celery pond

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?