The National Park system: A grand idea that almost didn't happen, and why it matters today

It would be suicidal for a politician today to advocate selling off Yosemite National Park,  the Grand Canyon or our own Isle Royale Island (pictured). But little more than 100 years ago the whole concept of national parks – managed and preserved for all the people of the nation – was a radical and most controversial idea. Lots of people were scornful.

Free-market proponents led by the timber, railroad and mining barons of the time pounded away at the heresy of making tracts of land off-limits to profit-making ventures.  The scoffed at President Theodore Roosevelt’s idea that land should be set aside for the people’s enjoyment.  Or that the beauty or restorative nature of wild landscapes had a public value.

Roosevelt’s creation of the national parks system – and the establishment of the US Forest Service to protect it – was such a close victory that might just as easily have been lost to political opponents doing the bidding of private industry.

It’s impossible to imagine to what degree our great nation would be diminished had President Roosevelt lost that fight. Our national parks would surely have been stripped of their iconic sequoias and all the rest the old growth timber; poisoned by mining wastes washing through creeks and rivers; and carved up and sold off piecemeal for resorts, amusement parks, private preserves, Chuck E. Cheeses, Hooters, miniature golf and God knows what else.

It was a visionary thing, this National Parks idea, documented in Ken Burns’ recent PBS series: http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
 
The national parks saga is worth keeping in mind today, as we struggle to maintain the public’s access to natural resources. Make no mistake, those rights are constantly under assault:

-- In Benton Harbor, prime Lake Michigan sand dunes were taken from a public park for a private golf course: http://bit.ly/9ju9Yf

--In 2007, the Michigan Supreme Court severely limited citizens’ rights to take legal action to protect the state’s publicly held natural resources: http://bit.ly/bQUnun

--There regular proposals to sell Michigan state parks: http://www.mackinac.org/7399

--And as we speak, a well orchestrated campaign is under way to crush proposed legislation from Rep. Dan Scripps that would affirm something that seems self-evident: Michigan’s groundwater belongs to the people of Michigan and we’re all entitled to use it. Property rights groups have convinced lots of folks the bill involves government owning the water, fees to use your own well water, or charges for farmers who irrigate fields. All bullshit.  The bill is all of three paragraphs, and doesn’t say anything like that: http://bit.ly/d1cKAM

Our publicly-held resources aren’t socialist plots to hamstring corporate America. They are tremendous, inspiring valuable assets that are equally available to waitresses and millionaires. They are owned every bit as much by you and I as they are by Bill Gates or Donald Trump. And I don’t know about you, but I’m fighting to keep my share.
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Celebrating success: The stirring comeback story of the Detroit River

Environmentalists are notoriously leery of celebrating good news. The moment you acknowledge how much cleaner a river is or how much less smog is in the air above a city, it will be seized on by some people as a good reason to gut the laws and other protections that made the improvement possible in the first place.

So with the caveat that we have a long way to go, let’s revel in the comeback of the Detroit River, as chronicled in today’s Detroit News: http://bit.ly/9jQM66

It was only a generation back that the Rouge River, which flows into the Detroit River, caught fire due to the industrial chemicals and flammable debris floating on its surface. The Detroit River still suffers from its image an industrial cesspool. Visitors are often shocked to learn that it is a world-class walleye fishery. And I’ll never forget the story of the biologist who – using a crude egg trap hastily cobbled together from duct tape and Home Depot scraps -- confirmed in 2001 the first spawning sturgeon in the river in 30 years.

John Hartig http://bit.ly/cMwgnn, featured in the News’ story, is a true hero in the battle to protect what’s left of the natural systems that nurture the river. But he’s just one of thousands of Michiganders who fought tooth-and-nail during the past 40 years to bring the river back. Those fights occurred in the halls of Washington where Congressman John Dingell helped pass the Clean Water Act, to the very shores of the Humbug Marsh where grassroots citizens fought for more than a decade to keep condos from destroying the last remaining coastal wetland along the U.S. side of the river.

The river is cleaner because of laws requiring treatment of human sewage and regulations limiting toxic chemical releases among many other measures. It’s a stirring example of how a committed citizenry, demanding strong stewardship of our natural resources from elected officials, can make a huge difference.

There are powerful lobbies trying to weaken the very laws that created this success: http://bit.ly/am4NY7. An apathetic electorate is a sure-fire way to ensure that they succeed. That’s worth considering when you you’re your votes this August and November

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Coal mine tragedy: Sometimes tougher government oversight looks better in hindsight

I listened to Paul W. Smith’s show http://bit.ly/cDzJqJ on WJR Radio this morning. Smith (pictured) is a strong advocate for smaller government and less regulation. He has guest hosted for conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. This morning he spoke of Massey Energy, owner of the West Virginia coal mine where at least 25 miners died earlier this week after an explosion.

Curiously, he seemed in agreement with a guest who suggested it was a travesty that Massey was allowed to continue business as usual despite repeated fines and safety violations like those chronicled in this NY Times article: http://nyti.ms/dd8sor

But what would Smith’s reaction have been if environmental groups, unions or workplace safety advocates tried shutting the mine down earlier this month? My guess it would have been a theme of “fringe nutcases and government bureaucrats meddle in the free market, threaten the jobs of American workers and raise our energy prices.”

Sometimes the concept of more aggressive government regulation looks better in hindsight. In fact, Market Watch already suggests that the mine tragedy will result in tougher regulations nationwide: http://bit.ly/clsfea

There’s a balance to be struck between necessary regulation and the free market. Critical thinking on how to achieve that balance doesn’t play well as a knee-jerk response to a tragedy. Nor does it have a place in a political climate where nuance is punished, compromise is sin, and angry “all or nothing” philosophies are the order of the day.

Such is the case for many of Michigan’s elected officials. At the State Capitol, there is a reliable core of lawmakers whose loathing for environmental regulators – primarily the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment – is palpable. They are unwilling to do the work necessary to distinguish good laws from bad, or reasonable enforcement from unreasonable. For them, any environmental regulation is bad. And any enforcement action is heavy-handed.

Sometimes stronger rules or more zealous enforcement by government regulators are not necessary.

As recent events demonstrate, sometimes they are.

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