Protecting Inland Lakes and Streams: Citizens Succeed

December 2002 marked the 30th anniversary of the passage of one of Michigan's most important habitat protection laws, the Inland Lakes and Streams Act. The story of its passage is an example of how citizen organizing can overcome special interest group resistance.

Early in 1971, Grand Rapids area conservationist and outdoorsman Willard Wolfe asked the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to do something about destructive damming, dredging and filling of lakes and streams. Many developers were impounding public waters and choking off river systems. DNR officials replied that they lacked legal authority to stop this destruction.

Organized by Will Wolfe, a statewide committee of conservationists and environmentalists, a DNR staff member and an outdoor writer took six months to draft a bill to give the state control over construction activities affecting lakes and streams. It contained only one, serious loophole: it exempted projects undertaken by elected county drain commissioners, who were empowered by laws originating in the 19th Century to hasten the flow of water away from farmlands. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Warren Goemaere, said regulating drain projects would destroy its chances because of the overwhelmingly strong drain commissioner and agriculture lobbies.

The committee then turned the work of leading and coordinating passage of the bill to the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC) and its legislative chair, Joan Wolfe, the spouse of Willard Wolfe and a co-founder of WMEAC. In addition to the groups behind the original committee, the bill soon had the active involvement of organizations and individuals all over the state. In the summer of 1971, Fred Steketee, a WMEAC member and student at the Wharton School of Business, spent his summer vacation producing a report supporting state action to protect inland lakes and streams. The report noted that approximately 50 percent of state waters were open "to abusive and destructive practices such as impounding, filling, channeling, dredging, and diversion…The continued ruination of our small waterways is rapidly bringing about the ruination of our lakes and rivers."

WMEAC published the document, got it signed by diverse supporting organizations, and delivered it to all members of the State House of Representatives. A concurrent press release increased public attention and put additional pressure on legislators. Minor changes to the bill brought the Michigan Farm Bureau into support, but Consumers Power Company, one of the state's two large electric utilities, and Dow Chemical Company said they were concerned. Consumers Power owned thousands of acres of land on streams and Dow hoped to build impoundments to store "excess" water for cooling purposes. Both suggested changes to the bill.

The bill seemed to be moving along well until it reached the House floor and weakening amendments prepared by Consumers Power and Dow Chemical suddenly appeared. Senator Basil Brown, an African-American legislator crucial in debates on several of the environmental bills of the era, told Joan Wolfe the amendments were crippling. Peter Steketee, WMEAC's volunteer attorney, agreed. Rushing back to Grand Rapids, Joan found her husband home for lunch and asked him to call members of the coalition supporting the bill to urge them to contact their legislators immediately. He delayed appointments with his dental patients to make the calls. By the time Joan (Wolfe) returned to Lansing, she said, "legislators were acting stunned" by the number of calls they had suddenly received. The bill passed without the amendments.

A few days before Christmas, 1972, the Legislature headed toward final adjournment. If the Senate failed to pass the bill before the year's end, House Bill 4948 would die, and work for passage would have to start all over again. But the Senate committee lacked a critical vote: Senator Oscar Bouwsma of Muskegon was out of town and claimed he couldn't attend the committee meeting. Governor William Milliken stepped in, telling Bouwsma that he would fly him to Lansing and back. Bouwsma showed up, reluctantly voted for the bill, and the committee was ready to send it to the Senate floor.

But Joan Wolfe discovered a two-word, harmful change in the typed-up bill to be copied for distribution in the Senate - a change that Rockwell's secretary said was just a typographical error. She successfully persuaded Senator Gordon Rockwell to correct it. Finally, the night before the Senate adjourned for the year, she roamed the Capitol halls awaiting the vote. Visiting a Grand Rapids area senator, Wolfe was handed an amendment that Rockwell had distributed. It would have limited the Act's authority to two connecting channels, the Detroit and St. Mary's Rivers.

"I rushed out of the senator's office and headed for Senator Rockwell's," Wolfe wrote. Joined by DNR's Charles Guenther, who had come to help, she invaded Rockwell's lair. At first the senator was unyielding, but Wolfe said, "I think my only persuasive argument was that we would make sure that every one of his constituents in Flint would know what he had done. I said it over and over and he knew we meant it - and thanks to blessed Charlie, I had a witness. [After] what seemed like an unbelievable period of shouting by us, at last he backed down." He kept his word this time; he withdrew the amendment and the bill passed without amendments.

Said Wolfe: "Rockwell had made his best effort for whoever had gotten to him, but in the end, the power of the environmental movement had overwhelmed him." The bill passed the House the next day and became Public Act 346 of 1972. Calling the new law "a major victory," outdoor writer Frank Mainville of the Lansing State Journal said the environmental coalition "taught the Senate a lesson in eco-politics." The Senate Republican leader, Robert VanderLaan, said the "intense pressure" brought by Joan Wolfe was decisive in winning passage of the bill. "I think we are in a new era of natural resource concern," VanderLaan said