Southeastern Michigan Environmental Resource Association (smera)

Parent Issue

Agenda, March 1989

Month

March

Year

1989

Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held By

Agenda Publications

OCR Text

Saving DNR from its Friends. Fourth of a Series.

ENVIRONMENTAL LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN.

by Solomon Eagle

A quarter of a century ago on May 22, 1964, the President of the United States in a speech at The University of Michigan, said, "The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use our wealth to enrich and elevate our national life - and to advance the quality of American civilization - for in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society but upward to the Great Society." In 1989, with half of that half century gone, some Michigan lawmakers apparently think what Lyndon Baines Johnson had in mind was a gazebo, financed by DNR, for Macomb County, and a horde of similar indulgences during a time of economic crisis.

We've managed to control our tears; but when the DNR "slush fund" news arrived on the state's front pages early in February, we feit sudden sympathy and compassion for DNR Director David Hales and others at the Department who must carry out their heavy responsibilities while lugging a ponderous weight of lawmakers and politicians on their drooping shoulders. SMERA has been criticized for criticizing DNR's politicization that results in lapses of sensitivity to some sectors of the state economy. That still seems to us fair comment, and we hope the "slush fund" hubbub will help DNR better appreciate the different environmental perspectives held in Michigan.

Newspapers reported that while millions were being cut from DNRfunds for toxic waste cleanups. over $ 1 million in projects such as ice rinks, ski trails, and an $88,000 gazebo, had been "quietly approved" by legislative leaders. The reports also noted that Governor James J. Blanchard's budget for 1990 (Welcome to the Gray Nineties!) would not, repeat not, include DNR discretionary funds for such wild dream projects by wild goose politicians. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

We can feel for harassed Director Hales and his DNR colleagues besieged by calls and queries from local leaders demanding, "If Macomb gets a gazebo, how about us?" Maybe DNR could gain mental relief from Mark Twain's 19th century report in Roughing It "One of the first achievements of the legislature was to Institute a ten-thousand-dollar agricultural fair to show off forty dollars worth of pumpkins in - however, the Territorial legislature was usually spoken of as the 'asylum.'" Lansing seems equally concerned about pumpkins. We can imagine the outspoken sage from Hannibal, Missouri, nodding at the news of a costly gazebo during fiscal hard times and growling, "A century later and no improvements worth a dog's bark!" We assume/hope that salutary changes will come in the wake of the "slush fund" revelations. We hope/assume that Director Hales will stand up to the lawmakers with their pet projects and insist that DNR has better fish to save and greater tasks to tackle.

The "DNR Director's Discretionary Program Fund" that made $3.1 million handy for blithe squandering of public money in hobbyhorse and hanky-panky projects should now join the dinosaur, penny candy, and buggy rides among things vanished and extinct. Quoted on the subject was State Budget Director Shelby Solomon who lamented that "working with the legislative process we have to accommodate some of those views, even if we don't always agree." This is an area where public clamor often serves well, as it did in the Congressional pay raise brouhaha recently. We should let lawmakers of all tribes, counties, and communities know that if they want gazebos, they should take up collections at their local barbershops. DNR has real environmental jobs to do and must be given a chance to start doing them.