Press enter after choosing selection

Southeastern Michigan Environmental Resource Association (smera)

Southeastern Michigan Environmental Resource Association (smera) image
Parent Issue
Month
January
Year
1989
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

Environmental Letter to the People of Michigan

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the famous government guidebook, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, once called his life a process of "fiddling under Vesuvius," never knowing when deadly lava would flow. The phrase fits Ann Arbor and the DNR in their 1988 "Danse Macabre" over garbage. Near year's end, the City and the DNR were still bargaining, we were told, about expanding the current landfill facilities until new facilities can be 1 readied.Through much of 1988, however, they ardently demonstrated how to fiddle under a volcano or debate rubbish disposal on the Titanic. Hamlet's ghost talked about the need to "prey on garbage;" but during 1988, praying on garbage of ten seemed the only option as DNR and City officials merrily used front pages as a garbage front.

Brahms declared he loved Vienna since it was both a village and a city. Ann Arborphiles might say the same. In addition to our cultural amenities, a conspicuous characteristic of this modern City is the awesome talent to generate endless floods of detritus, rifiuti, alias garbage. Each of us manages to average about a ton of solid waste per annum. Have you produced your 5-6 pounds today?

As garbage Everests grow, officials tend to emulate Murray Burns in Herb Gardner's playfilm, "A Thousand Clowns." Burns denounced his neighbors' refuse: "It is definitely second-rate garbage. By next week I want to see a better class of garbage." Increasingly we hear much the same from officials of all govemment tribes: Recycle! Compost! Produce less waste! Emulate the noble goat and consume thy own garbage, O Citizen!

Very well, State, City, DNR, Solid Waste Task Force, give us the recycling centers, persuade us, instinct us, lead us, but stop kidding us, stop hiding the truth, and stop all the pointless wrangling, back-biting, time-wasting, hope-crushing, fear-provoking, dangerous "hoomalimali" (a nifty new word for you, Hawaiian for 'nonsense')

We never assumed the DNR and the City intended Ann Arbor residents to adopt the elementary practices of medieval Edinburgh when householders cried "Gardyloo!" as a warning prior to throwing refuse out the windows. But garbage, the same as taxes, politics, and bureaucracies, is with us always; and the flow doesn't stop while the DNR Iets the City twist slowly in the wind unless the City dutifully kowtows.

A local reporter called the 1988 braw! a "war of wills." An engineer from the DNR sniffily accused the City of being "negligent in planning." An August 30 editorial in the Ann Arbor Newspaper eloquently said, "The real issue is why the situation got to this untenable state.... What happened to intergovernmental cooperation?" What indeed! [The planning comment reminds us of a pregnant observation by late physicist Richard Feynman: 'Theoretically, planning may be good, but nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand."] That cogent editorial added that the DNR "seems to have a strange view of its regulatory role."

So what do we learn from "The Year of Garbage" in Michigan? When go vernments quarrel, we the people are hostages. Signs are little better now that the contending parties are effectively "letting the lawyers work it out" and applying wisdom from Isaiah, chapter 1: "Come now, and let us reason together." In the future, to resolve the perennially complex refuse imbroglio, reasoning together instead of fiddling under Vesuvius is essential for the City, the DNR, and the garbage-haunted environment of the State. Are you listening, DNR, Ann Arbor?

Sponsored by SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE ASSOCIATION (SMERA)

POST OFFICE BOX 3165 ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106-9998

Article

Subjects
Old News
Agenda