Berry picking is one activity drawing Oscoda-area residents to state forestland that two local lawmakers and a developer think should be bulldozed into a golf course.

Citizens in Iosco and surrounding counties recently sent more than one thousand signatures to Gov. Jennifer Granholm opposing the attempted forced sale of 475 acres of state forest to a golf course developer.

“We sent approximately 1,200 signatures on the petitions,” said Oscoda Township resident Vicki Good. “I have petitions with 262 more signatures to send.”

The golf course developer, Boyd Stan Aldridge, already owns three golf courses in the township. He wants to build a fourth, but the acreage he wants, state foresters say, isn’t for sale because it is a locally valued piece of land.

That’s where several elected officials come in.
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Al Bakker, of Bakker's Acres (left), Sysco’s Denis Jennisch, and close to 70 other growers, distributors, and retailers talked local food and regional markets at MLUI’s Planning for Local Foods workshop.

Sometimes it just takes a handshake to bring our economy back to the people and places that matter.

On Wednesday, Feb. 3, nearly 70 growers and commercial food buyers from northwest Lower Michigan demonstrated that by packing a meeting room and making it buzz with business. The Planning for Local Foods workshop, organized by the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Get Farming! program, helped seal or set in motion dozens of business deals.

All it took was providing an opportunity for local food buyers and suppliers to meet, face to face.

Renee DeWindt, food service director for Benzie County schools, was one of the last to leave the morning-long meeting.
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This Monday, the Traverse City City Commission will discuss adding bike lanes to 8th Street between Garfield Rd. and Barlow Rd.

Last week, the Traverse City City Commission hosted a panel of top community leaders for a program called “TC Tomorrow.” A big crowd packed the Traverse City Opera House, listened, and asked questions as an all-star lineup of local folks reflected on recent progress and suggested next steps for making TC a better place.

Next week, the same City Commission faces a test on whether it can turn some of TC Tomorrow’s fine words and thoughts into concrete plans by implementing a small part of the community’s vision-a common-sense idea that’s in the master plan and the Grand Vision: a bike lane along 8^th Street between Garfield and Barlow.

That very specific issue is actually about a broader question: Once a community endorses an idea about streets and traffic, who decides if it actually happens: residents, elected officials, or appointed staff who work behind closed doors?
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One way to cut carbon footprints is to use more locally made products, even for “little things” like toiletries. These soaps are made by Creation Farm, near Frankfort, Mich.

Here’s a question for those who want to cut their carbon footprint: What is the better wine choice-a bottle of French Bordeaux, or something from the Napa Valley?

Daniel Goleman’s new book, Ecological Intelligence, can help answer all sorts of questions like that. He writes about something called “life cycle assessment,” or LCA, a discipline that blends industrial engineering and chemistry with environmental science and biology.

Mr. Goleman’s book can help us make informed choices about the true environmental impact of the stuff we buy.

It is not always an obvious choice. In the case of Bordeaux vs. Napa, the French wine is the better choice for those living east of Columbus, Ohio; for those to the west of Columbus it’s the California wine. That is mostly because it is so much more efficient to ship by ship than by truck.

LCA takes into account all those hidden impacts, from the extraction or fabrication of the ingredients, through manufacture, transport, sales, use, and on to disposal.
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A newly issued state sulfide-mine permit threatens Upper Peninsula streams like the Yellow Dog River. (Credit Joe Mielke/MLUI)

Opponents of a proposed sulfide mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have suffered another setback as the state continues to push the controversial project regardless of the dangers it presents to Michigan rivers.

Last week, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved permits for the toxic mine. International mining giant Rio Tinto and its subsidiary, Kennecott Minerals Company, are seeking to build the mine directly underneath the Salmon Trout River in the Big Bay area. They expect to dig up hundreds of millions of pounds of sulfide to extract valuable copper and nickel.

The decision has prompted an uproar in the environmental community because, following the resignation of DEQ Director Steve Chester last month, the DEQ assigned the decision to an administrator who had just two weeks to review the details of the mine proposal before he approved it. Furthermore, the final go-ahead on the permits from Frank Ruswick, DEQ senior policy advisor, also retracted a request the agency had previously made to the courts asking a judge to review whether the mine could jeopardize a cherished Native American worship site near the area.

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Gardens are transformed and nourished by a sense of community.

I remember the first two gardens I ever had. The first was when I was in seventh grade, and my parents bought a farmhouse and some land. My mom tried growing a garden, but gave up as she and I watched the Ohio clay soil bake in the summer heat and crack like rocks. I took up walking in the woods.

My next garden was 10 years later, the year after I married. We lived in Manistee, on a street that ended about three blocks from Lake Michigan. Now, instead of hard clay soil, I planted seeds in beach sand. Once again, the garden was lackluster. But this time something different happened. This time, an elderly neighbor gently chuckled at our efforts. It might need some fertilizer, he said.

Fertilizer. What a revelation. It wasn’t something anyone had ever taught me. And the difference between my two fledgling gardens was community. Just by gardening next door to someone I was blessed with a mentor.

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Dr. Robert Froese (right) of Michigan Technological University spoke at a public meeting in Traverse City Thursday about burning waste wood from Michigan forests to generate electricity for the city’s utility.

A forester told a room full of people last Thursday night that Michigan does have a significant supply of biomass materials-waste wood material from lumbering and wood processing-that could be burned to produce energy in a responsible way.

Dr. Robert Froese, a forestry professor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, offered his remarks at a public meeting at Traverse City Light & Power’s main offices on Hastings Street. The utility is holding community meetings to discuss the various ways it can reach its goal of providing 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The company is currently considering large-scale wind turbines, landfill gas, and biomass to reach its goal.
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This is my BATA bus stop in beautiful “downtown” Burdickville!

It’s official: I parked my dilapidated Honda Civic for the last time last May. But I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, so I haven’t been very public about this massive lifestyle change. After all, I grew up in Michigan—home of the auto industry. I have no frame of reference for commuting to work any way other than in a car. And frankly, most people think it’s weird.

I’m probably not the likeliest candidate for becoming an “alternative commuter.” I live 22 miles from my office in Traverse City, where I need to be most every day. I have two girls still at home—both several years from driving age—who are very involved in a variety of after-school activities. And my wife works a couple of part-time jobs in Traverse City. That’s pretty much the profile of a two-car family.
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An upcoming workshop will show farmers market vendors the ropes for accepting payment for their products from “Bridge Cards”---Michigan’s name for the federal food stamp system.

Every day in this recession I am reminded of my blessings. I have a job. I do not reach the end of the month wondering if I will be able to put food on the table.

But in an article earlier this month, The New York Times crunched the numbers and discovered that the number of people in the United States receiving food stamps has grown 50 percent in the last two years. One in eight Americans receives food stamp cards-called the Bridge Card in Michigan-including one in four children. “One in 50 Americans live with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card,” the article says.

It’s one in 25 in Michigan’s Wayne County, where Detroit is located.

The article notes policy differences across the spectrum about how to address this issue. But while people are struggling-and we always have neighbors among us who are struggling-we must find ways to help all of us get the food we need to nourish our bodies.

That’s why the Michigan Land Use Institute and its Taste the Local Difference program has teamed up with the Michigan Farmers Market Association and Michigan Food and Farming Systems to hold a webinar open to northwest Michigan farmers markets and the farmers who set up their colorful stalls to sell at them. The March 18 workshop will provide important information on how to accept payment from and build customers among people who buy their groceries with Bridge Cards.

As we noted earlier this year in a Great Lakes Bulletin News Service article, farmers markets in southern Michigan have been boosting sales via “food stamp” cards and, at the same time, bringing fresher fruits and veggies to families in need. It’s a way to make sure we all eat well, and boost the local economy at the same time.

And this article of ours shows that, yes, indeed, people of all income levels are quite interested in purchasing fresh and healthy locally grown foods.

The “Accepting Bridge Cards at Michigan Farmers Markets” webinar is from 1-4 p.m. Thursday, Mar. 18 from 1-4 p.m., and will include a toll-free conference call and a Web site that allows you to look at the materials the presenters are presenting while you listen on a toll-free call. The $15 cost for resource materials is waived for MLUI members/TLD Supporters, but registration is required. If you would like to participate in this webinar, click here to learn more.

Diane Conners is a senior policy specialist for the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Food and Farming program, coordinates it’s Healthy Food For All projects, and is a former manger of a farmers market.

The attorney for a natural gas-fired power plant near South Haven says its power is cheaper and cleaner than the electricity a proposed coal-fired plant in Rogers City would produce—and is readily available, as well.

The battle over the coal plant Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative wants to build in Rogers City has introduced me to many attorneys. For the most part, they’ve impressed me with their diligence and commitment to service.

Rodger Kershner, of Howard and Howard Barristers and Solicitors’ Royal Oak office, is one of those.

Some diligent digging by David Shafto, a Rogers City-area property owner who is opposed to Wolverine’s project, found a letter that Counselor Kershner wrote to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality about the proposal’s folly.

Mr. Kershner’s letter criticized a Wolverine MDEQ filing that claims the co-op needs the new plant. Experts on our side had looked at Wolverine’s work and shrugged it off as disingenuous “fluff” that blew off serious consideration of cleaner and probably less pricey generating alternatives. But what do we know? We’re just a bunch of tree huggers!
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