Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Carping Criticism - 3.17.11

Remember the concern everyone had last year over the possibility that Asian carp might get into the Great Lakes? Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry has been wondering what the government has been doing about that.

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Remember the Asian carp, which migrated up the Mississippi, into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and which experts feared were about to get into Lake Michigan?

That’s where things stood when I first talked about this issue here more than fifteen months ago. Since then, traces of carp DNA has been found in Lake Michigan, though there is no evidence that a permanent breeding population has been established there.

But if that ever happens, it will be an environmental disaster of unimaginable proportions. The carp are huge awful ugly fish. One variety tends to jump and have broken water skiers’ jaws.

Worse, they suck up virtually all the available food supply, which means they starve out other more desirable fish. Once they get firmly established, they are virtually impossible to eradicate, which would mean farewell to the sport and commercial fishing industries.

Plus, that would play havoc with the ecology of the lakes and could cost the economy, depending on whose estimates you believe, between one and seven billion dollars a year.

I wondered what the government has been doing about this, and last week talked to a highly respected environmental journalist about this. The Toledo Blade’s Tom Henry has been following the carp story for years. He has won numerous awards for his reporting, and is on the Society of Environmental Journalists board.

When I asked him what our government was doing to try to protect our lakes, his answer was “dithering.” Canada, he told me, was at least trying. This month alone, their government has levied two huge fines against two firms caught trying to smuggle live Asian carp into Canada, in one case, apparently to raise and breed.

That’s how all the trouble is thought to have started in the first place, when a flood in Arkansas washed some carp from a fish farm into the Mississippi River almost twenty years ago. Since then, they’ve been migrating north, and the federal response, Tom Henry said, has been seventeen years of indefensible inaction. Last year, the governors of most of the Great Lakes states attempted to get Illinois to close the canal.

But Illinois refused, saying it would be too devastating to Chicago’s economy, and the President and the Supreme Court refused to overturn that decision.

What’s happening now? Well, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has given itself another four years to do an “interbasin study,” of the problem and come up with a plan.

By then, the carp may be all the way to Vermont. The key danger zone, Henry tells me, is Western Lake Erie, the area from Toledo stretching on out past Port Clinton and Sandusky.

That is the anchor spot of the fishing industry and, sadly, also the area in which the carp might find it easiest to establish themselves. But when the Corps came to take public comment recently, where did they go? Ann Arbor.

Which, if they didn’t notice, isn’t on the lakes at all. Senator Debbie Stabenow has introduced a bill to get thing moving faster. “We’re anxious to light a fire under the Army Corps of Engineers,” she said. It would be nice if that happened before muddy-tasting Asian carp are the only things we have left to cook.

Essay: Valentine for Michigan - 2.14.11

It’s Valentine’s Day, and Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry is thinking about what kind of Valentines our state would like to have -- and what it is likely to get.

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Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, and Mother Nature has shown Michigan a little love, at least. The temperature this morning was about forty degrees warmer than just a few days ago.

That makes a considerable difference when you have a puppy who wants to go for a mile and a half walk every morning, regardless of the weather. Nevertheless, Michigan needs all the love it can get.

We’ve had a bruising year, and unfortunately, this is shaping up as a week when we’ll be shown a lot of tough love, with the accent on the word tough. The Obama Administration started that before dawn this morning, when the President’s budget began to leak out. He’s proposing to cut a key federal environmental program, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, by twenty-five percent.

This is a program that was designed to dredge old industrial waste out of the lake beds, upgrade and improve sewer systems, and perhaps most importantly, fight invasive species.

This is especially dismaying since the President himself is from our neighboring Great Lakes state of Illinois. But if this makes you worry about the lakes, and plan on looking to the GOP majority in the House of Representatives for relief, you might be best advised to forget it.

They want to cut the budget even more. All this makes me fear that the real winner of the midterm elections may turn out to have been the Asian carp, which, if it gets established in the Great Lakes, could effectively destroy the fishing industry.

We are bound to get another jolt three days from now, when Governor Rick Snyder unveils his first budget. For years, we seem to have operated as though the state’s official song was “Don’t worry, be happy.” Our lawmakers couldn’t decide whether to cut spending or raise taxes, so they did neither. Now the cupboard really is bare.

We’ve got a nearly two billion dollar deficit, and it doesn’t seem likely that the administration plans to seek any new revenue.

So don’t go looking for caviar or Godiva chocolates from Lansing. It’s going to be an austere kind of year.

Which, if it pays off in the long run, may be the best Valentine’s Day present of all. Last year, I made a speech to a large retiree group around Valentine‘s Day. Afterwards, some sweet elderly lady told me that if I wasn’t attached, I would be a really good catch. I don’t think so, I said.

My hair is gray, I am pushing sixty, and my muscle tone is not something that causes people to suggest iron man contests.

Sadly, she agreed. “True,” she said, “But you’ve got what every women in this state wants today.” What’s that? I asked.

“You’ve got a job,” she said. That, apparently, is sex appeal today, Michigan style. Well, what nobody disputes is that we need a lot more jobs. Some of us will get, or give, chocolate and flowers today, and that’s as it should be.

But it would be the best Valentine’s present of all if some of this week’s tough medicine pays off in the form of more jobs next year. That’s the kind of love our state really needs to see spread around.

Essay: Build the Bridge - 12.15.10

An early winter storm has closed Port Huron’s Blue Water Bridge and caused miles-long backups at the Ambassador Bridge. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks its clear that we need another kind of backup.

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As I write this, the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia remains closed to commercial truck traffic because of weather conditions. This has already had an effect on the economy.

General Motors has had to temporarily close its Flint Truck Assembly plant because of a lack of parts. Trucks are being diverted to Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge, but that’s snarling up the highways.

Yesterday afternoon, there were reports that trucks waiting to use the Ambassador Bridge were backed up for miles on I-75, stacked up on the overpass over the smoky and smelly Rouge.

This couldn’t be helped. The eighty-year-old, privately owned Ambassador was the only alternative. Technically, that bridge is not supposed to allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to cross.

But Ambassador Bridge management said they were waving that rule for the duration of the emergency. Given the situation, it is hard to to see what else they could do. For there simply is no backup.

After this, it ought to be very clear that we need another bridge, right now. The bad weather that closed the Blue Water Bridge wasn’t a one-time anomaly. This is what happens in winter in Canada, a lot.

Truck traffic is going to steadily get heavier and heavier, too. According to the Journal of Commerce Online, truck traffic over the Ambassador Bridge is up 18 percent this year. Traffic over the Blue Water Bridge is up 9 percent. It’s up more than ten percent in Buffalo.

Everyone knows we need a new bridge, and right now, there’s a shovel-ready project ready to go: The Detroit International River Crossing bridge, which would be built about two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge. As I’ve noted many times before, virtually everyone wants this backup span except two groups of people.

The Moroun family, who own the Ambassador Bridge, and don’t want anyone infringing on their monopoly, and the leadership of the Michigan state senate, many of whose members have taken Moroun money in the form of campaign or other contributions.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop once again refused to allow a vote on a new bridge.

Some members questioned whether a new bridge is really necessary. Others said if a new bridge is to be built, let Moroun build another private one with his money, as he has indicated he wants to do.

But Canada has flatly said that’s something it will not allow, because of reasons involving highway congestion and environmental factors. Already, people on both sides of the border, including State Representative Rashida Tlaib, have complained about truck exhaust.

Canada wants the DRIC bridge, and that nation’s transportation minister went to Lansing this week to again reaffirm that Canada will cover Michigan’s costs of building the bridge.

Michigan‘s Legislature is back in session today to clean up a bunch of mainly procedural issues. Many of the lawmakers resent being there, and want to start their holiday.

Yet as futile as what I am about to say may be, this would be a golden opportunity to hear the wakeup call this storm has sent, and authorize moving forward on a new bridge.

Otherwise, eventually, our economy is going to suffer. And Michigan’s had enough of that in the last ten years to last a lifetime.

Essay: Worrying About The General

General Motors is on a roll, with an exciting new car and a new stock offering tomorrow expected to rake in billions. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says we might want to be a little cautious.

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No doubt about it; this has been a tremendous week for General Motors. Everybody is going crazy over the Chevy Volt, the sort-of-electric car that has already won top honors as the car of the year from Motor Trend and Automobile Magazines. It’s won those awards, I should add, even though it isn’t in the showrooms yet. General Motors is also making money again -- two billion in the third quarter, four billion dollars so far for the year. And tomorrow, in the greatest anticipated sale since the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, the once-bankrupt General is expected to take in billions when it once again offers stock to the general public. That will be good for all of us. The more stock General Motors sells, the more it will be able to repay the U.S. Treasury, which invested almost fifty billion to save General Motors when it was on the point of death less than two years ago. Beyond doubt, one question has been answered: The auto bailout worked, and was worth it. Now, the public response to what Wall Street calls an IPO, or initial public offering of GM stock has been so strong and so positive that the expected price keeps going up and up. Demand seems so strong that General Motors has decided to offer even more shares to the public when trading opens tomorrow. If things go as well as expected, the taxpayers could be twelve billion richer by the end of the day, and “Government Motors” will no longer exist. At least, Washington’s share of GM will have fallen from more than sixty percent of the company to only about a third. But there’s a ghost whispering in my ear, the ghost of Jerry Flint, the dean of auto writers, who died in August. “The worst thing that could happen to GM after this mess is some big early success,“ he told me a couple years ago. He feared that could revive GM’s old unjustified arrogance. I was reminded of that today when I read that Cadillac is thinking about introducing a subcompact car tentatively called the ULC -- for Urban Luxury Compact. There is a picture of the prototype in today’s papers; it looks, if you know your entomology, like a stink bug. This may just be the stupidest idea in modern automotive history. Cadillac buyers want a look that says size and elegance. They do not think less is more and they do not vote for the Green Party. GM should know better. Cadillac tried this before in the early ‘80s with a compact Caddy called the Cimarron. It flopped, big time. All this should remind us that the reborn General Motors is still very much a work in progress. It’s management is new and largely untested. The company has shed a lot of debt, thanks to the bankruptcy process, but still has underfunded pension obligations. The Volt is still really an unknown quantity. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t buy stock in the new GM. Just remember, people lost their life’s savings last year because they held on to stock in the old GM. Wall Street is, after all, just like any other street. You need to look both ways, and be careful.

Essay: Bridge Failure - 11.8.10

Last week Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said he had changed his mind, and will not allow a vote on whether to build a new bridge across the Detroit River. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry says a lot of people are very mad.

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Late last week I talked to a former diplomat who has close ties to the Canadian government. Ottawa won’t tell me this on the record, he said. Neither will anyone in our state department.

But Canada feels it has been betrayed by Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who broke his promise to allow a vote on a proposed new Detroit River International Crossing Bridge.

Canada didn’t expect Bishop to vote for the new bridge, which would be jointly owned and run by the two nations, and which the Michigan House of Representatives approved this year.

The Canadians just wanted him to keep the promise he made in May, to hold an up-or-down vote on the issue. Last week Bishop said he wouldn’t hold a vote after all. He blamed the Michigan Department of Transportation for not supplying enough information about the project. MDOT and Governor Granholm said that was nonsense, though they didn’t use that mild a term.

They said that this was about protecting special interests. What they meant was the special interest of one man:

Manuel J. Moroun, the owner of the aging Ambassador Bridge, which now has a monopoly on transporting heavy cargo between our region and Ontario. Canada feels a second bridge is so badly needed it has offered to front Michigan’s share of the expenses.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm wants the bridge too. And there is rare broad bipartisan agreement. L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County’s Mr. Republican, wants the new bridge. The leaders of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all want it. So does the Chamber of Commerce. But one very rich man doesn’t want this bridge. Manuel J. Moroun.

Every year, his aging Ambassador Bridge is essentially the only way to get billions of dollars in manufacturing and other trade components from Michigan to Ontario, and vice versa. The Ambassador, which was built in 1929, is wearing out. It needs major work; its approaches weren’t designed for modern traffic. Moroun, an 83-year-old billionaire, wants to build a second span next to his bridge. Canada has indicated it will never allow this to happen, for environmental and traffic flow reasons. But the Moroun family is determined to stop competition, and has given money to many politicians, especially Republicans in the legislature.

Senator Bishop said this wasn’t a factor. He said that there wasn’t “enough money on earth,” to make any member of the Republican caucus change his position on any issue.

You can believe that if you want to. You can also believe Claude Rains really didn’t know gambling was going on in Humphrey Bogart’s nightclub in Casablanca.

But the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce is very angry. Sarah Hubbard, their main lobbyist, said this sabotages the creation of as many as 35,000 jobs in the region.

“There is no reason to delay approval of this project any further,” she said.

But Mike Bishop won’t even allow his fellow senators to vote on it. The good news for the chamber is that in two months, he’ll be gone from the senate forever. The bad news for bridge supporters is that the process of trying to win legislative approval for a program that would create badly need jobs now has to start all over again.

Essay: A Bridge Too Far - 9.17.10

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop has reversed himself and now says there probably won’t be a vote on a new Detroit River bridge this year. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says that is bad news for business.

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There are issues that are extremely complex, with sound arguments on both sides. But the question of building a new bridge over the Detroit River really isn’t one. Every year, billions in trade between Michigan and Ontario is dependent on the eighty-one year old Ambassador Bridge, which is owned by one man, Matty Moroun, a reclusive, eighty-three year old billionaire.

The bridge is wearing out. A U.S. safety inspection report released almost a year ago found the main span in “poor condition,” with cracked, unsound concrete that has chipped away to expose, as the Windsor Star reported, “significantly corroded reinforcing steel.”

When that became public, the Ambassador Bridge company announced that a multi-million dollar repair project would begin in July. But there are conflicting reports as to whether work has started. The bridge company really wants to build a new bridge next to the old one. But the government of Canada has flatly said no, and the United States is also refusing to issue the necessary permits.

There are serious environmental and traffic flow reasons why twinning the Ambassador Bridge would be a terrible idea. Everyone is firmly against it.

Everyone, that is, except the Moroun family, and those to whom they give money. There is an alternative that is favored by everyone from the Government of Canada to Governor Jennifer Granholm, from Oakland County’s L. Brooks Patterson to Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. It is a proposed new internationally owned and operated bridge two miles downriver from the Ambassador.

This project would be known as DRIC, for Detroit International River Crossing. Private investors could invest in DRIC, but it would be run by and for both countries. During the years of construction, it would employ up to ten thousand workers.

Canada wants and needs this bridge so badly that their government has offered to pay for Michigan’s share of the expenses -- which we would pay back later, out of toll money.

The project won house approval earlier this year, and should have met with unanimous approval in the state senate -- but it has been stalled. The Moroun family has deep pockets.

They’ve given lavishly to politicians, and they expect something in return. Yesterday, lame-duck Majority Leader Mike Bishop said he thought it was unlikely that the Senate would vote on DRIC anytime this year. That breaks a promise he made.

Bishop, who opposes DRIC, promised an up-or-down vote on the bridge in May. Now, he says he’s going back on his word because the Department of Transportation took too long to get senators the information they needed.

Without openly calling the senator a liar, most independent observers said that just wasn’t true. Business interests other than the Morouns are unhappy. Sarah Hubbard of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce thinks there’s a strong possibility the legislation would be acceptable to the senate by the end of the year. Both sides, in fact, have been negotiating in good faith.

If DRIC isn’t built, Detroit will lose even more jobs and business, something I thought the Republican Party was against. There is still hope. Bishop tried to block the smoking ban, too, but his own caucus overruled him. For Michigan’s sake, this would be an ideal time for them to do so again.

Essay: Work Ethic - 8.26.10

You may have thought balancing the budget was the state legislature’s job -- but Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says, it’s about vacations -- and the state carrot committee.

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For the last two days, much of the political news has swirled around Rick Snyder’s choice of a little-known young legislator as his pick for lieutenant governor.

That is, much of what you’ve read about. But at the same time, lots of arguably more important stuff was going on. For example, offshore drilling for oil. After the disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Kalamazoo River, wouldn’t you think that we’d be willing to do anything we could to prevent an oil spill in the Great Lakes, the most important source of fresh water in the world?

I would think so, and so does State Representative Daniel Scripps of Northport. The difference is that he actually is trying to do something about it. He’s been pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling for oil and gas. Drilling in the Great Lakes is already illegal -- but as it now stands, that could be repealed in hours by a simple vote in the legislature.

Scripps wanted to give our lakes more protection by putting an amendment in the state constitution banning drilling. He wanted the legislature to put it on the ballot this November so the people could decide. But that’s not going to happen.

Why? Because the Michigan Senate decided instead to go on vacation. That’s right. Even though the clock is ticking, and the state budget isn’t anywhere near done.

The state house, which has been on vacation since before the August 3rd primary, came moseying back this week. But then, the Senate, which was supposed to be working, promptly canceled its sessions and took a break until after Labor Day.

Don’t you wish you could do that on your job? Anyway, that killed any chance of putting any proposed constitutional amendment on this year’s ballot. The lawmakers would have had to act by next week -- but the senators will be gone.

This also would seem to mean that we will be going into another last-minute showdown to see whether the lawmakers can avoid another government shutdown. The budget has to be passed and signed by the end of next month.

However, the senators aren’t even planning on showing up for work again until September 7th. There are times when it‘s hard not to sympathize with those who say they are overpaid.

To be fair, the senators are willing to do something. They made it clear last week that they are, by God, willing to block any appointments the governor makes to any state boards and commissions. Legally, she has a perfect right to make these appointments. We elected her to serve till New Year’s Day.

But Republicans, who control the senate, want those slots left vacant till the next governor, who they think will be a Republican, comes in. By the way, how important are these jobs?

Here’s a sample. The governor wants to appoint Ryan Malburg, Steven Bouwkamp and Richard Oomen to the state carrot committee.

She wants to put Tim Wilkes of Alma on the potato industry commission, put Tom Klapp on the Board of Chiropractic, and keep Kathy Spiller of Saginaw on the state Cosmetology Board.

Stop the presses. Yet blocking those unpaid appointments is evidently important to some of our leaders.

More important, that is, than doing their jobs. Some days I wonder if a monarchy wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Essay: Courting Environmental Disaster - 6.24.10

Kennecott Minerals Incorporated now has nearly all of the permits they need to begin digging a huge sulfide mine in the Upper Peninsula. But, as Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry explains, some are worried about the environmental impact that such a mine would have…

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Phil Power, the founder of the non-partisan, non-profit Center for Michigan, is anything but a wild-eyed radical. I got to know him well when I was vice-president of his newspaper company.

He is, however, deeply concerned about the environment. He is a man in love with Michigan‘s woods and rivers and trout streams and his cabin in the Upper Peninsula. But now he is deeply worried.

He thinks there’s a strong potential for a huge environmental disaster in Michigan, one that could be as devastating locally as the horrendous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

And he is not alone. The focus of his concern is a proposed nickel and copper mine which is about to be dug beneath the Salmon Trout River in the western Upper Peninsula.

Kennecott Minerals Corporation thinks there may be five to ten billion dollars worth of nickel and copper ore there. They are prepared to spend almost half a billion dollars to get it out of the ground. Environmentalists and Native Americans have opposed this from the start. But Michigan is desperate for jobs. And despite their appeals, state officials have given the mine the go-ahead.

Phil Power thinks we’re asking for disaster. True, he told me, the mine would create a few hundred jobs. But he thinks many of them would go to out-of-state workers, and none would last more than a decade or so. He said, “this would bring big-time industrial development to one of Michigan’s most pristine wilderness spots and threaten long-term tourism, fishing and hiking, perhaps forever.“

Some Native Americans say the site is also sacred to them. Kennecott, the company that is preparing to dig the mine, is a subsidiary of the giant Rio Tinto conglomerate, which is based in Great Britain. They claim they will take maximum safety precautions, and say that when they are done, everything will be restored.

Power thinks it’s too risky. He notes the mining operations involve blasting into sulfide rock, which when exposed to air and water produces “acid mine drainage” which includes sulfuric acid and highly toxic dissolved heavy metals, like copper and nickel.

If that happens, it will kill all the fish -- and this river is one of the last known spawning grounds of the delectable Coaster Brook Trout, a native species prized by sportsmen and naturalists.

“Every such sulfide mine ever opened has produced long-term acid mine drainage,” Power says. He doesn’t believe Kennecott has a disaster plan for the environmental damage, any more than BP did.

He also says there were flaws and suspicious behavior in the permit process. An aide to Governor Jennifer Granholm who helped her decide to support the mine later left her team to work for Kennecott. Another got involved with an abortive business deal with the firm.

Nevertheless, the mine looks likely to happen, though Kennecott is still awaiting a permit from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Power has a bad feeling about all this.

“In the Gulf of Mexico oil spill scandal, it has become clear the agency with regulatory oversight of the offshore drilling industry was captured by the very industry it was supposed to regulate.”

He fears the same thing has happened in Michigan, and the proposed sulfide mine is another disaster waiting to happen.

And he desperately hopes he is wrong.

Essay: Environmental Scorecard - 5.24.10

The Michigan League of Conservation Voters releases its annual Environmental Scorecard tomorrow. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry was struck by the sharp bipartisan contrast.

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The Michigan League of Conservation Voters annual environmental scorecard will be released tomorrow. Unfortunately, it will show that when it comes to taking care of our most precious resources, our lawmakers have been letting us down.

After reading an advance copy of the scorecard, I talked about it with Kerry Duggan, the LCV’s deputy director. What motivates your group to do this? I asked. She said it was simple. “Citizens expect that lawmakers will vote in ways that protect our national resources.

“I wish that were true,” she added, “but unfortunately, politics gets in the way of logic. We are dedicated to shedding light on the good, the bad and the ugly, and the scorecard is our tool for Michiganders to actually check in on how their elected officials have voted to protect our Great Lakes, our state parks, etc.

When I read through the scorecard and compared votes, I was struck by two things. First of all, the deep partisan divisions that now exist on environmental issues. Thirty years ago, you could make a strong argument that the Republicans had pretty consistently been the more pro-environment of our two major parties.

Teddy Roosevelt, in fact, had started the modern conservation movement, founded the U.S. Forest Service, and approved more new national parks than he could shake his famous big stick at.

Even Richard Nixon approved starting the Environmental Protection Agency, and William G. Milliken was the most environmentally conscious governor Michigan has ever had. But that has all changed now. The contrast between the parties is sharp, and nearly all the Democrats have better voting records on environmental issues than almost any of the Republicans.

This doesn’t please those who are running the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. They are a non-partisan, non-profit agency with both Republicans and Democrats on its board.

They can do their job better when there is bipartisan cooperation to protect the environment. But in today’s Michigan, that isn’t happening. The scorecard, by the way, is created by comparing how lawmakers voted on a wide range of bills over the past year.

During the past year, forty-three Michigan legislators received perfect scores on protecting the environment. All were Democrats.

But twelve legislators -- three in the house and nine in the Senate -- voted against the environment every time. Most significantly one of these was Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

Not only did he oppose pro-environment bills, all too often, he prevented such bills from even coming up for a vote. “Inaction in the senate was the common theme of this legislative session,” Duggan told me. “Numerous bills were passed in the state house to protect Michigan citizens and children from toxic substances like mercury and arsenic. But none of the bills saw the light of day in the Senate.”

She added that most of the time the Senate did spend on conservation issues was spent trying to dismantle environmental protections, for example, trying to weaken oversight of the state’s natural resources to the federal government’s minimum standard.

Written more in sorrow than in anger, the scorecard itself expresses puzzlement over why Michigan officials have “too often, picked short-sighted policies that put our natural resources in danger.“ That’s a question we should all be asking.

If you want to check it out, the entire scorecard should be online tomorrow at www.michiganlcv.org.

Essay: Cleaning Up After a Century - 5.20.10

This week, the federal government announced a massive program to clean up former abandoned and contaminated General Motors sites. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry is wondering… why stop there?

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There are a few differences between people and most other animals, and here‘s one:

Animals, by and large, don‘t make messes in their own nests. We do, and we have made bigger and more costly messes in industrial states like Michigan than just about anywhere else. P> And as a result, we have vast amounts of severely contaminated land. Partly, this was because we didn‘t know any better, back in the early industrial days of the automotive industry.

Even in my misspent youth in the 1960s, guys would go to a vacant lot, change the oil in their hot rods, and pour the old stuff onto the ground. Nobody knew quite how terrible that was.

Now think of the pollution produced by all those automotive plants, some of which are now a century old, places where the ground is full of nickel and lead and cadmium. There are many places that have essentially been unusable because the expense of cleaning them up was more than the value of the land.

However, we got some good news about all this this week. President Obama and General Motors are establishing a huge, $836 million-dollar trust fund for environmental cleanup at now-closed GM sites. Not surprisingly, more of this money is going to be spent in Michigan than anywhere else. This involves more than fifty sites in Detroit, Pontiac, Saginaw, Willow Run, and of course Flint.

They hope to get this all going by the end of the year.

By the way, the General Motors in this project isn’t the one that builds cars, but its unlovely twin, Motors Liquidation, Inc, the corporation the government established to sell off and liquidate the unwanted and bad parts of the old GM.

In another bit of good news, we’re told that this shouldn’t cost any new taxpayer dollars. When it was established as part of last year’s government-sponsored bankruptcy, Motors Liquidation was given $1.2 billion to close up shop, and this money would be the lion’s share of that. This should be especially good news for Flint.

The very first cleanup site scheduled is the sprawling and now-abandoned Buick City complex, which includes hundreds of acres.

In many cases, cleanup will include not only treating and removing contaminated soil, but demolishing abandoned factories themselves. This is essential, of course, if Flint or any of the other cities involved hope to lure new development there.

There has been talk of building a so-called intermodal transportation and distribution center at what was Buick City.

Governor Jennifer Granholm wants to see the areas being cleaned up become clean energy manufacturing sites.

That’s a worthy goal, but right now I’d guess most cities would be content with anybody reputable who would open a business and put some of their citizens back to work.

Initially, I was doubtful that this $800 million would be enough money to clean up all the polluted GM sites, but they say it’s more than enough. If that turns out to be so, I have an idea.

This is taxpayer money anyway, and I would like to see the rest of it used to start cleaning up old Ford Motor Company sites.

Pollution is pollution. The more we get rid of, the better off we will be. Not to mention all the unborn generations to come.