MWAC Newsletter
September 26, 2008
JUDGE: CHERRY TREE INN BROKE WETLAND LAWS
Snip – “An owner of a hotel on East Grand Traverse Bay was wrong to order a bulldozer to dredge and groom a protected portion of bay bottom, a judge ruled. Now, Ohio businessman Joseph C. Moffa will be sentenced on two criminal misdemeanors for violations of state wetlands and submerged bottomlands laws. Eighty-Sixth District Judge Michael J. Haley presided over a bench trial in August and announced his guilty verdict Thursday. Authorities said Moffa, president of Ohio-based Omni Hospitality and vice president of Pride One Cherry Tree LLC, had a bulldozer drive 122 feet into the bay in front of the Cherry Tree Inn near Holiday Road in East Bay Township in November 2006.”
BUSINESSMAN CONVICTED IN MICHIGAN WETLANDS CASE
“The president of a maker of medical equipment has been convicted of two of three charges related to Michigan's claim that a parking lot expansion violated the Wetlands Protection Act. A jury in Rockford on Wednesday convicted Alan Taylor of Sparta-based Hart Enterprises Inc. of filling a regulated wetland and operating a lot on a regulated wetland. He was acquitted of draining surface water on a regulated wetland without permission. A message seeking comment was left Thursday before regular business hours with Taylor's lawyer. WZZM-TV reports Taylor was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read. Each count is punishable with a $2,500 fine. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality had said the 2006 lot expansion violated wetlands rules.”
Associated Press, September 25, 2008
MICHIGAN DEQ SLASHES WETLAND INSPECTION,
POLLUTION SPILL RESPONSE PROGRAMS
“A cash-strapped Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is making unprecedented cuts in programs designed to protect the state's surface waters and wetlands from environmental abuse. DEQ Director Steven Chester said several years of budget cuts, in the face of rising inflation and other expenses, have left the department unable to fully do its job. ``We simply don't have the kind of funding we need to adequately implement the laws we're required to implement,'' Chester recently told local officials at a water-quality-preservation workshop.
The DEQ has dropped on-site inspections of wetlands that developers and others want to fill with dirt or otherwise alter. Agency officials are reviewing those proposals from their desks, relying on photographs submitted by permit applicants. The DEQ also is slashing its pollution-spill-response program and will ignore ``minor complaints'' about individuals or businesses illegally filling in wetlands. Chester said the DEQ will defer to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on wetland-alteration permits sought for sites along the Great Lakes and connecting waters. The agency also will issue surface-water-discharge permits, which allow companies to pump limited amounts of pollutants into lakes and streams, to ``minor facilities'' without first conducting an on-site inspection. ``In some cases, we'll have to rely on people's honesty and integrity,'' Chester said.
Environmental advocate Tanya Cabala said the cuts will jeopardize Michigan's environment. She said areas like West Michigan, where surface waters and wetlands are abundant, will suffer more than drier areas of the state. Chester's comments were a prelude to his pitch for increased funding of the DEQ and an environmental cleanup bond the agency hopes to put before voters in November 2010. The DEQ's retreat on environmental protection programs is one of many symptoms of the state's prolonged fiscal crisis. Chester said the DEQ's general fund budget has been cut by 60 percent over the past six years; the agency has recouped some of those losses by charging companies more for permits to alter wetlands or discharge pollutants to the air and water.”
WETLAND RESTORATION IS GOOD NEWS FOR DUCK HUNTERS
Snip – “The federal government has awarded a $1 million grant to help conserve more than 4,800 acres of wetland and associated habitats in a coastal area stretching from Ogemaw and Iosco counties to the Ohio border. The money, for phase two of the Saginaw Bay to Lake Erie Coastal Habitat Project, will be combined with about $3 million in other funds from federal and state agencies and conservation groups including Ducks Unlimited.”
The Michigan Wetland Action Coalition (MWAC), a project of Tip of The Mitt Watershed Council, is a network of wetland protection advocates across the state. MWAC is focused on promoting sound wetland protection policies at the state and federal level through education and advocacy.
Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council
426 Bay Street , Petoskey, Michigan 49770
Phone: (231) 347-1181 x 114 Fax: (231) 347-5928
Email: jenniferm@watershedcouncil.org
Web: http://www.michiganwetlands.org/