A Wayne County man has blown the whistle on the illegal filling of a wetland by a Westland restaurant and in the process illustrated how Michigan's DEQ is unable to effectively enforce state law against hundreds of violators in southeast Michigan.

Bill Craig, President of the Holliday Nature Preserve Association, organized the picketing of a Ruby Tuesday restaurant's grand opening to expose the fact that the business had built on regulated wetland without a permit. To make matters worse, the business dumped soils dug up for its water detention pond into a wetland on an adjacent site. Although the owner disputed that the business had broken the law, DEQ officials confirmed the violations had taken place. DEQ in April sent notice of violation letters calling for restoration and mitigation. Since the deadline, Craig said, nothing has been done by the violators or to them.

"There are so many projects out there that do not have permits or are violating their permits," said Craig. "Many MDEQ workers are doing the best they can, but there is little effective oversight, little effective enforcement, little effective punishment."

Frustrated with the lack of enforcement, Craig said "bad publicity" such as that generated by his protest is the only recourse for citizens.

A DEQ official recently confirmed the agency's inability to deal with violations in the metro Detroit area. "It's not a secret we're desperately understaffed," Mary Vanderlaan, southeast Michigan district supervisor for DEQ, told the Detroit News. Another DEQ staffer said, "Developers obviously know about our staffing situation and they take advantage of it."

Jack Smiley, a member of the Holliday group, said the wetland damaged by Ruby Tuesday was important habitat for chorus frogs. "This was inexcusable."

Holliday Park Nature Preserve consists of 540 acres north of the Ruby Tuesday site, a rare enclave of surviving nature in the heavily-developed western suburbs of Detroit.