On this date: 1904 news about upcoming plantings

On April 22, 1904, the Pentwater News printed a story, under it's "State of Michigan" section, "State Items of Interest", about the then-upcoming planting at Saginaw Forest:

Thirty-one thousand plants have been purchased for use on the Saginaw Forest farm of the University of Michigan. Planting operations will begin as soon as weather permits.

On this date: 2005 news about the return of forests

On this day in 2005, the Detroit Free Press ran a story ("Forests Return; Future Uncertain") about the return of forests in Michigan, and the author interviewed the then-caretaker for the article. Since the article is behind a pay wall, I will only use excerpts from it that are descriptive. As with previous references to caretakers, I will continue to only use initials.

Trees cover more of Michigan's landscape than a decade ago, but the growth may have more to do with quantity than quality.

...

[I]t's not necessarily towering stands of stately old trees that the word "forest" often conjures. Instead, it's typically early-stage growth of smaller, densely packed trees that fight vigorously with one another for sunlight and space. It will take decades for the slower-growing oaks and maples to take over such fields, providing the airy, shade-dappled forests that exist in many protected parts of the state.

...

[In Michigan, the] increase is part of a national trend that saw 10 million acres of forest added to the landscape [from 1990 to 2000], said Brad Smith, a U.S. Forest Service expert on the nation's estimated 300 billion trees - about 1,000 for every U.S. resident. "We're continually growing more than we're cutting," Smith said. "People think urban sprawl is eating all the forest - we can't say that."

But counting overgrown fields as forest can give a false sense of progress, said [M.R.], a forest service specialist with the Sierra Club's Michigan chapter.

"Yes, there is more forest, but it's like saying I had three Cadillacs once, and now I have nine Ford Pintos," said [M.R.], who also is caretaker of the 80-acre Saginaw Forest owned by the University of Michigan outside Ann Arbor. "Just because I have more cars than I did before doesn't necessarily mean it's more desirable."

The existence of both types of forest has spawned vigorous debate about how to manage them - whether to clear-cut more areas to provide young forest habitat conducive to hunting and logging, or pursue a more hands-off approach to allow hardwoods to thrive and provide the solitude and majesty found only in stands of towering trees.

...

Other factors, including better fire suppression, also have led to some increases in forest cover. But that's sometimes a double-edged sword: Oak trees, for example, sprout prodigiously in burned-over land, giving them an advantage over maple trees, which don't.

"We're not lacking for hardwood maple forests," said [M.R.]. "But we are lacking for oak savannahs."

...Michigan forests "are on the verge of recovering the beauty, grandeur and biological diversity which was the norm in Michigan before they were decimated," reads the Sierra Club's Michigan chapter Web site....

Mature forests also provide habitat for species that don't thrive in young forests, said [M.R.], such as moose, pileated woodpecker and the northern goshawk.

Snowy owl sighting?

I saw an owl flying through Saginaw Forest as I came home tonight. It was too dark to tell much from its silhouette other than it was an owl, and about the right size for it to be a snowy owl. This, of course, could have been me having snowy owls on my mind from the reported sighting almost 1 month ago. Imagine my interest when I saw this news story about snowy owls migrating southward in record numbers:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Apparently, there is an "irruption" of snowy owls. From the USA Today:

Scientists say the likely reason for the explosion is that the owls' chief food source, small animals called lemmings, was abundant last summer, allowing the adults to raise more young. Now, in search of food, young owls are heading farther south.

Although there are a few snowy owls spotted in Michigan every year, "I can tell you this winter is highly unusual," said Karen Cleveland, bird biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

...

By early December, there were 60 sightings in 10 lower Michigan counties and 34 in the Upper Peninsula, according to bird experts who track sightings.

New ones are reported almost every day, although some may be the same birds.

...

In Michigan, the owls mostly eat small voles, mice and rabbits. Some are healthy, but others are weak and stressed. As youngsters, not all are good hunters yet.

The birds are federally protected, and possessing them without a special permit is against the law. People should keep their distance from the birds and be careful not to disturb them, said Cleveland, with the state Department of Natural Resources. Spooking them causes them to use up energy and weaken them. Unless a bird is clearly injured, it shouldn't be disturbed, she said.

Well, the possible presence of snowy owls in the forest could explain why I haven't seen (or heard) too many small rodents around the cabin...

'Electronic' fishing is rapidly becoming surest way to find fish

Waaay back 1977, the Lakeland Ledger (Lakeland, FL) printed up a story about the new-fangled technology of using electronic gizmos to find fish. In this case, sonar units:

Sonar units are essential to locating most of the concentration points for fish... if you intend to do it in less than a lifetime!

What does this have to do with Saginaw Forest, though? Well, the article closes with a citation of a study that looked at dispersal of bluegill released in Third Sister Lake:

This inclination [of bluegill] not to wander [that was proposed by an Indiana study] was confirmed in another study on Third Sister Lake in Michigan. Of 27 bluegills marked, released, and later caught 12 had not moved at all and 15 had traveled less than 125 feet from their point of capture. Bluegills are just homebodies, it seems.

I can't speak to the methodology of the study (such as how did they track the fish, how did they account for bathymetry, what was their time interval between release and recapture, was Third Sister Lake effectively cut off hydrologically (when the lake level is low, almost no water flows west through the wetlands and into the adjacent property's pond), etc), but it's interesting to note that people had been doing fish behavior observational studies on Third Sister Lake. Perhaps more can be done in the future.

A day in history: Student outrage over 1,4 Dioxane

Way back on March 1, 1988, The Michigan Daily published an unsigned opinion piece about the 1,4 dioxane that was discovered under Saginaw Forest:

Polluters should pay

In 1986, 60 families living near the Gelman Science facility on Wagner Road in Ann Arbor were put on bottled water because dangerous levels of 1,4-dioxane were found in their wells by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It was also found that the chemical had been leaking into the groundwater beneath the Saginaw forest.

Numerous studies have shown that dioxane causes cancerous tumors in rats. It was also linked to birth defects at the Love Canal, a chemical dump.

Gelman has since hired three law firms to help them fight a State lawsuit for damages resulting from their irresponsible handling of dioxane. The company's lawyers have been trying every trick in the book to absolve Gelman of the blame.

Gelman's tactics are contradictory. Gelman refuses to admit that dioxane is harmful to people. At the same time, they maintain that Gelman is not at fault for damages resulting from dioxane because Dow chemical company, where Gelman obtained the dioxane, did not properly instruct them on how to handle it.

Whether or not Dow provided the proper instructions, it is ludicrous for Gelman to play the innocent victim in this case. The evidence suggests that Gelman knew that they were doing something wrong, and that they did it anyway. A company does not create the second worst toxic waste site in the state of Michigan by accident, according to the EPA.

• Gelman has known that there was a problem with the way they were disposing of dioxane for a long time. At least three times since February of 1981, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) distributed memos warning that dioxane was carcinogenit, and that the chemical could leak from its sewage lagoon and spray irrigation system into the groundwater.
• Two former employees of Gelman told the Ann Arbor News that they had been told to dump chemicals in what they thought was an improper manner.
• The company resisted performing studies and installing monitoring equipment that could have detected groundwater contamination before toxic chemical wastes migrated off company property.
• Gelman sprayed wastewater onto company land without a permit starting in 1972. It did not receive a permit for doing this until 1976, and this permit did not allow for spraying dioxane.
• Gelman has been extremely slow to deliver important data to the DNR. In July 1986, a hose carrying wastewater ruptured, spillint 18,000 gallons into the ground. Gelman didn't inform the DNR for 10 days, and the spill has still not been cleaned up.

Gelman exists to make a profit, and proper disposal of toxic waste costs money. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to monitor the activities of the private sector, and watchdogs such as the DNR lack the resources to deal with all the companies that are threatening people's health and lives. Moreover, it is the companies that can afford to hire the most lawyers, as well as the most expensive ones.

Everybody knows that a corporation will try to get away with whatever it can. But it has to be hoped that this will be one of those rare cases in which the company will be forced to clean up its own deadly, multi-million dollar mess.

Today, this remains an interesting piece of the history of Saginaw Forest. The caretaker back in 1987 wrote an entry about the "Gelman thing" -- something uncharacteristic in the tone of his entries (which mostly focus on stuff occurring inside the forest, and not wider issues). The relationship between the University of Michigan and PALL Life Science (who acquired Gelman several years ago) is normalized, and the extent to things that I've had to deal with PALL and 1,4-dioxane is quarterly monitoring visits from their techs and conversing with the security firm they hire to ensure that they know when SNRE students will be parking in their lot for the Homecoming campfire events. The only additional thing to this is when several monitoring wells were sporadically drilled from August 2010 until March 2011 (four sets of well holes drilled, three sets of wells installed). Hopefully, the "Gelman thing" will continue (with regard to Saginaw forest) to resolve itself into the future.

Origin of Saginaw Forest

Looking at a Google timeline for "Saginaw Forest", I came up with the following newspaper article from The Evening Argus on February 9, 1904:

The Saginaw Forest Farm

Eighty acres of land has been given to the University of Michigan to serve the needs of the department of forestry. The gift was made by Arthur Hill, of Saginaw, agent of the university, and one of the citizens of the state most active in the lumbering operations now nearly closed by the failure of the timber supply. This land will, it is hoped, be of great assistance in studies that shall in time result in reforestering those parts of Michigan and neighboring states that cannot more profitably be devoted to other purposes. The tract is situated a little over a mile west of Ann Arbor, about half a mile from an electric railway line. It is a typical piece of the low hilly land of the drift district, and contains as geart [sic] a variety of topographical and soil conditions as could probably be found in an area of this size. Its soils vary from heavy clay to sandy gravel, and in addition to its many other good features it contains a lake of clear water, 40 or 50 feet deep and covering 12 acres.

The tract is to serve as an object lesson in forestry and is planned to provide for: --

1. An arboretum of all useful forest trees suited to Michigan.
2. Demonstration areas for seed bed and nursery work.
3. Model plantation of forest trees.
4. Special experiment in forestry, such as the various methods of propagation of special kind [sic] of timber and the raising of particular kinds of forest poduct [sic], as well as for other practical purpose.

Owing to the important part that Saginaw has had in the lumber industry, the track has been christened "The Saginaw Forest Farm." -- U. of M. News letter.

Of the four points listed above, numbers 1 and 4 are really all that can be said to be continued from this original set of "object lessons in forestry". However, it's an interesting thing to come across the (I presume) original press release for the forest.

For those interested in the mention of the electric trolley (that was established before 1904, obviously), doing another web search for "electric trolley" and "Ann Arbor", I found a link to a book, Electric Trolleys of Washtenaw County, which describes their rise (in the 1890s) and fall (in the 1920s), to be replaced by buses.