A Bi-Weekly Publication  Friday May 6, 2005     In This Issue: ·         HELLO HELLO…You say goodbye, I say hello… (with apologies to the Beatles) ·         Metaphor Wetaphor—A literary look at wetland values MWAC Says Goodbye to Chris Grubb and Hello To Grenetta Thomassey For the past year and a half, Chris Grubb has been at the helm of the Michigan Wetland Action Coalition. His positive spirit, energico, skills with electronica, and commitment to Michigan's wetlands have served us all well. We here at the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council wish him luck as he begins the next phase of his career as the Great Lakes Water Resources Coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes Natural Resource Center.   As the Watershed Council says goodbye and good luck to Chris, we say hello and welcome to Dr. Grenetta Thomassey.  Grenetta comes to the Watershed Council from the University of Minnesota Duluth, where she teaches natural resources policy. Grenetta earned her Ph.D. from Northern Arizona University, where her dissertation and subsequent research focused on groundwater management.  She was the primary researcher and co-author of "Fresh Water Issues," a textbook published in 2002 (available at amazon.com). In addition to being (in her words) a "policy geek," Grenetta's boundless energy and positive spirit will allow her to build upon Chris's work and expand MWAC's influence.   Grenetta will be "on the job" in early June.  In the meantime, if you have any MWAC questions, please feel free to e-mail me at wil@watershedcouncil.org. The Wilderness Within O.K., so Grubb started at NWF last week and Grenetta starts at the Watershed Council in a month. Although the two of them will be here "transitioning" on May 20th to prepare the next MWAC e-News, I had to come up with something to share with you. As always, there is no shortage of news to share. There are tons of individual issues across the state, we are still waiting on the EPA for their final/final announcement on Michigan's program evaluation in the Federal Register, former AG Frank Kelley has submitted a bizarre amicus on the GvG case, and we will soon be asking the question of the decade--how in world the DEQ is going to come up with $2.5 million to operate the Land and Water Management Division in FY 06?   Well, instead of all that, I've decided to share with you a little thought piece written for the spectacular Traverse Magazine. This is a sneak preview, as the issue that will carry this article will hit the newsstands later this summer. I hope you like this little break from the world of wetland policy…and don't worry, the wonks will be back in two weeks!   The Wilderness Within Wil Cwikiel Copyright, 2005 Traverse Magazine   When I was a kid, I read and re-read the last scene in Part II of Hemingway¹s short story the "Big Two-Hearted River." I could never understand why Nick Adams, after catching two "fine trout," decides to head back to camp instead of following the stream deeper into the swamp where he knew the really big trout lurked.   The thought of being afraid of the swamp, particularly at the expense of catching big trout, was completely foreign to me. In my youthful bravado, I determined that Nick Adams was a wimp. Unlike Nick, I took whatever opportunity I could to delve into the tangled vegetation and squelchy soils of any swamp I could find.   Since then, I¹ve done time in grad school and spent the past 15 years learning as much as I could about wetlands and advocating for their protection. My professional enthusiasm was based on the fact that wetlands, be they swamps, marshes, or bogs, perform many valuable functions for us. Their soils act like sponges and control floods. The rich vegetation serves as essential fish and wildlife habitat. They cycle nutrients through the ecosystem and break down pollutants—both important to protecting water quality.   Once, during a presentation, a participant stopped me midsentence with this comment: "Sure, they provide all these functions, but they are dark, wet and nasty. They can be downright scary." At the time, I laughed it off and mentioned that “The Swamp Thing” was just Hollywood fiction and shouldn’t get in the way of appreciating and protecting these valuable areas.   But this person was right. Despite our scientific understanding that wetlands do great things for humans and the natural world, our culture and language portray wetlands in an almost exclusively negative way. Is being "swamped" a good thing? Does anyone like to be "bogged down?" How about being "caught in a quagmire?" Swamp, bog, and quagmire are ancient words that describe different types of wetlands, and their connotations are far from positive.   You could say that at one point America even viewed wetlands as an enemy of the state. "Too thick to drink and too thin to plow" is an old farm adage that crystallized the idea of wetlands as a detriment to expansion, an impediment to our manifest destiny. Our nation invested in government programs to dredge, fill and drain wetlands.   We can’t control wetlands, so we fear them. But our artists and writers have taken this negative and turned it into a positive, of sorts, using wetlands as metaphor for the dark part of the human psyche, for the wilderness within, and for mystery in general. The importance of wetland as metaphor is every bit as valuable as the environmental functions of flood control, water quality protection and wildlife habitat.   Although I was fortunate to have spent much time growing up in Northern Michigan, our family home was in southeast Michigan. During my youth, our corner of Oakland County had plenty of open space, but the only real wild places were the swamps and marshes. These were the blank places on the map where I could confront fears (unlike Nick Adams) and where, knee-deep in muck and fighting through thick cattails, I could imagine myself as one of the scouts for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.   As we further develop our landscape, as we bend nature ever more to our control, the value of wetlands becomes more important. It’s obvious that we need the flood protection, wildlife habitat and water quality protection more than ever ... but perhaps just as importantly, we need places that are mysterious, dark, wild, and yes, a little bit scary. The existence of this wildness and tangled abundance, even though not everyone may choose to physically enter it, is psychologically important. Without these areas as part of our physical landscape, the power of the metaphor is lost, and our language, our psychological landscape and our culture, will be lessened.   After Nick cleans his fish and begins to head back to camp, he looks back at the river and decides that "there were plenty of days coming when he could fish the swamp." As a young man reading that line, I always wanted him to go back and catch a world-record brook trout. Now, when I read that line, I want him to go back into the swamp so he can face his fears, catch some solace, and find a deeper understanding of his own experience.   Today, in Michigan, where 50 percent of the pre-settlement wetlands have been lost, there are moves afoot to weaken laws that protect wetlands. We must fight these efforts and ensure that future Nick Adamses will always have a swamp that they can venture into—whether for lunker brook trout or to experience the wilderness within.         Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council 426 Bay Street , Petoskey, Michigan 49770 Phone: (231) 347-1181 x 118 Fax: (231) 347-5928 Email: mailto:chrisgrubb@watershedcouncil.org  Web: http://www.michiganwetlands.org/