A richer semester ~ with Maryam Barrie~
Year of Water
As part of the Sustainability Literacy Task Force (SLTF), I was drawn to Jerry Dennis’
The Windward Shore, which we have chosen for our first Green Read next year, 2012 -2013 (more on that
later this summer). A long time Michigan naturalist, Jerry has written much about
the rivers, streams, marshes, bogs, and lakes great and small to which those of us
in Michigan have easy access. Given that Michiganders are all within 6 miles of either
a creek or inland lake, and that at any point in the state you are no more than 85
miles from one of the Great Lakes, most of us Michiganders have many significant memories
of water. As a little girl I remember the luxury of being able to walk to the Saline
River, and the magic of standing on one of the wooden bridges in Curtiss Park staring
down at the white waves. I remember canoeing the Huron River, and the challenge of
portaging the canoe at local dams as a 12 year old. I remember visits to Lake Michigan
and its sandy beaches and dunes. I remember the excitement and terror of the new
Mackinac Bridge, crossing in windy weather at a slow crawl, and the sense of privilege
of having access to the Upper Peninsula, which was much wilder (of course! It had
more water!) than the town within an hour’s drive from Detroit where I lived. I remember
visiting Lake Erie in the 1970s, and the beach sullied with rotting
and dead fish. The fish were floating belly up in the water for the first twenty
feet at the shore. I remember local campaigns in that era to clean the Huron River,
and environmentalists arguing that we needed to protect our greatest resource as a
state – water.
When our children were small, my husband and I took them to the shore of Lake Superior several years in a row – wanting them to have the luxury of memories of wildness, the crash of waves, the Tahquamenon Falls, and the little miracle roadside Scott Falls we found outside Munising. Though I grew up in Saline, we had lived on a dead end road that closed with a corn field, which led to a woods, which had a stream, behind which were ever more woods and farm fields. In the 1960s, there were several dirt roads out of town that were safe to walk and bike on. When my husband and I realized that subdivisions upon subdivisions upon communities of mansions had replaced those farm fields and woods, and that there were no longer any dirt roads out of town that were safe to walk on, we moved. We now live on ten acres of oak and hickory trees, with a vernal pond at the north boundary of our land. As teenagers, our daughters were able to trawl for salamanders and see blue heron and sandhill cranes close at hand.
I look at my students these days and realize that many of them don’t live in the state I grew up in. In a world with many pressures and stresses, many of our students have had little opportunity to appreciate or understand the beauty and complexity of the water we have had here in such abundance. Many of our students are struggling with real financial limits as well as informational limits – for example, bottled water may initially appear a healthy choice them (and really, it is better for us than say, Mountain Dew). Understanding that our local drinking water is likely as clean and healthy as bottled water, and that drinking from a cup or bottle that you can wash and reuse many times over is much less costly and a more sustainable choice than spending a dollar on a one time use bottle of water that has been shipped from out of state is a perspective that involves considering many factors. My students this year were mostly working at least two jobs, struggling with debt, or with ill parents or dependent family members, and getting by on little sleep and no health insurance. Taking time to more deeply understand or even experience the natural world wasn’t something that they saw as a priority. The SLTF plans to choose a theme related to sustainability each coming year with which to educate and deepen understanding and appreciation throughout our WCC community. For the reasons listed here, along with many others, we’ve designated next year, 2012 – 2013 as the Year of Water. After all, we are in Michigan, and water is the natural starting place, isn’t it?
Maryam Barrie
English/Writing Department
Washtenaw Community College