmas as well as being something you could use too.

You’ve heard of the 7 wonders of the world. We could consider our five Great Lakes 5 more wonders of the world, making them national treaures. On any clear day, there’s no doubt in a person’s mind that the sparkling blue is indeed a miracle, a lake full of fresh water as large as a sea, as as tempermental as one too. Our Lake is not a solitary being, but connected into greater expanses of water, making five great bodies of water that then connect to the St. Lawrence Seaway and eventually connecting to the Atlantic Ocean.

Isn’t it fun to think you could follow a path from the ocean to our piers in South Haven! Then extend it and go on into the Black River and up into the watershed, but, first you’d see our wetland, Celery Pond. Just think of it. Celery Pond links to the Atlantic Ocean, what a wonderful imagination, but true.

The Great Lakes Coalition, mentioned yesterday, is a broad-based network of national, regional, and state organizations dedicated to Great Lakes restoration.. A technical advisory committe of scientists, business leaders, economists and other experts will be pooling information. How important it is for all government officials, from city commissioner to a council person to city manager, to start gathering as much information as they can on the environment. It is the biggest issue on the planet, maybe not recognized as such by some politicians, but it is. Ask Al Gore.

The Great Lakes Coalition assures us information at government levels is critical. The Coalition will be organized by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) of Washington, DC, which plans to serve as a national fiscal agent for the grant, and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) will serve as a fiscal agent at the regional level through NWF’s Great Lakes Natural Resources Center in Michigan.

Think beyond tourism at the national focus that will be given to the Great Lakes, and we live on one. A national coalition of concerned Americans will be pooling their talents and resources to restore and protect them. Peter Wege feels that to penetrate into this level of involvement, “It will take close partnerships among all who care for the Lakes, including government and elected officials.” By coordinating efforts of many, many people, a national constituency is building for effective action by the federal government to restore the Great Lakes!

You can almost hear those words echoing into history. We need to work together to preserve and protect our waters and waterways, this includes the Lake on which we live and what feeds into it, Black River and our Celery Pond wetland. We must seek to preserve and protect Celery Pond, as an adjunct commitment to this greater appeal.

If you can join us for our first fundraising event, Saturday, November 18th from 5:30-7pm, we’d love to see you. Tickets are still on sale at Wolverine or Whimsy.

If you cannot join us but would like to contribute monies for our organization, you can send your checks to Celery Pond Advocates, P.O. Box 693, South Haven, Mi 49090. We thank you for your commitment.

As Black River Watershed Project has proved so helpful to setting up programs of such great value to the area, the Celery Pond group is especially happy to be in contact with them. Not only did Erin Fuller, project coordinator, make herself available to talk to us in our first meeting back in July 2006, she also was very instrumental in organizing the Watershed Management Program in October in Lawrence which the blog has used for its great sources of information.

Coalition is important. It is necessary with environmental issues such as water where the flow doesn’t know what the word “trespass” means. Water meanders along, unaware of political boundaries, running through counties, states and even countries. What we do to the water, affects us directly or our neighbor, up or down stream, depending on the issue at hand.

Peter M. Wege and the Wege Foundation in Grand Rapids are real leaders to watch and learn from. On October 14th they announced a $5 million, five-year grant launching the Great Lakes Coalition. This coalition intends to build public support nationally to restore the Great Lakes, America’s greatest freshwater resource.

This is among the largest private foundation grants ever for the Great Lakes protection. In May 2004 a “Healing Our Waters” summit set forth an agenda for federal government action and funding to restore the Great Lakes, a historic mark in environmental history.

If you need inspiration, just measure the dedication of Peter M. Wege, President of the Wege Foundation when he chose these words to describe the scope of the project: “The Healing Our Waters agenda is the Magna Carta for Great Lake restoration. The mission of the Great Lake Coalition will be to turn this agenda into real policies that will restore our Great Lakes.

Cleaning-up areas of concentrated toxic pollution is one of their aims, along with restoring water quality, preventing and controlling non-native aquatic invasive species. This is a call upon the U.S. federal government to take the lead role in coordinating the Great Lakes protection. To find out more about the Healing Our Waters agenda, look at www.healingourwaters.org

As South Haven is on Lake Michigan, with its Black River and the Watershed flowing into it, it behooves each and every one of us to take precautions to preserve water quality, from sweeping up after our dogs to sweeping up after ourselves to not litter with plastic bottles, paper and toxins. The wetland can purify stormwater runoff but it can’t cure our delinquent habits. It’s good to know that there is a growing awareness among professionals and lay people to begin to heal our waters and preserve our environment and the delicate ecosystems that surround us.

Note: CPA Meeting tonight at 6pm at the public Library. Tickets for Saturday night fundraiser still on sale at the Hardware Store and Whimsy on Phoenix Street.

It’s just one more month of shortening hours of dark skies, and the sun is reborn to take back its light, after the December solstice, with spring, just around the corner. It will be good to go to Celery Pond again this spring and do a thorough inventory of the bird population, when the activity is in high speed.

Red-winged blackbirds love to nest in the cattails. You can hear them with thei konk-ker-ee song. The flash of red is always startling, especially as they take flight, from out of the cattails.

Waterfowl depend on marshes. Black ducks, mallards, green-winged teal and other types of ducks relay on marshes. They not only use the marsh for breeding purposes, but stay on to raise their young. Especially dear is seeing about 6 or more baby ducklings trailing behind ma-ma duck on the Black River.

Ducks, geese, herons, egrets, cranes and others rest and feed in marshes, making these as destination points on their amazing journeys from one end of the continent to the other. Preservation and restoration of a patch of marshland is the opportunity that the Celery Pond Advocates hope to accomplish in setting up their nonprofit organization for acquiring, managing and protecting the wetland of Celery Pond, hoping to make it into a nature sanctuary with an educational tie-in.

If you are interested in contributing to our organization, please send contributions to CPA at P.O. Box 693 in South Haven, MI 49090. You can also contribute by attending our first fundraising event this Saturday. Tickets are $30 each and can be purchased at Wolverine Hardware and Whimsy. Don’t forgot to get your tickets the next time you’re downtown.

The heron brings us home, you may remember that lovely saying, mentioned a week ago. Can you make a list of who might think of Celery Pond as ‘Home Sweet Home’? The life cycle of many organisms depend on this ecosystem as their year-round or migratory home. Such activity as breeding, nurseries, feeding, resting spots and the cozy homesite determine the need and length of time the organisms, animals and birds stay there.

Marshes are known to be the nurseries for some of the seafood we enjoy. Carp and northern pike are known visitors along with the lowly mud minnows. Frogs, turtles, muskrats and even mink can sometime domicile in the marsh. While South Haven may not have the mink, it has most of the others, along with dragonflies, spotted with their delicate beauty, and a range of over 25 birds, including our wonderful blue herons.

Good news for heron lovers. The caps and tote bags are ordered with the heron emblem stitched or screenprinted onto them. They’ll be great. You can buy both the caps and bags at the fundraiser cocktail party on Saturday night, November 18th, from 5:30-7pm. If you can’t make this fun party, you’ll be able to buy them at Whimsy and Renaissance. They’ll be great Christmas items.

(Tickets for the fundraiser are at Wolverine Hardware and Whimsy on Phoenix Street.)

Reminder for CPA members or those interested in coming to our meetings, we’ll be at the SH Public Library on Thursday. November 16th, starting at 6pm. We hope to see you then.

There are many variations on what is called a wetland, and a marsh is one of them. Celery Pond was identified as a marsh by the Native Connections biologist, so we’ll look at what specifically marshes do.

Because flood protection is a service of the wetlands, a marsh can act like a large sponge to storing flows of rain water, and then it acts to slowly release them over time. Imagine a natural water balancing system without having to pay for it! Wetland marshes serve the community by removing much of the pollution and energy from the initial surge of flood-like conditions without a water-related bill coming to your mailbox.

As you may have read a few weeks ago, impervious surfaces such as pitched roof tops, pavements, and even lawns, make runoff from storm water a bigger problem, and flooding is more common in these areas because of the speed at which the collecting water runs off these surfaces and into streams. Have you ever watched the torrents of water near drains that simply can’t accomodate the run-off?

Marshes help in water control in two big ways. They reduce storm water flooding and also reduce the impacts of drought, as they can help to regulate the flow of water into streams and lakes by holding water for later in their natural rhythms, for more continuous release.

On the same note, marshes help in controlling erosion by reducing the rate of water flow from the inland, and dissipating the energy of waves and storm surges from open-water bodies, such as a river or lake. Natural events are accomodated effortlessly as well as mitigating impacts of natural events. We all know now that the Hurricane Katrina would have had less impact had the marshlands been in tact in their original state.

Thank you Celery Pond for being there, especially in the 1980s when Lake Michigan and Black River were at high water levels. Surging waves from storms penetrated far into the harbor and Celery Pond was there to reduce the impact on the adjacent floodplains and upriver. Thanksgiving isn’t far away and here’s something else to add to your list of thanks.

Reminder: CPA Meeting, Thursday night, 6pm, Library. Tickets for Saturday fundraising cocktail party, 5:30-7pm at Wolverine Hardware Store and Whimsy on Phonix Street, South Haven.