celery pond

There is only one organization that is dedicated exclusively to safeguarding Michigan’s birds so they can survive and prosper — the Michigan Audubon Society. Check out their web site at www.MichiganAudubon.org

The Audubon Society has used their whole team and has worked together to produce great things. For one thing, they rallied people to vote in the election to save Mourning Doves from being hunted down. Because of their efforts, thousands of Mourning Doves will remain safe and protected this year.

It means that the open space of Michigan’s farm fields will be spared tons of toxic lead shot year after year. The Lansing office also helped convince the Coast Guard to abandon their idea to use live ammunition for Great Lakes exercises. Think of the lead and toxins that might have been dumped into the Lake that we all love to use. Lead being poured into the land or waters are no longer acceptable choices of lifestyle. Earth-friendly humans and their choices of activity can make a difference.

Audubon has numerous education programs for children and adults alike as well as offering tours and field trips. They continue to encourage maintaining wetlands and native prairie restorations with plantings at MAS sancutaries.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to bring Audubon into the plan to make Celery Pond a nature sanctuary? We could use their expertise to help set up signage displays on native birds, their migration and breeding habits.

Fund-raising is part of any such effort. Celery Pond Advocates will host their Second CPA Fundraiser during Earth Day weekend in April. Mark your calendars for Friday, April 20th. A savory lite dinner and desserts will be donated by creative chef Suzie Blair, with wine and champagne. Annie Brown and Jeff Filbrandt have generously offered their lovely “new” home for the benefit.

More on the event as the date gets closer. The monies collected from ticket sales and contributions will take us to the next step in trying to save the wetland.

It is presumed that the City will re-open the file by the April 6th deadline, and once it re-opens, the CPA plan to hire professionals to do an environmental study. If you want to contribute monies now, please make your check payable to Celery Pond Advocates. The mail box for CPA is P.O. Box 693, South Haven, MI 49090.

Along with the party in the spring, we’ll celebrate Earth Day with our Third Community Walk on the public lands off of Dunkley Avenue on Sunday, April 22nd. Has South Haven ever had a public event for Earth Day? Let’s take the time to think globally and start to act locally. Be sure to invite all your kids and their friends to join us!

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder recently asked the title question in Seattle, Washington. This question, and others, “go beyond parenting to the health of the Earth itself,” he added.

Louv is credited with inspiring the back-to-nature movement for kids. It is a fact that since the 1970s, kids have spent less time playing in nature and more time indoors with the latest thrill, technology. Computers, video games, TVs and other media, entice kids from the ages of 8 to 18 to spend at least 6 hours a day “plugged in”, according to a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation study.

Richard Louv and others like him are now promoting the idea of a national campaign called “No Child Left Inside” — playing off the No Child Left Behind academic-achievement idea of the Bush administration. The idea to get kids outside doesn’t have to come through special environmental schools, programs, or intensive immersions of kids in the wilderness (ie. suggested ways to cure nature-deficit ailments). Just checking out a wetland or pine cone can be beneficial.

What’s most important to understand is that kids, like adults, need nature and a life beyond organized sports, homework (officework), and other demands of keeping up with techonology and expressing yourself with it. Connecting to Nature is a way to end the nature-deficit disorder that is coming into young people’s physical and mental development.

Scientists are finding that contact with nature benefits kids in numerous ways, reducing hyperactivity and related attention-deficit disorders, as well as encouraging more self-discipline.

State lawmakers in Washington passed a bill to research how important nature can be for learning and development. It’s also expected that there will be millions of dollars sought in that state for more outdoor education. That’s taking sustainability to a different level.

How lucky we are in Michigan to have natural resources to educate our children, if only we choose to preserve them. Keeping Celery Pond as a wetland nature reserve on the beginning of the Black River Watershed, would be an ideal way to educate our local children, our summer visitors and our year-round visitors on the wonder of a wetland in the downtown area.

Wouldn’t it be great if this spring kids from our middle school and high school did field trips to see the wetland? Learning animal tracks and birdcalls, creating maps and figuring out what life might be swimming around in the waters would be enough to inspire any biology student, even an art student.

The kids could help adults see what an assest Celery Pond is to us. Their parents might even want to leave their worry about money and technology for a while, to think about becoming stewards of this precious area of Earth. The adults and kids could work together as stewards of Celery Pond. It puts a whole new twist to thoughtful development and the possibilites of a different kind of tourist attraction.

A survey of the 50 largest US cities was taken in 2006 by SustainLane to determine the nation’s most complete report card on urban sustainability. (see www.sustainlane.com). They looked at such things as renewable energy programs that improve the quality of life for everyone.

Their questions were not about politics but better ways to sustain our environment. Their survey was taken to gauge how ready US cities will be with an uncertain future that is being determined by negative economic and environmental impacts that are created by dependence on fossil fuel.

Solar energy is one of the renewable energy sources, using local food sources is another, providing affordable housing and public transport were other determinants for the ranking. While the survey included bigger cities, smaller cities could be easily ranked as well, by the same standards.

Some of the cities who made the list were New York City (6th), Oakland, Ca (5th), Chicago (4th), Seattle (3rd), San Francisco (2nd) and Portland (number one). Portland has what is called “thoughtful” development. They have LEED buildings, permeable asphalt, hybrid cars for city people to use, endorse local produce for restaurants, recycling, and electric cars.

Part of the reason that Portland got the number one spot is because the people in the city “identify with having a high quality of life more than in most cities. They work hard at being involved in city policy, boards, projects and practices that impact sustainability.” So the grassroots and businesses who are keen on renewable power and conserving energy are really key to Portand’s standing.

With the recent grassroots efforts that are being taken in South Haven, from Celery Pond Advocates to the recent meeting at LMC, the BlackRiver Watershed program and other environmental programs cropping up all over the state and country, I’d say we’re taking steps. Now to convince the local governments to learn how to be thoughtful in considering development. As in all good government, politics and personalities must step aside for major decisions of the well-being of a global community, which starts right where we are, at hometown levels.

Last Thursday, January 18th, Lake Michigan College in South Haven held a two-hour session on “Economic & Community Development” hosted by Dick Brunvand. About 60 people attended and each was given opportunity to introduce him/herself, with a short 30second window offered to speak on what they liked most about South Haven. Guaranteed high on the ‘like’ list was Lake Michigan and the beauty of the area.

It was not until the session opened to comment on important issues and values that the subject of the Dunkley lands came to fore. A local sculptor and caretaker of properties, Patrick McKearnan, spoke about keeping the lands on Black River which could be the ‘jewel’ of South Haven, if developed into a public park. It was at this point that I spoke, on behalf of the concerned citizens who I’ve met with, who still want to keep the lands in public hands, and are suggesting hosting a referendum petition/vote to achieve those ends.

All the beauty and love of the Lake will be effected, I stressed, if we continue to try to reconfigure wetlands, floodplains, and ravines, all of which create a natural balance to the sustainability and hydrology of the Lake itself.

Both Erin Fuller from the Black River Watershed Project, and the Bangor City Manager,Larry Nielsen, who is on the board of the BSH HWTA (the Bangor-South Haven Black River canoe trail), were present. Their words inspired others in the audience to suggest that South Haven hold a meeting of representatives from area communities who have successful environmental projects (such as the water gardens in Bangor). Discussing alternative green space actions and projects seemed important to many who were present. We can only hope the City Manager, Council and Mayor, who were in the audience, heard this suggestion.

That idea led me to Mayor George Heartwell’s “State of the City Address” two days later in Grand Rapids. If ever there is a city to be our big brother model, it would be this one. Last week, in fact, the United Nations designated Grand Rapids as a center for excellence in education for sustainability. As Mayor Heartwell said, “knowledge trumps physical power” especially in our collective need to be well-educated, on the environment, in the global community.

Grand Rapids, as a model city of the growing needs to be environmentally well-educated, has had renewable energy projects in motion during the Mayor’s last term of office and will be taken forward again during the next few years of his administration. Grand Rapids as a city endorses a “mandated greenpower target”, and the Mayor hopes that the message of this urgent need goes directly to Lansing.

Recommended is reading the full speech of Mayor Heartwell on the Grand Rapids City government website. www.grand-rapids.mi.us

Environmental sustainability requires “sustainable planning” with a “social responsibility” as Mayor Heartwell emphasized. Environment is an equivalent of sustaining a healthy economy, according to him. He said that we need to “act soon” to accomodate these pressing needs in new structures of urban design.

“United in spirit and in purpose,” Heartwell concluded was what was demanded of everyone. In light ot the healing effects that Gerald R. Ford, native of Grand Rapids, contributed to our society, Heartwell said that we too, could contribute the same.

More on sustainability tomorrow, in other cities around the country…

Monday night was the South Haven City Council meeting, preceded by a short 25 minute workshop. During the workshop, Councilman Bill Bradley remarked that the “government will protect us from ourselves.” In listening to the proceedings from the meeting and talking to several of the locals, I wondered what protects the people from the government?

South Haven is a quiet town over the winter, especially when the ice freezes over things and the snow cover makes everything crisp and white. More houses are boarded up or vacated than used, it seems, if you drive around neighborhoods on the north or south side of town. While skaters take advantage of the outdoor rink across from City Hall, there’s not much activity that is visible, except of course, in City Hall. There, meetings go on constantly and plans to spend millions of dollars are being reviewed. The quite exterior is really quite deceptive.

On the books right now are the special Council workshops which give a longer session for working out complicated plans. Last Monday (Jan. the Council held one of these special sessions, discussing the Dunkley Street Redevelopment Project for well over 2 hours. Please note that the Council is trying to establish bids for these properties. Check the City website for the next long session, as Dunkley will surely be discussed again.

The question comes to mind in this case, what protects the People from the government? It seems odd that the People, who own the properties on Dunkley Avenue, who entrusted management of these properties to the City, as caretakers of their land, are now having to face government actions which go against their wishes.

It’s like having a caretaker or a bank trust officer manage your land assets and he decides to sell them, even though you’re competent and saying “no” to the idea. How do you protect yourself from a government which might be acting against your wishes?

In the case of the Dunkley lands, once the City approves of the land bids and moves to sell them, there is a 30 day window for the people to challenge this action. That means, referendum petitions must be taken within that time frame. Technically, the charter says that 10% of the registered voters need to sign a referendum petition within 21 days for the Council to be required to take an action in response to it. This means that at least 336 of the 3,363 voters who were registered in November 2005 (the last City election) would need to sign a referendary petition to move the Council to consider a public election to determine the destiny of the lands.

This is the one chance that the people will have to act to act as their own agents to make a decision that may be quite different than the government’s plans.

This is one chance to referendum a subject that is so major for the future of South Haven that many think it’s worth the effort to do a petition. What really matters to the registered voters may come as a surprise to a Council, a council that is doggedly following the path of trying to sell off public lands to private developers. Let’s see what 2007 brings to us! Can South Haven retrieve a sense of true community spirit?

Over the past two entries, we’ve been looking at ways to save South Haven and its environment. The blog has been giving information on the possibility of the people taking action to decide the fate of the public lands in the Dunkley Street area.

These lands are currently under consideration within City Council meetings/workshops as the Council seeks to establish bids for developers to consider. But, once the bids are determined, the people could challenge this course of action by starting a referendum petition to stop the sale of these public lands.

The Celery Pond Advocates are a group of concerned citizens who have been meeting since the summer, trying to save the wetland and public lands. In that effort, we are establishing ourselves as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. As a non-profit group, we hope to be able to function as a conservancy to save the wetland. We also want to see the floodplain lands that the public owns, stay in public hands. The Celery Pond Advocates would endorse the City developing an alternative plan which would keep these floodplain lands open spaces.

Celery Pond Advocates met with an area landscape architectural firm recently to discuss what it would take to develop an alternative plan such as a community park. Such a plan would work with the public and the Council to organize a “charette” drawing. The public would be invited to attend this session of brainstorming ideas while the architects draw up suggestions. These would then be refined and drawn up in a formal plan which would be presented to the Council.

Both the Harbor and Parks Commissioners recommended that the lands be kept public. To that effort, they spent two years trying to convince the Council. These two commissions did not have the budget to produce an alternative park design, because the Council voted to hire Abonmarche to develop a boat marina/condo development plan for the lands. With the harbor at full capacity for boats, one wonders why.

The point is that now the whole conceptual process can be challenged. A referendum petition can ask for more time. A referendum petition could ask that the City Council work on another plan that would option a park design for the area. Public support and your voice is needed.

What do you think? Why limit our vision to just more condos and boats?

Imagine these ‘abandoned’ lands around Dunkley made into a unique community park. Overhead is lots of sky and a canopy of trees. Flowers and herbs are grouped in wonderful gardens. And look at that, there’s the new environmental center where the metal city building used to be, and over there in the brown tiled building on the river is a new art/cultural center. And wonder of wonders, the old wastewater plant has been moved and a wonderful open air theater for the performing arts has replaced it. These are some of the ideas that have come forward and would be considered in a charette drawing. (Ask your kids if they’d like this.)

The blog mentioned a referendary petition to make changes on the present plans for the Dunkley Street Redevelopment. As readers know, the City wants to sell the public lands in that area, about 14 acres of them which are on floodplain.

The Council is currently discussing how to establish bids for these parcels. If the city plan goes forward , these properties would soonafter be sold to bidders who would fill the parcels with more condos ie. more sealed or surfaced land.

This land is critical for lakewater/river balances and needs to stay open to the elements. Note: This statement is not a personal prejudice, but a real environmental fact.

Once the Council does approve these figures, the people could challenge the whole plan of selling their public lands with a referendary or initiatory petition. Yesterday it was said that a referenday petition with signatures of at least 10% of the registered voters from the last election would be effective to move the Council to respond within 30 days. The Council would then have to act in one of three ways:

• The Council could adopt the ordinance as submitted by the initiatory petition.
• The Council could repeal the ordinance, or part thereof, referred to by a referendary petition .
  
• The Council could determine to submit the proposal provided for in the petition to the electors.
  

If the Council would decide to submit the proposal to a vote by the electors, the ordinance as adopted by Council will stand, pending the determination of the electors.

There is also another option. If 25% of the registered electors of the City (as of the date of the last city Election), is gathered within 60 days before filing with the City Clerk, the ordinance as adopted by Council would be suspended, pending the determination of the electors.

Note: Rather than 7 personalities voting on the future of public lands, the entire voting public would decide what to do with the lands that the public holds.

A referendum, with an appeal for a public vote, could change the whole landscape of the Dunkley area.

It could give the public more time, to work with the Council and among themselves, to establish other ideas of preservation and use of the lands.

If you think it’s worth it, let us know. Ask your kids too if they’d like to have a park that would let them play as well as let them learn about wetlands and the Black River and nature. The land belongs to us adults but, most importantly,it belongs to the kids and their future.

How’s your list coming along for inventing 365 ways to save the Earth? If you read yesterday’s blog, you’ll get the idea of what to do, simply make a one line statement on how to improve the state of environmental safety each day, then try to do it, and you will be on your way to enacting 365 steps to a healthier space for everyone.

Another idea to feed into this format is for us to start a little book called “365 Ways to Save South Haven.”

This could be a great project for you and your kids and grandchildren. It could be a great project to share with others, to hear their ideas, and then to put it out into the community. First on the list would be to save the natural wetland of Celery Pond from a marina development and channel cut.

Second on the list would be to keep the public lands in public hands on Dunkley Avenue. The floodplains in this area should stay as open and porous as possible so they can do their environmental balancing. That would mean that if we kept the Dunkley lands in public hands, we could leave the open spaces for something like a unique community park, which the blog, in the past, has discussed.

To make these two things happen, we need continued public support and demonstration of it. For instance, the best way to keep the public lands in public hands is to start a referendary or initiatory petition.

(A petition that calls for a referendum needs to collect signatures of at least 10 % of the registered electors of the City, as of the date of the last City Election which was 3363 voters. If 10% can be obtained within 21 days (ie. 363 signatures), these would be delivered to the City Clerk who would verify the signees. Once verification is completed (another 2 weeks), the petition would be forwarded to City Council for their consideration. If 25% of the registered electors of the city (841) signed a petition, the plan would be suspended.

More on this in the next entry. We can make changes that help save the earth if we think and act now. For the new year of 2007, let’s pool our ideas. Let’s try to gather together more and more plans of action that will give us “365 Ways to Save South Haven and the Earth.” Send yours proposals on ways to help the environment to the blog, just click on “Comments” and leave a message.

If you were to give yourself a good project, try to think, everyday, of something you can to do to help save the Earth and her delicate ecosystems and balances. Write it down, start a list, and see what you come up with, then share it with others. You can even send in comments to the blog.

Another book came my way over the holidays, “365 Ways to Save the EARTH” by Philippe Bourseiller. Today is his 10th suggestion of things to do. It’s an interesting book, with daily short reads, next to a gorgeous color picture on the other side. The picture draws you into the contemplation.

So far the suggestions have been new ways of doing things, or starting to do things. Quoting from the daily inscriptions:

” Buy recycled. Turn down your heating by 5 degress F. Recycle your Christmas tree. Lobby for the right for access to renewable electricity. Improve the efficiency of your radiators. Suggest composting at your children’s school. Reduce the amount of water flowing into your toilet’s tank. Buy fair-trade products, and help combat child labor. Make it a rule to buy only organic of a given product. Sign an environmental charter for your favorite leisure activity.”

The point of giving this list is to show that what we do in our daily lives can have positive effect…first to the immediate surroundings, then onto such far away places as the North Pole and Antaractica. Global warming, whether you want to believe in it, is here. New York had temperatures of 70 degrees for almost 2 days and blossums were beginning to come out. Birds are not migrating. Everything is out of order because our habits, which we’ve developed to do as we please, are coming back to face us. We must act quickly and with great responsibility to what is at stake.

Keeping wetlands and floodplains in tact, such as the Celery Pond and the Dunkley public lands provide, would be on the list of 365 ways to save the earth. Seriously, we need to think about this now.

There will be a Celery Pond Advocates meeting next week on Tuesday, January 16th, at 6:00pm at the South Haven Memorial Library. Please come to get an update on things and also to talk about our next steps in meeting our goals. Another fundraiser is being planned and other interesting things.

Continuing the subject of yesterday’s posting, the blog finishes excerpts from the news from the US Environmental Protection Agency published in 2005 on the current pressures that are impacting Lake Michigan.

One of the most critical issues for the Great Lakes is a category called “Habitat Alteration.” The facts are serious: “The increase in development around Lake Michigan threatens to alter remaining aquatic and terrestrial natural habitats. These changes will have an impact on the plant and animal species that depend on these habitats. The largest collection of freshwater sand dunes and beaches in the world are threatened by residential development and mining.”

“Over the last two centuries, more than 60 percent of Lake Michigan coastal and inland wetlands have been destroyed. Today, the pace of shoreline modification and urban, industrial and agricultural development is increasing, threatening the remaining 5.2 million hectares of wetlands…impervious surfaces such as roads and rooftops contribute to the degradation of lakes and streams by increasing water temperature and runoff volume, altering watershed hydrology, raising ambient air temperatures and reducing open space.”

What are the actions that the EPA is taking? Lots.

• Wonderful data and planning tools are available to assist local planners to make environmentally correct decisions with info from the Lake Michigan Watershed Academy.
• So far 10 Lake Michigan Areas of Concern have been so designated to undergo restoration of habitat, hoping that this will restore and encourage public interaction with the Lake Michigan ecosystem.
• Rare species that include the piping plover, Kirtland’s warbler and Hine’s emerald dragonfly are in recovery plans within the Lake Michigan basin.
  
• Dam removals on the Milwaukee River increased habitats (not for people but) for insects and diverse fish population. And, miracle of miracles, a pair of bald eagles was seen on Indiana’s Lake Michigan shoreline for the first time in over 100 years.

There are more “Actions Needed” as the report itemized. Most important in this list was the EPA hope, for the “Protection and restoration of natural areas, migratory bird flyways and unique biological and geological features, especially wetlands, and GIS training for local officials who make land use decisions,”

Celery Pond, there’s hope for you in the New Year! As the Celery Pond Advocates establish their 501 (c)(3) status, we’ll be ready to move ahead to protect South Haven’s unique wetland on the Black River and near the City’s downtown. What a jewel we have to preserve and launch into the future to educate ourselves and the children to follow.