In rural areas around Lake Superior, laying the groundwork for “sustainable dialogue” is crucial for consideration of sustainable development, say organizers of such community discussion.

Two examples - one in the Chequamegon Bay area of Wisconsin and the other around Marquette, Michigan - illustrate how communities can work to keep the three “sustainable” legs of society, economy and environment in mind when planning their future.

Dialogue among all interests becomes essential in making sustainability a priority, says Mary Rehwald, a member of the Ashland (Wisconsin) City Council and director of the Lifelong Learning Center at Northland College. She helped to organize her region’s Alliance for Sustainability some four years ago.

The alliance brings together 21 members from diverse backgrounds and with at least one representative from the governments of Ashland, Bayfield, Washburn, La Pointe (on Madeline Island) and the Red Cliff and Bad River bands of Chippewa.

The group’s vision statement says: “The Alliance for Sustainability acknowledges its responsibility for leadership in creating a sustainable community. A sustainable community respects its own diversity and accepts responsibility for the social, economic and ecological well-being of the present and future generations through individual and collective actions.”

“I would say the most important thing that we’ve done would be to have educational luncheons,” Rehwald says. 

Regular monthly meetings of the alliance create a foundation for discussion when difficult issues come to the fore, she adds.

“Rather than specific projects, it’s … been an understanding of the terminology,” says Mike Gardner, a member of the alliance, president of the Inland Sea Society and team leader in the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. “The collective whole of it is leading in a positive direction.”

The alliance representatives have personal emphases ranging from developing business to preserving natural habitat.

“First you decide on what it is we all agree on,” Rehwald says of organizing the alliance.

Some past development battles left scars between various interests and closed discussion. “A lot of people still aren’t engaged because of wounds from previous battles,” Gardner says.

Such polarization might be possible in urban areas, but can’t linger in a rural setting where people must work together on problems and opportunities, they say.

The knowledge and discussion stimulated by the alliance will pay off in “sustainable” planning choices, Rehwald believes. 

This is a critical time for Lake Superior communities to set their own direction, the two organizers say. Planning decisions must balance preservation of lands and lifestyles while responding to the local needs and outside influences.

In writing about the alliance’s history, Rehwald outlined the complexity of problems facing this rural area: “Imagine two small towns with aging industrial infrastructures and high property taxes trying to attract new industries, next to two towns catering to second homeowners, all in between two Chippewa tribes.”

Concerns abound. As the area becomes increasingly attractive to visitors, the land values around Bayfield, for instance, are soaring. It worries Rehwald that long-time residents may not be able to afford their own properties because of land-value (and hence tax) increases. At the same time, outside businesses wanting to tap the tourist traffic have their own design plans that may or may not fit the communities’ small-town personalities.

On Ellis Avenue in Ashland, Wisconsin, older 
buildings have been spruced up and 
preserved like this one before (top) 
and after (bottom) an outside mural 
was completed. MARY REHWALD

“Land-use planning has become a new direction inside the alliance,” Rehwald says.

In her history of the alliance, she wrote: “The real test of our work will come when a big developer emerges on the stage. We hope that when this happens, we have had enough discussion about good land use plans to be able to ask for what we want (i.e. knowing what it is we want!).”

Gardner and Rehwald each point to regional projects that try to balance environmental, economic and social needs. 

Two of the groups Gardner and Rehwald represent, the Inland Sea Society and the Lifelong Learning Center, have sponsored a community stewardship certification program that’s trained 98 people in stewardship principles.

Community planners are developing guidelines to guard the aesthetics of the Highway 13 corridor connecting the towns in anticipation of development pressures. The same applies within Ashland to Ellis Avenue, which is Highway 13.

Sustainable principles will come into play for the Bay City Creek Task Force, which wants to restore the health of the creek’s watershed and to maintain an “environmental corridor” along the creek, which flows through Ashland.

Farther east along the Lake Superior shore, another community is organizing around its watersheds.

The Marquette Sustainability Council focuses on waters draining into the lake.

The council’s vision for a “sustainable community” declares: “As citizens of the Greater Marquette Watershed (including all Marquette County communities with waters draining into Lake Superior), we believe that the quality of life we enjoy today means little if it jeopardizes the quality of life our great grandchildren will experience.…”

The council is about a year and a half old, says Carl Lindquist, Chocolay River Watershed Project director and Lake Superior Binational Forum member. “Like any of these initiatives, we pulled in a lot of partners.”

The council is broken into five groups concerned with forestry, lakeshore development, recreation, land trust for the county (trying to protect and preserve undeveloped lands) and economic and social needs. Under the umbrella of the council are three watershed projects, each facing different issues.

The Whetstone watershed in downtown Marquette faces, among other things, urban storm-water runoff problems. Those working in the Carp River watershed are addressing issues of mercury contamination from past mining practices. And in his own Chocolay watershed, Lindquist explains, the issues concern new development in the mostly rural region dominated by forests and farms.

“What makes this collaborative unique to me … is that we’re looking at what’s best for Lake Superior. We’re combining these three distinctly different watersheds - one contaminated, one rural and one urban,” says Lindquist. “To me, the idea that you can have social, environmental and economic sustainability is wonderful, and I firmly believe in the concept.… If we can do it community by community, which is what’s happening now, I see the potential for real results.”

Lindquist sees the Marquette Sustainability Council’s influence overflowing its watersheds. 

“We can serve as a role model for other communities in the Lake Superior basin.”

The watershed projects have organized cleanups along the waterways, encouraged education projects, such as having students stencil city storm water drains with warnings about dumping, and became involved in setting development rules.

In the Chocolay project, Lindquist says, the group works to sustain fish habitat and the “viewshed the pretty pristine views” and improve water quality.

“We work with forestry industry and small operators for better approaches to logging.… A logging practice up in the hills can ruin fish habitat miles downstream,” he explains. “We’re working with farmers, working with developers, working with the road commission.”

The group is working on reclamation projects, such as with the U.S. Air Force to clean groundwater contamination by jet fuels and substances from a now-closed base.

Opening a discussion among diverse groups 
and getting residents to plan their own 
developmental futures as they are here 
during a meeting in Michigan is a crucial 
component to making a region “sustainable.”
CARL LINDQUIST

“For the most part people feel sustainability is an education process and a prevention approach, but it can also be correction of problems from the past.”

Lindquist sees unsound land-use practices stemming more from a lack of knowledge than a lack of concern.

“Sustainability is tying these things together,” he says. “When you explain to a logger and landowner that we’re all in this same watershed and that what you’re doing up here affects people downstream, the light goes on a lot of the time.”

Copyright 1999 Lake Superior Magazine