Michigan's Natural Resources Trust Fund takes oil and gas revenues from land where the state owns rights and puts the money back into buying and developing parks and environmentally important land. One potential Trust Fund buy is a public access site at the mouth of the Gratiot River in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Here's the river:
http://www.northwoodsconservancy.org/grpark.htm
But at a hearing in Lansing this week, several legislators suggested they'd rather spend the Trust Fund on reimbursing local governments for taxes they don't get on state-owned land, or removing dams, or balancing the budget, or whatever. One legislator said the state owns enough land already. (Not apparently realizing that many of the lands bought with Trust Fund dollars end up in conservancy or local government ownership.)
That means this year's list of 15 land purchase projects worth $26.03 million in state funds and 26 development projects worth $6.14 million are at risk. Including the 270,000-acre land deal The Nature Conservancy brokered in the U.P. and the magnificent Saugatuck Dunes on Lake Michigan.
Time to gear up for a fight to protect, once again, this constitutionally-protected fund.
Posted by Dave at February 26, 2005 12:18 PM