Why are lawmakers fiddling with a part of state government that is well-run, backed by voters and doing good work in preserving and protecting Michigan’s natural assets?
Natural Resources Trust Fund
Posted inBrunch with Bridge
Three sunrise-coast gems that are Pure Michigan
SUNKEN TREASURE: The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary offers glass-bottom boat tours of Lake Huron wrecks. (Photo by National Marine Sanctuaries; used under Creative Commons license) With 3,000 miles of shoreline on four of the five Great Lakes, there are so many places in Michigan to explore that it would take a lifetime to […]
Posted inBrunch with Bridge
Don’t dredge away nature fund’s value
When I moved from Northern Virginia after a stint in the Army about three years ago, I wanted to live back home in rural Michigan. Commuting bumper-to-bumper into Washington, D.C., was not how I envisioned my adult years. SETTING UP: Astronomy fans prepare to view the transit of Venus during an event at Emmet County’s […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Big changes afoot for state outdoors fund?
Southern Michigan cities struggling to operate parks and recreational facilities may soon receive a windfall from an unlikely source: the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. The fund was established in 1976 to buy land for natural resource protection and public outdoor recreation. Funding comes from royalties paid by companies that drill for oil and gas […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Trust Fund's dollars have earned friends across Michigan
ST. IGNACE — It wasn’t long ago that Chief Wawatam Park in downtown St. Ignace was an industrial wasteland, a relic of an era when ferries carried rail cars across the Straits of Mackinac. The park, named after an Ojibwa chief who visited the area in the 1700s, was … unsightly. Today, the refurbished site […]
Posted inMichigan Government
How much of Michigan should public own?
On a sunny June day, government officials joined conservation leaders on a Lake Michigan beach to dedicate the newest jewel of the state’s public lands program — the 173-acre Saugatuck Harbor Natural Area. The spectacular sand dunes near the mouth of the Kalamazoo River were preserved rather than developed when the Michigan Natural Resources Trust […]
Posted inMichigan Government
$340 million bill looms over state parks
State parks in Michigan are facing a long road to recovery, even with new funding sources On a mild winter morning in March 2009, prison inmates working at Ludington State Park discovered that part of the roof at the park’s popular Great Lakes Visitor Center had collapsed. A hard winter, which dumped 130 inches of […]
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