Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame April 10, 2014 Event

Norm Spring will be inducted into the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame on April 10, 2014, 7 p.m. at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Norm was active in preserving the environment before the first Earth day. An outdoorsman, he saw damages done to the air, streams, lakes and land.  He worked through the democratic processes to make good changes.  In Grand Haven Michigan he went to every city council meeting for three years to ban the spraying of DDT in the city and finally won that battle.  Then with others he formed the Michigan Pesticides Council and the ban went statewide, and then nationwide. Now we have seen the return of the American bald eagle to the shores of the Great Lakes.  An enviromental victory for all living things.  

Norm spearheaded and won many other environmental victories to better the environment for all.

Others who will be inducted into the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame are Don Inman, Joan Wolfe and Dave Dempsey.

Below see others who are now in the Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame:

Fred Wilder, a Muskegon native. Wilder has been active in conservation since he was in high school in the 1940s. He has long volunteered with Sportsman for Youth, the Muskegon Conservation Club, of which he’s a past president, and the Muskegon Environmental Research & Education Society. In 2011, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs gave Wilder their Past Presidents’ Award for conservation.

• Former Gov. William Milliken. The organization is honoring Milliken, Michigan’s Republican governor from 1969 to 1983, for his role in enacting many of the state’s environmental protection laws.

• Howard Tanner, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources from 1975 to 1983. Tanner also was director of natural resources for Michigan State University and helped launch the planting of salmon in Lake Michigan, establishing the state’s salmon fishery.

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Today, bald eagles are seen around the Great Lakes more and more often, but in 1978, these magnificent birds were threatened.

Threatened with extinction. Their eggs never hatched since pesticides that lingered in the environment long after they were sprayed to kill insects magnified in Great Lakes food pyramids. The eagle is at the peak of the food pyramid and its favorite food is fish.

This makes the eagle an environmental indicator; a measuring stick of how well the whole ecosystem is faring. Where the ecosystem is healthy, eagles can live and raise their young.

Since DDT was banned in 1972, the nesting eagle population has increased.

Excerpted from The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring.  

An Environmental Victory

When I wrote The Dynamic Great Lakes, I was inspired by an environmental victory.



You can fight city hall and win. It takes time and patience, but sometimes the results are spectacular.

Years ago we lived across the street from the city park in Grand Haven, Michigan where the elm trees were sprayed with DDT to fight Dutch elm disease. Before the spraying started we were told we could move our car--the sticky spray clung to everything. We had two preschool children at this time and no mention was made of protecting them. When they went out to play, they were exposed to it for a long time after each spraying.

Long after the spraying we would see robins trembling in their death throes. DDT is a long lasting pesticide that magnifies through food chains and the robins fed upon earthworms and died before our eyes. The fish in nearby Lake Michigan were affected even more since food chains in water are long. DDT builds up in plankton, small fish and larger fish. The bald eagle that feeds upon fish is at the end of a long food chain. Subsequent to the spraying eagles began to disappear due to the effects of DDT. Their young did not hatch.
I was reading Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring at this time and I showed it to my husband. His reaction was visceral. He had to do something about it. He marched down to city hall and asked that the DDT program be stopped in our city park. When it was not stopped, he brought experts to explain. City Hall countered by bringing agriculture department experts. This went on for three years before he convinced city hall to stop the DDT program. Then people from a neighboring city came and asked how he had managed to get DDT stopped. Together they formed the Michigan Pesticides Council. We met at Michigan State University. with Dr. Ted Black, Dr. George Wallace, Joan Wolfe and others. We marshaled citizen support. Other groups joined in and in 1969, DDT was banned in Michigan.

It took many years for DDT to purge from Lake Michigan, but in recent years we have seen bald eagles along the beaches and the Grand River that flows through Grand Haven, Michigan. Even the peregrine falcons and ospreys that were also once decimated by DDT have returned.