Category Archives: Conservation

Colony Farm Orchard (= Enchanted Forest): Western Herald Wins Again

Large, old bur oak, one of many at Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by Richard Brewer

The major story in the Western Herald today, on the front page above the fold, is “SSE advocates Orchard property preservation.” The story was written by Fritz Klug, News Editor of the Herald.

SSE is the student organization Students for a Sustainable Earth. SSE describes itself as the premiere organization for student environmentalists at WMU. It’s a registered student organization whose mission is to promote attitudes and behaviors on the WMU campus and in the wider Kalamazoo community that are environmentally and culturally sustainable. It has a Facebook group of 435 members.

The story begins with a field trip that a mostly student group of 26 persons, took to the Colony Farm Orchard in October. SSE hosted it as a part of their campaign to save the Enchanted Forest. Benjamin Thayer, a WMU senior is quoted as saying, “It is enchanted because it’s a place in limbo.” This is an excellent, remarkably apt characterization. My dictionary defines limbo as a region of oblivion or neglect. WMU has neglected the Colony Farm Orchard, perhaps so that the claim could be made that the property is not utilized. And certainly, if WMU’s plans for the land are allowed to proceed, oblivion is its fate.

In the story, SSE Co-Chair Andrew Weissenborn indicates no opposition to the current BTR Park or the aim of job creation. “It is neat and extraordinary what WMU has done with the first BTR park,” he is quoted as saying, “but I do not think the park should be extended to the Colony Farm Orchard. The focus at this point is to preserve the land.”

The other front page story of the Herald, below the fold, is “WMU researchers study carbon sequestration benefits.” It describes research proposed by a Geosciences group to study sequestering carbon dioxide from large facilities such as factories and power plants by storing it at depths of 2500-3000 feet in porous sedimentary rocks where overlain by impermeable igneous rocks. It’s a possible technology that, along with many other techniques including conservation and alternative energy sources, may help us out of the global climate aspect of our current environmental predicament.

In the meantime, the Colony Farm Orchard continues sequestering carbon in its humble way–in the growth of old trees planted or self-seeded long ago and the many young ones that have volunteered in the past 50 years, in the vines of old grapes from the abandoned arbors as well as native grape-vines from seeds brought in by catbirds and robins, and in the large amounts of soil organic matter that accumulates each year mostly from foliage. Even a fair share of the carbon in the tree leaves from the west side of Kalamazoo that WMU allows the city to dump at the Orchard site becomes incorporated in rather long-lived compounds in the soil, making its own sequestration contribution.

Leaves from trees in the city of Kalamazoo dumped at Colony Farm Orchard

A Conservation Plan for the Colony Farm Orchard (=Enchanted Forest)

Button from the Facebook group

As we all know, HB 5207 put forth by Representative Bob Jones (D–Kalamazoo) is designed to strip the conservation/public use restrictions from the Colony Farm Orchard as a first step in turning the 54 acres into an Annex to Western Michigan University’s BTR Park. Here are the stated restrictions: “The conveyance shall provide that Western Michigan University may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose.” The bill, introduced in mid-July with no public notice, made its way quickly to the Senate but there progress has slowed.

This delay has given conservationists and other opponents of the measure a chance to make their views known, and they have done so in large numbers. As of now, we cannot know what will happen. But we should talk about what ought to be done with the property as conservation land. I made a start on this subject earlier and concluded that the best role for the land was exactly what it’s doing now, but better.

In that post, I discussed some important ecological functions of the Colony Farm Orchard. I won’t repeat them in detail, but here’s a quick list. It’s worth taking note that all these would be diminished or lost altogether by development as a BTR installation.

Many are beneficial effects that the Orchard exerts on the Asylum Lake Preserve, such as

Reducing noise from M-131

Filtering noxious fumes from trucks and automobiles on M-131

Reducing artificial lighting coming from M-131 and buildings across the highway to the west. Research on the dangerous effects that bright artificial lights have on insects, bats, amphibians in the breeding season, and other forms of wildlife is accumulating rapidly.

By serving as a very near island of similar but not identical habitats, the Orchard adds species, lowers extinctions and enhances immigration, all of which lead to higher biodiversity and ecosystem stability at Asylum Lake.

Other positive conservation roles the Orchard plays, not necessarily involving the Asylum Lake Preserve directly, include

Allowing for the presence and reproduction of shy animals, such as foxes and American woodcock, that are likely to be disturbed on the more heavily visited Asylum Lake Preserve.

Serving as a migratory bird stopover site well-supplied with cover, water, and food supplies in both spring and fall.

Preserving land within the historic Genesee tall-grass prairie and the adjacent bur oak opening. Perhaps few herbaceous species survive from those pre-settlement plant communities, but numerous bur oaks of various ages and sizes are present that are almost certainly descended from the oaks of the original savanna.

This is just a good start on a listing of the conservation values of the Orchard. There are, for example, the marvelous asparagus patches along the west edge. Not for nothing was Euell Gibbons’s first book named Stalking the Wild Asparagus. “When I am out along the hedgerows and waysides gathering wild asparagus,” he wrote, “I am twelve years old again and all the world is new and wonderful as the spring sun quickens the green things into life….”

There are also the old trees–horse chestnut, tulip tree, maples–planted by the original farm family or by the staff or patients of the Colony Farm. Big and open grown but surrounded now by many trees of smaller diameters, these are probably what suggested the “Enchanted Forest” name to the Facebook Group. They ought to be kept as a way of conserving human history as well as natural history.

Then there is the carbon sequestration that has gone on and is going on in the accumulation of tree biomass, which acts to temper the greenhouse effect and slow global climate change. Turning this land into a BTR park extension would almost certainly mean cutting most of the trees and brush and releasing the stored carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide either by burning or by the slow fire of decomposition.

It’s not possible yet to come up with a complete conservation design, but here are some things we might want to do when the Colony Farm Orchard is devoted to conservation.

1. Construct a self-guided loop trail going through the property’s major habitats with the trailhead on the east side of the property next to Drake Road.
2. Next to the trailhead, construct a small bicycle parking space. Too much space for automobile parking has already been subtracted from the Asylum Lake Preserve to allow more to be lost for auto parking here.
3. Provide for safe passage of pedestrians from somewhere south of the Asylum Lake parking lot at the top of the hill on Drake by means of pedestrian on-demand lights, or an overpass.
4. Stop the dumping of leaves and yard waste from Kalamazoo. It’s a public service of a sort, but on a parcel of only 54 acres it takes up space that ought to be available for natural revegetation or restoration. The area of thick leaf mulch can be seen in one of the fine low-level aerial photographs of the Colony Farm Orchard by JaySeaAre. Locate the metal pole barn (“Butler building”) on the west border (toward the highway); the heavy leaf mulch is the unvegetated area east of the Butler building and running south toward the electric substation and north toward the old orchard. Several years accumulation are involved, ringed with rank growths of barnyard weeds.
5. Erect a signboard facing M-131 that says something like this:

Asylum Lake Preserve of Western Michigan University

A sanctuary of 320 acres protected for all time

that by education, research, and as green and open space

benefits the public and the Earth

Before describing what the trail could be like, it’s worth considering why we need a trail at all. People who are highly enough motivated have always made their way onto the Orchard for bird-watching, asparagus hunting, photography, and contemplation. And no trail is needed for the Orchard to continue its services to the Asylum Lake Preserve. But there are good reasons for the trail: One, it will make it much handier to visit the site, especially for education–classes, but also groups interested in natural history, and any strolling autodidact.

Two, if the Orchard is left as is, there will be those who say, as some connected with WMU have said, that the land is not utilized. Of course, the charge was and is bogus. But the trail is one way to demonstrate utilization. It will show most people that the land is utilized, though perhaps not that segment of humanity for whom the only meaningful way a piece of property can be utilized is to generate income.

What should the trail be like? I’d say most of it should be narrow, just wide enough for one person to walk comfortably, and unimproved. No dogs, I’d say. It’s nice that people can walk their pets on the Asylum Lake property, but the Orchard ought to continue to be a dog-free refuge, a place for the woodcocks and turkeys and other ground nesters.

There would be plenty to see along the trail, including many of the features already mentioned. Any trip would find dozens of things to look at and discourse on, as the changing seasons brought forth something new every day.

The trail should loop through the south part of the WMU Foundation property. In fact, I’d say that the south half of the Foundation land ought to be reunited with the Enchanted Forest. The eight acres extending up to Stadium Drive were regrettably severed from the Orchard property in 1957 and sold into commerce. The Foundation did Kalamazoo a service by acquiring it in 2007.

Pond with Mallards on WMU Foundation land just north of Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by R. Brewer

Having the trail run through the south part of what is now Foundation property would include a small pond and the ducks and aquatic life that could be seen there and also an area of great hydrological interest as the main source of ground water flow into Asylum Lake.

These are just some ideas of mine. I haven’t discussed them in detail with anybody. No charette was held. Nobody paid me a consulting fee; my work was all pro bono publico. Publico has been given short shrift in WMU’s proposals for the Orchard, so I’m glad to bring a little of it back.

Will the Colony Farm Orchard be allowed to fulfill these conservation aims? That depends on the Michigan Senate, or perhaps Governor Granholm. But, of course, it depends most of all on Western Michigan University, which could at any time, decide to let the Orchard live up to the purposes for which it was conveyed from state to university in 1977. That WMU has not already asked the Michigan legislature to withdraw the section of HB 5207 dealing with the Colony Farm Orchard reveals an anti-conservation, anti-environment, anti-sustainability mindset that may foretell a troubled future.

Save the Enchanted Forest (aka Colony Farm Orchard)!

DSCN3142 About a week ago, a group of students opposing the demolition of Western Michigan University’s Enchanted Forest, invited me to one of their meetings. The Enchanted Forest is what they call the land that is sometimes known as the Colony Farm Orchard. Enchanted Forest is a much better name.

This was a Thursday night and they were planning a letter writing session for the following evening. I talked for a little while about past and current threats to the Enchanted Forest. Andy Weissenborn and a dark-haired young woman whose name I didn’t get asked a few questions that I tried to answer. I gave them my take on how best to get in touch with members of the Michigan Senate, where the bill stripping the restriction that the land be kept as open space for public use was then, and still resides today (30 October).

The student group is on facebook. Here are the first few lines of the group’s description:

Western Michigan University is moving ahead with a plan to expand the Business Technology and Research Park. In order to do this, they are going to flatten the woods at the northwest corner of the Drake and Parkview intersection, the “Enchanted Forest.” Don’t get us wrong, we’re not against development in general. And we’re not against new business and new jobs.

The facebook group is open and the content is public.

The students have evidently put on a very effective campaign to reach members of the Senate. Check out Chelsea Thorpe’s comments for 29 October on the group’s Wall. Among other things, she says, “Call, write, my babies! Let’s save the dadgum Enchanted Forest!” and includes the phone number for the person to call in Lansing about postponing the vote (Senate majority leader Michael Bishop at 517 373 2417.)

I’ve heard that other actions to save the Enchanted Forest are being planned or contemplated.

In my opinion this effort is the greenest and most biospherically useful thing that’s happened at WMU at least since Dok Stevens left and maybe since Huey Johnson graduated.

Save the dadgum Enchanted Forest!

The Colony Farm Orchard is Not Trade Land

Horse chestnut tree at Colony Farm Orchard. Photo copyright October 2009 by Richard Brewer.

I’ve always wondered if there was one fundamental difference between conservationists and those other people whose disposition is exactly opposite–the exploiters, polluters, clear-cutters, mountaintop blasters, and all the other ill-users and abusers of the land and waters. In recent experiences with the case of the Colony Farm Orchard, I think I have an inkling of what the fundamental difference might be.

Several years ago The Nature Conservancy coined the term “trade land” to refer to real estate given to the organization merely as an asset, like a used car or shares of stock, rather than as land meant for preservation. In earlier days, people had sometimes been unhappy, even irate, when they heard of TNC selling land, thinking that sanctuary land was being sold. The term was invented to refer to lands with minor conservation value that are donated mainly for the money that TNC can raise by selling them.

The 54-acre Colony Farm Orchard (henceforth, just Orchard) in Oshtemo Township, Michigan, has certain features that make it desirable for conservation. I’ve listed these in more detail in earlier posts (such as this one), but they include a variety of habitats, historical interest from being located within the tall-grass Genesee Prairie and bur oak opening, and prime habitat as a migratory bird stopover site. Perhaps more important is that the Orchard contributes to increased biodiversity and stability of the 270-acre Asylum Lake Preserve which is adjacent to the east, across Drake Road. The Orchard serves as a very near island of similar but not identical habitat.

The State of Michigan gave the Orchard to Western Michigan University in 1977 for the purposes stated in the original legislative conveyance: “Western Michigan University may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose.”

The intent is perfectly clear; this is land conveyed as dedicated open space for public use. The Orchard is not trade land.

Nevertheless, in the 1990s, WMU sought to develop the Orchard as part of a proposed BTR (Business Technology Research) Park. A long battle ensued between WMU, elements of Kalamazoo City government, and certain corporations on one side and various environmental and neighborhood groups plus a high percentage of the citizenry on the other. The first major skirmish was an attempt by WMU to get around the quoted restriction. WMU persuaded a local Michigan House member, Dale Shugars, to introduce legislation changing the permitted uses to “1. For a public park, recreation area, or open space area. 2. For a business, technology and research park…” The bill with the altered language passed the House, but a Senate committee concluded that a BTR park was not a public purpose, The Senate did not act on the bill, and in 1993 it died. The Orchard was saved.

Many things happened between 1993 and now. One was a compromise of sorts, by which land south of Parkview Avenue, which had come from the state to WMU with no restrictions, was opened to the development of a BTR park. Such a development was begun in 2001. The Asylum Lake parcel north of Parkview and east of Drake that had come to WMU in 1975 with exactly the same restrictions as the Orchard was designated as a Preserve. It was further protected in 2004 by a Declaration of Restrictions, meant to serve the same function as a conservation easement.

The Colony Farm Orchard is at the upper left in this diagrammatic map which appears on the Asylum Lake website

During the years between 1993 and 2004, agreement had been reached on a variety of topics. The conservationist participants in the discussions believed that the Orchard, north of Parkview and with the same legislative restrictions as the Asylum Lake property was a part of the Preserve. The WMU participants, however, rebuffed all attempts at explicit inclusion of the Orchard in the Declaration of Restrictions. Probably this should have been a signal that WMU was not giving up its plan to violate the restrictions on the Orchard, but the participants were comforted by the fact that the land was still protected by the original restriction. Perhaps they were also tired after the years-long debates.

Faint signals of a renewed attempt on the Orchard could have been noticed in late February 2009. WMU Vice-President Robert Miller emerged from WMU’s five-year Orchard dormancy to tell one of the Asylum Lake neighborhood groups: “There are no plans to develop that area, but it is one of the options we are looking at. I can tell you, should a decision be made to expand the Business, Technology, and Research Park, we would come to you, to the entire community with our plans and share them. [But] we have none.”

By 2 July, the signal was much stronger. The WMU Board of Trustees at its July meeting empowered the admistration to spend up to $985,000 to buy out a long-standing Michigan State University lease to conduct pest insect research on the Orchard. Greg Rosine, another WMU Vice President, made it all explicit; he mentioned the deed restrictions and said that WMU was “seeking to get those restrictions changed.” Local Representative Robert Jones introduced House Bill 5207 to strip the restrictions on 16 July, though the first local public notice was not until 1 August.

Local adverse reactions were evident as early as 14 July at a meeting of the Oshtemo Township Board. Numerous letters and phone calls followed in later days and weeks, to the Kalamazoo Gazette, WMU administrators and board members, and local members of the legislature. Much of this is related in earlier posts at this website. As of the day I write, 28 October 2009, the bill has passed the House and been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Tardy and prolonged debate on the state budget, typical of the Michigan legislature, has delayed immediate action in the Senate.

Proponents of removing the restrictions and making the Orchard an annex to the current BTR park have said little publicly and have been unwilling to engage in any public forum or debate. Apparently, their arguments are that the BTR is full, that it created more than 1,300 jobs “directly or indirectly” and an expansion would create many more, and that it is a logical site for expansion because it is already owned by WMU, is adjacent to the current park, and is not utilized.

Some of the claims are questionable and the rest are wrong. The BTR park isn’t full. Were the jobs “created” or were they jobs that, in the absence of the BTR park, would still have lodged somewhere in the Kalamazoo area? Considering the current job market, how soon will a BTR Park annex actually be needed? Plenty of other sites exist for expansion, if expansion should ever be necessary. Included are other unrestricted properties owned by WMU as well as remediated brownfield sites in Kalamazoo that are going begging. Although WMU’s early, obfuscatory statements in February mentioned that expansion to the CFO was “one option,” evidence is lacking than any other site was considered.

In fact, the main argument in favor of the Orchard is money. The Orchard is land bought with taxpayer dollars and given to WMU by the state for public use as open space. Expansion of the BTR park would consist of dividing the parcel into a few lots and selling them for commercial use at market value. Estimates for total income from the sales start at around $3 million. With a cost basis of zero, WMU could reap a handsome profit.

In a rational accounting, the justification for converting this public open space to a BTR park annex fails. To me and a good many others, there is little need even to do the accounting. Here is land that in the transfer from state to university was set aside for the public good in language as plain as can be written.

I believe that here we are coming close to the fundamental distinction between conservationists and exploiters. The difference is the unwillingness or perhaps the constitutional inability of the exploiters to understand and honor a perfectly explicit covenant. They see it as nothing more than an obstacle to making money from the land, to be gotten around or over. To them, conserved land is not utilized; conserved land does not perform.

To the exploiters, all land is trade land.

Saving the Colony Farm Orchard: You don’t have to be an environmentalist

This is a response to an unsigned editorial published Monday 5 October 2009 in the Western Herald concerning Western Michigan University’s designs on the Colony Farm Orchard. Since it was unsigned, it’s presumably the official position of the Herald Editorial Board. My response was published in the Herald on Monday 12 October. The version here is slightly modified from the published version.

A small stream in the springy area at the north end of the Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by Richard Brewer.

A Herald editorial endorsed WMU’s attempt to turn the protected Colony Farm Orchard into an annex of the BTR park. After a kind of cost/benefit analysis the Herald concluded that the university would make a bunch of money. Just four quick points:

1. Since WMU paid nothing for the land (bought by the state with taxpayer money), WMU ought to be able to sell it at a profit. Who couldn’t? The BTR park has done well–or so we’re told. WMU never provides cash flow figures.

But the BTR park opened near the beginning of one of the biggest booms, or bubbles, in U.S. history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went from below 10,000 to over 14,000 between 2001 and 2007. Then the economy crashed and burned. By early 2009 the Dow dropped below 7000; the wealth that people thought had been created disappeared. Today the Dow is struggling to get back to where it was in 2001.

The current BTR Park has three unsold lots and at least two vacancies, plus the soccer field which remains to be developed. It may be years before new lots in the Annex are needed. Or they may never be needed.

2. People like me who want to save the Orchard do not object to WMU making money. Most public universities, including WMU, have been so starved by state government that to stay in operation they need to beg, borrow, and accept grants and contracts from large corporations that do not have the public good uppermost in their minds. But there are lines that should not be crossed. WMU crossed the line with their Colony Farm Orchard plans.

3. The idea that WMU deserves credit for protecting the Asylum Lake Preserve is fantasy. Its protected status is the outcome of a long, intense battle all through the 1990s between the WMU administration on one side and many people on the other. Among the WMU opponents were the Asylum Lake Preservation Association; neighborhood groups; an active, vocal group of WMU students; assorted conservationists and environmentalists; and, toward the end, the Michigan Senate following the lead of Senator Jack Welborn.

As late as 1998 when the chance of a business park on the Asylum Lake property and the Orchard was long dead, the WMU administration was still trying to turn the Asylum Lake property into a golf course! WMU lost. This land became the Asylum Lake Preserve.

4. The editorial mentions Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. Adherents to the land ethic will be opposed to WMU’s plan, but you don’t have to be an environmentalist to know it’s not right. That follows from an older, easily understood ethical principle, the idea that we keep our promises. This is the first reason why WMU should not try to overturn the dedication of the Orchard as open space. A conservation reason is not far behind: How can conservation land ever be secure if the promises of protection by land holders such as the government and the university mean nothing?

Will those who come after us at WMU say of the current leadership, They kept the faith? Or will they say, They betrayed a trust?

Private Options: The Leading Edge in Conservation Today

This review was published in 2005 as the second entry in my Land Trust Reading List on the earlier version of this website. Slightly revised and updated, it’s republished here on the occasion of the 2009 Land Trust Alliance Rally.

Private Options: Tools and Concepts for Land Conservation. Barbara Rusmore, Alexandra Swaney, and Allan D. Spader, Editors. 1982. Island Press.

This proceedings volume brought together a great fund of information about land trusts at an important time in the development of the movement. Nearly thirty years later, the book is still useful to anyone trying to learn about land trust operations. Other than some specifics of tax law and regulations, little of the material is outmoded.

The approximately 75 papers came from the first two conferences aiming to take a national view of private land conservation by local organizations. Both were held around this time of year 28 years ago, in the fall of 1981. The first, the National Consultation on Local Land Conservation, was held in Cambridge MA October 14-16 under the auspices of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The second a month later, November 13-15, was Private Options for Land Preservation, A Conference for Practitioners. It was held in San Francisco, though under the sponsorship of the Montana Land Reliance.

The Lincoln Institute, a land use policy group, was relatively new, founded in 1974. The Montana Land Reliance, a local land trust, was still newer, formed in 1976 and awarded non-profit status in 1978.

Land trusts formed since the later 1980s have mostly been named “land trusts” or “land conservancies,” but those formed in the hundred years between 1891 (the Trustees of Reservations) and the early 1980s used a variety of names, sometimes “trusts” or “conservancies” with various modifiers, but also many “associations,” “societies,” or “foundations.” As far as I know, the Montana organization is still the only “reliance.” Perhaps it was called a “reliance” from the rarely used definition of “one relied on.” There may be more to it than that or, possibly, less.

The book combines material from the two conferences; that from the National Consultation amounts to about 60 percent to the Private Option’s 40 percent. A separate proceedings for the National Consultation had been quickly assembled and published by the Land Trust Exchange (later, Land Trust Alliance), the national umbrella organization to which the conference gave rise. The National Consultation material included in this book is virtually identical to the separately published proceedings. Proceedings from the Private Options conference were advertised but evidently never produced, probably being incorporated directly into the joint volume.

Two conflicting emotions dominated the conferences. One was gloom over the threat to conservation and environmental protection that came from the new (January 1981) administration in Washington, that is, from Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and their appointees. “Somewhere between Teddy Roosevelt and James Watt, the Industrial Revolution won out over the purple mountains’ majesty,” wrote Maggie Hurchalla, a representative of a Florida land trust to the National Consultation. “Land trusts are largely an answer to government failure. As a result, they are an accusation.”

But there was also a feeling of excitement at the great potential of private land conservation. Cecil Andrus, governor of Idaho and Secretary of the Interior under Jimmy Carter, gave the keynote address at the Private Options conference. He called the blossoming land trust movement the “leading edge” and the “third wave” of conservation in the U.S. The first wave was the rise of government protection of land, wildlife, and forests–the National Parks, National Forests, game protective laws, and conservation advocacy groups. The second was the popular environmental movement of the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s with its accompanying federal and state regulatory legislation. “I call you the third wave,” Andrus said to the gathering.

In a section of comments from participants of the National Consultation, Allan D. Spader, the organizer of the conference, said, “The relatively spontaneous accomplishments and growth of the local land trust movement [are] unique in a world where success is measured in terms of media hype…or a government program grant.” And Robert Augspurger of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (CA), wrote of the conference itself, “[O]ne might compare [it] to an old-fashioned revival meeting. Here we had a group of ‘circuit-riders’ from all over the country, coming together to refresh, reinspire and reeducate each other. The results were indeed electric.”

Authors include a good many persons still active in the land trust movement–after all, it was less than 30 years ago. Among these are Mark Ackelson, Joan Vilms, Martin Zeller, Jean Hocker, and William Hutton. Some figures important in the exponential growth phase of land trusts are gone or less engaged now. Among these are Kingsbury Browne, Jr., Russell L. Brenneman, Gordon Abbott, Jr., and Benjamin R. Emory. Several more who contributed to the discussions were active for a time but are no longer connected with land trusts or, at least, not in any very visible way. Where, for example, is Maggie Hurchalla, author of the provocative quote a couple of paragraphs back?

[Added 14 August 2009. I now know where Maggie Hurchalla is. I was put on the trail by a column in Parade magazine. (I make it a point to spend at least 30 seconds every Sunday reading Parade.) Her name came up in an answer to a question concerning former Attorney General Janet Reno.

I must have failed to google Maggie when I wrote the original review, because over five thousand entries came up when I tried the other day. In addition to being Janet Reno’s younger sister, she has been involved in environmental battles throughout her life. Among her causes have been growth management in Florida and wetlands protection and restoration, including the Everglades. She served as a Martin County commissioner for 20 years (1974-94), was chosen Florida Audubon’s Environmentalist of the year in 1981 and was a National Wetlands award recipient in 2003. As far as I can tell from material on the web, Hurchalla has little if any recent connection with the land trust movement. But she has continued to fight the good fight.]

Most topics of importance to land trusts are at least mentioned in the volume. Among other subjects, we read about marketing, preservation of agricultural and historic lands, community land trusts, negotiation skills, tax policy and income tax incentives, conservation easements (including some early comments on possible problems), partial development, cooperation with government (pros and cons), some summary material from the first real census of land trusts, a bit of history, some regional perspectives, organizational development, and ideas about forming a national umbrella organization.

Although there is material on fee acquisition and stewardship of natural lands, an emphasis on conservation easements and agricultural lands is evident. This emphasis was unrepresentative of what the majority of the more than 400 land trusts in existence were actually doing as of 1981. It was, however, prophetic of the shifts in emphasis that characterized much of the 1980s and 1990s and prevail today.

Is this the Last Go Round for the Colony Farm Orchard?

asylum Wednesday afternoon, 30 September 2009, the Appropriations Committee of the Michigan Senate approved the bill that would eliminate the conservation restrictions contained in the original conveyance of the state-owned land called the Colony Farm Orchard to Western Michigan University. That language is “Western Michigan University may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose.” The bill goes to the full senate, where it is being fast tracked to be taken up at its next session, Tuesday 6 October.

Removing the public purpose restriction will be necessary if WMU is to do what it claims is its goal–to expand its BTR (business, technology, research) park to the Colony Farm Orchard

Within minutes of the vote, WMU’s Senior Vice President for Advancement and Legislative Affairs Gregory Rosine called from Lansing to let the Kalamazoo Gazette know the news.

The story appeared in the Thursday paper, to the consternation of conservationists who have been working to retain the restrictions keeping the land for public purposes. “Outraged” probably best characterizes the reactions of people I’m in contact with. This was not because there had been strong expectations that the bill would be defeated. Since the Appropriations Committee reflects the Senate composition, it contains eleven Republicans and seven Democrats. Many of the arguments against the WMU action are conservation-based, so few Republicans were expected to oppose the bill.

The hope was that the local senator, Tom George, though a Republican, would be swayed by conservation arguments contained in the many letters sent to him and to the Gazette. If he opposed the bill, his colleagues might follow his lead because of his position as the senator from the affected district.

No, the reason for the outrage was that local conservationists expected to be able to attend the Appropriations Committee hearing and make their case for retaining the Orchard, perhaps along with other environmental groups and others who understood the seriousness of the issue. None was able to attend the hearing because the bill was added to the Wednesday agenda without advance notification and passed within the same meeting. The lack of notification extended to the Asylum Lake Preservation Association (ALPA) vice president who had signed up for automatic notification of the bill being placed on the committee agenda. In fact, at 4:55 AM Friday 2 October, the day after the bill had been passed by the Committee, the message from the legislative website update@legislature.mi.gov said of HB 5207, “Last action: 9/21/2009 REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS”[caps in original]

One might think that Senator George, having noted the letters from his constituents, might think, “Hey, I bet all these people interested in this Colony Farm Orchard might like me to shoot them an email that it’s now on the agenda.” If he thought that, he didn’t act on the thought.

ALPA, and everyone else, were caught flat-footed. Rumors that the meeting was occurring leaked out on Wednesday afternoon, but few organizations would be able to get to Lansing with persuasive testimony on the spur of the moment, and none did. When I heard such a rumor, I searched every relevant legislative website and found no mention of HB 5207 being taken up by the Appropriations Committee. I checked again the following morning–again,the day after the committee had approved the bill–and found no mention even of a changed agenda, let alone passage.

I have heard of other cases in the Michigan legislature of schedules being set so as to put opponents at a disadvantage. Opponents usually are the other party, but often enough the sides are more complicated; that was the case in the Wednesday afternoon debacle. The quick-snap in football is an acceptable tactic. In government, such goings-on violate American principles of fairness at the most fundamental level.

Businesses, local governments, and many state agencies have strict requirements to provide public notice for virtually any action in which the public or other parties might have an interest. Society functions better as a result. But in the Michigan legislature, there seem to be no penalties–only rewards–for keeping opponents and the public in the dark.

If Senator George read the letters sent to him, he was not swayed. The Gazette article reporting the committee action quoted him as saying that “job creation” was the reason he voted for the bill. He also said the BTR park is “one of the few examples of successful job growth in the city of Kalamazoo and in the state of Michigan, for that matter.”

Few Republicans will vote against job creation no matter what negatives may be attached or how bogus the claim. Few Democrats either, these days. It’s possible that advocates for retaining the Colony Farm Orchard as open space should analyze the BTR jobs claims and other self-congratulatory marketing points. For example, just how many jobs is it that the WMU business park has created?

President John Dunn in his Gazette Viewpoint used a figure of more than 1300, but of these, according to other marketing pieces, 682, a majority, were “indirect salary creation.” I’m not sure what this means, but I don’t think it’s people working shifts at the BTR park. The larger question is, Has the BTR park created any jobs at all? How many of these more than 1300 jobs were already around the area or were jobs that, had the WMU BTR park not been available, would have ended up elsewhere in the county–possibly at a facility set up by private enterprise.

The facts are difficult to get; the overriding fact is that the whole process WMU has followed in pursuing the stripping of the Colony Farm Orchard’s restrictions has been almost fact free. The closest thing to a analysis of the BTR park I’m aware of is an online comment (23 September 2009) of Dunn’s Viewpoint by someone signing himself evadrepus. It’s a good start and deserves wider attention.

The unwillingness to provide facts is part of the general opacity of the whole process. When the question of pros and cons of the Colony Farm Orchard relative to various other obvious options comes up, WMU says…nothing. I have concluded that nothing means, “We will develop the Orchard, because you can’t stop us.” A further translation is that “because you can’t stop us” means “the legislature will let us.”

I had almost reached this conclusion about a month ago. The leaders in and around WMU had concluded that the Colony Farm Orchard was a slam dunk. The economy/jobs argument was compelling, nobody cared about this insignificant sliver of land, it wasn’t being “utilized.” But I still thought that something besides a simple case of hubris must be involved to account for the resoluteness with which the Colony Farm Orchard was being pursued.

The reason I now understand is an obvious one. Money. The land, bought a good many years ago by the state with tax-payer dollars, came to WMU free. But unfortunately it came with a public use restriction. By getting rid of that restriction (which was not a condition of the University Farm property that became the current BTR park), WMU can turn the Orchard into a few lots, perhaps 3-5, and sell them for a total of perhaps $3-$5 million. This is a nice sum, and it’s pure profit.

The same answer explains one of the companion bills that Representative Bob Jones introduced, the one having to do with the former TB sanitarium. Because my main interest in the WMU’s actions has been the protection of conserved land, I haven’t bothered to write about the sanitarium bill. I’ll wait to take it up another time, but it’s an even more clever legal maneuver.

It’s not impossible that the full Senate will reject the lifting of restrictions next Tuesday, as the full senate in 1993 was poised to do.

It’s not impossible that Governor Jennifer Granholm will veto the bill if it reaches her.

If neither of those things happen, then barring litigation, it seems likely that the open space/public use restrictions will disappear. They would have lasted, not the perpetuity that conservationists hope that conservation lands will endure, but about 32 years. This is figuring from the fall of 1977 when the Welborn brothers of Kalamazoo, one a senator, one a representative, added the Orchard to the adjacent Asylum Lake property (conveyed with similar restrictions in 1975) to give WMU the care of 329 acres of dedicated open space.

So, would this be the last go round for the Colony Farm Orchard?

Maybe not.

The loss of the legal restrictions would be a serious loss, making destruction of the Orchard much simpler in the future. But even so, the conservationists and environmentalists of the state may stay in the game. Even if they lose this go round, they may not yet be willing to let their deal go down.

Colony Farm Orchard: New documentary film and a response to John Dunn Viewpoint

Matt Clysdale, from his website

Matt Clysdale, a local film-maker (Animals Among Us), will be screening the first part of a two or more part film about Western Michigan University’s planned conversion of the Colony Farm Orchard open space to Business Park annex. Here is his announcement.

Greetings everyone,

Please join me this Tuesday at 9 pm on Channel 19 for the
premiere broadcast of “The Colony Farm Orchard – Part 1:
Here We Go Again”, a video essay I recently produced on a
controversial, 54 acre piece of property adjacent to Asylum Lake.

The video is the first part in a series examining major issues
surrounding Western Michigan University’s plans to expand
the Business, Technology and Research Park onto the Orchard.

Part 1 explores the tumultuous history of the Orchard, previous
attempts to develop the property, and an earlier attempt to remove the restrictions on the property. Interviews with representatives from WMU, the Asylum Lake Preservation Association, and the Oakland Drive/Winchell Neighborhood Association, as well as former State Senator Jack Welborn and current State Representative Robert Jones, shed light on the inner workings behind this controversial, and necessary, community debate.

Matt Clysdale
HorsePower Pictures

Response to John Dunn Viewpoint

Richard Brewer

After a long silence, President John Dunn of Western Michigan University provided some public commentary on the Colony Farm Orchard by way of a Kalamazoo Gazette Viewpoint on Wednesday 23 September 2009. Following is a response I submitted Sunday to the Gazette. I tried to keep it close to the 500-word Viewpoint limit the Gazette requests, so there was no space to deal with several other questionable statements. I will try to address these later.

By mid-July, people were writing letters to the Gazette warning about WMU’s attempt to strip deed restrictions from the Colony Farm Orchard. The restrictions would have to be killed for WMU to expand its BTR park operations onto the Orchard. The restrictions say WMU “may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose.” Last week, Western Michigan University President Dunn wrote a Viewpoint about the Orchard.

It is well that President Dunn has finally spoken up. Until now the only WMU statements came from subordinates.

The version of Asylum Lake history given by President Dunn will seem strangely light-hearted and his representation of WMU’s role improbably altruistic to anyone who kept track of the bitter controversies of the 1990s-early 2000s. These came out of an earlier attempt by WMU to turn the Orchard, the University Farm, and part of the Asylum Lake property into a business park.

But then President Dunn was not here during that time; he took office in July 2007. His knowledge comes from staff, associates, and the WMU Board. I fear they have not given him a full picture of the long battle–or the dedication it created in those who still fight to protect this special place.

President Dunn states that the Orchard is a logical choice for development because WMU already owns it. What he neglects to say is that by the restriction, WMU holds it as a public trust–to keep for all of us as open space.

Among several misleading statements, President Dunn claims that the development would be beneficial because it would provide space for retention ponds that would improve water quality in Asylum Lake. This is a red herring. There are other places for such ponds, including the old trailer park at the north end of the Orchard. The WMU Foundation owns this property, and it is unrestricted. Work on the retention ponds could begin tomorrow.

President Dunn commends the legislators who wrote the original conveyance of the Orchard for recognizing that “community needs could change and included a mechanism to make such needed changes.” Exactly! We have already seen the language: “the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose.” It is just this language that Representative Robert Jones’s bill would remove.

The reason for the Jones-WMU bill is that all of this played out once before, in 1993. The House passed altered language that would have allowed the Colony Farm Orchard to be used as a research and business park. When the bill reached the Senate, careful debate led the Senate to conclude that this was not a public use. They refused to act on the bill, and the door slammed shut on that first misguided effort to turn this property into a business park.

But now a new bill is back, in the Senate Appropriations Committee. If the Senate of 2009 is less wise than the Senate of 1993, the bill may pass and the Colony Farm Orchard will be lost. Even worse, the legislature will have gone on record that conservation restrictions for the public good are meaningless, to be wiped out whenever they are inconvenient for any group with a powerful constituency. I emailed Senator Tom George asking him not to allow this. Other citizens unhappy with WMU’s attempt to sell this land bought with taxpayer money to private interests might wish to contact their own senators.

Colony Farm Orchard: The Ball Is In the Senate’s Court and Tom George Has the Racquet

On Thursday 17 September 2009, in the Michigan House of Representatives, Robert Jones’s House Bill 5207 was read a second time, placed on third reading, placed on immediate passage, read a third time, passed and given immediate effect (Yeas 105 Nays 2), title amended, and transmitted to the Senate. It all happened fast, though perhaps not as fast as its supporters in the Western Michigan University administration and board have been hoping. Its passage by the House was recorded in the Kalamazoo Gazette.

In the Senate on Monday 21 September, the bill was assigned to the Appropriations Committee. This committee consists of Senators Jelinek (C), Pappageorge (VC), Hardiman, Kahn, Cropsey, Garcia, George, Jansen, Brown, McManus, Stamas, Switalski (MVC), Anderson, Barcia, Brater, Cherry, Clark-Coleman, and Scott. Of these, the most important for the future of the Colony Farm Orchard is Senator Tom George.

Everyone who believes that the Colony Farm Orchard should remain as dedicated open space might want to contact Senator George and ask him to make it so. His email address is sentgeorge@senate.michigan.gov

Following is a letter I sent to Senator George last night.

Dear Senator George–

What happens to the Colony Farm Orchard is now in your hands. Since the land is in your district, colleagues in the Senate will follow your lead. If the Senate votes not to remove the restriction placed on it when it was conveyed to WMU in 1977, the land will stay open space as was intended.

Removing the restriction (Western Michigan University may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose) would be needed to convert Colony Farm Orchard (henceforth, the CFO) from dedicated open space into a new section of the so-called BTR Park.

The situation is an almost exact rerun of the attempt by WMU in 1990 to convert the CFO into phase 1 of a research and business park. The Asylum Lake Preservation Association was founded soon afterwards, and a lengthy battle between WMU and the majority of the citizens of the region began. The conflict came to a head in spring 1993 when the House passed a bill adding “or a business, technology, and research park” to the list of allowed uses for the CFO.

The bill went to the Senate Committee on State Affairs in April 1993. Prolonged, caustic discussion showed that the Committee understood what the intent of the legislature had been in the original conveyance and also showed that the members did not consider the BTR park a public purpose. On April 22, 1993, the Committee adjourned without action, but it was clear that, if a vote were to be taken, the new language would be rejected. President Diether Haenicke realized that the battle was over and pulled the plug on the whole development proposal on May 3, 1993.

Eventually, a BTR park was built on the University Farm, which had been given to WMU without restrictions in 1959. The Asylum Lake property, conveyed to WMU with restrictions identical to the CFO, was set aside as the Asylum Lake Preserve.

One major reason why the bill coming to the Senate in 2009 should be defeated is the damage it does to the idea–and ideal–of land conservation. When government bodies set aside land for open space, the citizens and the local governments should be able to count on it. They make later decisions with that status as a given; it should only be altered out of critical necessity.

There are also many specific arguments why this particular land should be left pretty much as is and not sold off for commercial development.

Apple trees at the Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by Richard Brewer

1. The land functions as part of the adjacent Asylum Lake Preserve. Its wooded areas, thickets, grasslands, and wetlands enlarge the sanctuary, making the whole more diverse and more stable, in accordance with well-accepted conservation biology principles.

2. The CFO should be saved for its own sake, for its historic significance as part of the tall-grass Genesee Prairie and the Colony Farm experiment itself. It is also of value for the wildlife species that live more safely here than at the heavily visited Asylum Lake Preserve. It is a high quality migratory stopover site for birds. Also the vegetation and soil is steadily sequestering carbon. Most of this stored carbon would be returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide if the development proceeds.

3. There are numerous reasons why the CFO is not well suited for business park expansion: It’s small, allowing only a few lots. WMU will spend up to $985,000 to buy out a Michigan State University entomology lease. The old orchard occupying one third of the site will require expensive remediation because of the lead and arsenic build-up from insecticide use from the late 1800s to 1947.

4. There are many other sites equally or better suited for the expansion. Some are held by private owners, but WMU owns suitable lands that are nearby and have no title restrictions.

5. The orchard was bought by the state long ago with taxpayer money. Clearly a major motive for the proposed conversion is to convert State of Michigan assets into WMU dollars. The CFO is, in a way, an innocent by-stander.

This is the short list of arguments. You might suppose that WMU has an equivalent list of rebuttals, but that is not the case. No one in the administration or board has been willing to engage in debate on the merits. President John Dunn has never, to my knowledge, made any public comment on the issue. Nearly all statements about the project have come from one Vice President and questions have been met, not with answers, but with marketing rhetoric about what a great success the already built part of the BTR park has been.

I hope that you and your senatorial colleagues in 2009 will be as wise as the Senate of 1993.

Sincerely yours

Colony Farm Orchard: The Western Herald Steps Up

Western Michigan University’s student paper, the Western Herald, published an article Monday 14 September 2009 on WMU’s proposed action against the Colony Farm Orchard. The article, by news editor Fritz Klug, was titled Arrested development for BTR? Possible expansion for WMU business research park draws controversy.

The article with two color photos occupied the whole front page. One of the photos was a slightly elevated view of the south part of the Orchard from the west side of US–131. The other was an aerial photo from 2007 of the Orchard and the Asylum Lake Preserve. Both are seen to slightly better advantage in the online version, which also includes a few lines of text not present in the printed version.

The article is a worthy attempt to give the campus community the basics of what has happened and is proposed.

Two letters to the Herald responding to the article were printed on line on 17 September. They are given below with the Herald titles . My letter is slightly expanded here over the 300-word version submitted to the paper.

An large open-grown tulip tree now surrounded by other trees at Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by Richard Brewer

A large open-grown tulip tree now surrounded by other trees at Colony Farm Orchard. Photo by Richard Brewer

Colony Farm Orchard IS being utilized

Thanks to the Herald for information on the proposed development of the Colony Farm Orchard — currently dedicated open space. Information has been an item in short supply around the campus. Although many statements quoted in favor of the plan seem questionable, I’ll mention just one, by WMU Board Chairman Kenneth Miller, “That property [Colony Farm Orchard] isn’t really being utilized now.”

Exactly the same argument was made about the Asylum Lake property when WMU tried to turn it into a business park in the 1990s, and failed: It isn’t being utilized, the public was told.

Why might the Colony Farm Orchard not be utilized, if it’s not? One reason might be the five‑foot fence and locked gate along Drake Road. Putting up a fence and then charging the land is not “utilized” sounds a lot like the story about the person who murdered his parents and asked the court for mercy because he was an orphan.

But in what sense is the land not utilized? Some people have always found their way around or over the fence to bird watch, pick wild asparagus, or commune with nature. One local documentary film maker has spent many hours there photographing wildlife. The city of Kalamazoo dumps leaves in one area, and fishermen dig through them for worms. Such uses go on.

But the way the land is “really” utilized is ecological. For one thing, the biomass on the land has increased steadily since farming stopped. This means stored carbon, so WMU — perhaps without knowing it — has been fighting carbon dioxide buildup in the earth’s atmosphere. But most important, the Orchard makes the Asylum Lake Preserve functionally a larger sanctuary, adding habitats, species diversity, and stability.

What “not really utilized” means to WMU is that the land isn’t producing any direct income. Income is good. But there are other goods.

–Richard Brewer

Those against orchard destruction not being heard

I am pleased to see a discussion of the Colony Farm Orchard controversy in the Herald, but ask you to treat this issue more even‑handedly. Those opposing destruction of the Orchard as open space for public use are not being heard in ways that fairly represent that position. There are at least three large issues which should be addressed in open public debate:

1. There was an agreement made with those who transferred the property to WMU and with the community, that lands north of Parkview would remain open space for public use and those to the south would be developed by WMU without further hindrance. The public met its side of the agreement, while WMU is finding it inconvenient to honor its side. Like the U.S. Government in the land treaties it made with Native Americans, WMU is never satisfied. Instead of husbanding its resources with rational land‑use planning, it gobbles up gigantic amounts of land for very little use and quickly comes back demanding more. WMU must learn to keep its word.

2. This is not an environment versus development issue. Any growth of the BTR park could easily be accommodated by infilling at the Lee Baker farm or by redeveloping the many expansive brownfields nearby. A publicly funded research university should act in the public interest. It should redevelop abused industrial lands instead of contributing to suburban sprawl and further degradation of what little public parklands remain.

3. The process that WMU and Representative [Robert] Jones have followed seems to be designed to avoid public disclosure and discussion. Legislation was rushed through the commerce committee during August vacation time. Neighborhood groups were misled about WMU’s plans and timing. Fritz Klug’s article quotes [Bob] Miller saying, “the community will be involved with every step of the planning process.” Does this mean that once the restrictions for public use have been stripped away, WMU will start telling people what it’s going to do with what used to be their dedicated open space?

–Ladislav Hanka