I knew when I went back to Ludington for my 45th high school reunion this summer that my classmates and I were going to look thicker, older and greyer and that some of the town landmarks would be altered. Actually, the people and the community I came home to visit looked good. It was the lakes and the beaches that shocked me.

Algae growth was thick in Hamlin Lake, and the residue of that growth was evident in Lake Michigan. The waters of the big lake were nowhere near as clear as they'd been in recent years. It seems our new dominant invasive species, the zebra mussel, has played a trick on us. While we knew these little crustaceans were an expensive nuisance that clogged water intake pipes, we took solace in the water clarity their filtering gave us. No longer.

According to lake biologists, worsening algae blooms are the result of the feeding habits of zebra mussels and perhaps other invasive species in combination with warmer waters and a rich nutrient mixture of pollution flowing from farms, lawns, phosphate-laden dishwashing detergents and failing septic and public sanitary systems.

When I was growing up, the water, beach and fishing conditions varied from year to year, with algae and alewives and sea lamprey, an invasive species which ultimately ruined a substantial commercial fishing industry.

I learned to swim off the pier at the north end of Ludington's harbor. We had no swimming pools in town so diving into those cold waters at 8:00 in the morning was the only way to get my Red Cross junior lifesaving badge. But back in the 50s it wasn't the cold that bothered me most. It was that the water was too often murky, and going down to pick up the brick that was part of our required exercise brought me close to the slimy algae I hated.

After people caught on in the 60s that they could force reforms of all sorts on their state and federal governments, environmental laws were passed, and Michigan's water quality and beaches began to improve. That is, until recently, when a decade of complacency about invasive species and pollution runoff caught up with us and delivered the worst algae conditions in decades.

At MEC we're hoping this summer's algae mess is a wake-up call. If people, angry because their beaches are closed or smelly with slime, were to channel their anger into constructive political demands, they could make a profound difference in the health of the lakes, Michigan's tourist economy and the quality of their own lives.

MEC is challenging Governor Granholm and the Legislature to pass legislation before next summer that will target a 70% cut in phosphorus pollution by the end of the decade. Further, Michigan's leaders should use the algae crises facing our tourism, fishing and shoreline real estate industries to take action against invasive species-now, not five or 10 years from now.

Success in shoreline and water quality improvements over the past three decades is proof that we can protect our lakes when we put our minds to it. But it won't happen without some good old-fashioned political activism.