| Great
Lakes Article: Land
trusts help protect Great Lakes, expert says
Greenbay Press-Gazette
Tony
Walter
Sept. 17, 2008 The growth of nonprofit and volunteer
land trusts provide one of the best opportunities to restore the health of the
Great Lakes, an environmental consultant told conservation, environmental and
business leaders Tuesday. The protection of land from development is "the
most significant and conscious effort to protect the watershed in my lifetime,"
said G. Tracy Mehan, a Virginia-based environmental consultant and former assistant
administrator for water with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mehan
spoke to about 100 people attending the Great Lakes Gathering at the University
of Wisconsin-Green Bay. The event, one of four to be held in Wisconsin in the
next month, was sponsored by the Gathering Waters Conservancy and the Lake Michigan
Shorelands Alliance. "The land trusts are helping to stop the runoff
that is restructuring the landscape," Mehan said. "But they also will
play a role in reaching long-term goals of preventing runoff." Mehan
said the remedial work being done to remove the harmful toxins from rivers and
the Great Lakes is valuable but isn't the key to healing the lakes. "If
people believe we will restore anything in the lake by ratcheting down on industrial
waste, they're kidding themselves," Mehan said. "It's a watershed problem,
not a discharge problem." Mehan said the Great Lakes Compact signed
by several states, including Wisconsin, is a positive step and will eventually
be approved by Congress. "But I'm not sure it's going to have a great
payoff economically or ecologically," he said. It's the land trusts
that hold the key, he said. "If the land trusts didn't exist, we'd
have to invent them," Mehan said. "It's the work of the land trusts
that will eventually lead to the lowering of phosphorous levels on farms and controlling
urbanization." Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt and Assistant Director of
Public Works Ed Wiesner outlined the steps the city has taken to protect the environment,
including the work of the Sustainable Task Force, the collection of pharmaceuticals,
the inclusion of bike racks on city buses and the special parking spots for hybrid
vehicles. "Don't underestimate how much people want to get engaged
in this," Schmitt said. | 
