1 of 15
211soldumping
School children learned about wise practices when they stenciled storm drains to remind Marquette, Michigan, residents where dumped chemicals go. CARL LINDQUIST2 of 15
211solbdwalk
Lakewalks like this one in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, bring human activity with a lower impact to the waterfronts of Lake Superior’s cities.3 of 15
211solssmfish
A by-product of the boardwalk in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has been increased fish habitat for the living versions of these carved salmon on the waterfront.4 of 15
2011solcanoe
Workers bring shrubs to Sanctuary Island, a fish habitat created along the waterfront in Thunder Bay, Ontario. LAKE SUPERIOR PROGRAMS OFFICE5 of 15
211solbdwalk
Lakewalks like this one in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, bring human activity with a lower impact to the waterfronts of Lake Superior's cities. LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE6 of 15
211solpop
Yellow dots represent population congregation in this Great Lakes graphic, making it easy to see why many feel Lake Superior, with its low population, has the best chance for controlled, reasonable development along its shores.7 of 15
211solssmfish
A by-product of the boardwalk in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has been increased fish habitat for the living versions of these carved salmon on the waterfront. LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE8 of 15
211solfish
On-going projects in the rural areas near Marquette, MIchigan, include monitoring of fish in stressed watersheds. CARL LINDQUIST9 of 15
211soldumping
School children learned about wise practices when they stenciled storm drains to remind Marquette, Michigan resident where dumped chemicals go. CARL LINDQUIST10 of 15
2011solduluth
Duluth, Minnesota, planners view lower impact projects along the waterfront as part of sustainable develoment, like these plans for HarborPlace along Superior Bay. Not everyone agrees such projects constitute "sustainability."11 of 15
211solashland1
On Ellis Avenue in Ashland, Wisconsin, older buildings like this one have been spruced up and preserved. MARY REHWALD12 of 15
211solashland2
This "after" shot shows an outside mural completed on one of the older buildings along Ellis Avenue in Ashland, Wisconsin. MARY REHWALD13 of 15
211solmeeting
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 LINDQUIST14 of 15
211solsinks
"Green" materials such as a countertop composed of soybean hulls and recycled newspapers helped create a "sustainable" dormitory for Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE15 of 15
211solnorthland
The Environmental Living and Learning Center on the Northland College campus lets students walk the talk when it comes to sustainable living practices. NORTHLAND COLLEGEFor better or worse, Lake Superior and its people are wedded. While its massive presence influences everything from the weather on its shores to the souls of its people, Lake Superior can suffer or flourish from decisions made by the basin’s human inhabitants. In this sixth annual review of life around the lake, Lake Superior Magazine focuses on a planning philosophy that might bring together the basin’s diverse voices into a common call for balance.
‘Sustainable development’ … a lot of people see that as an oxymoron - Jim Cantrill
Sustainable Thinking
When it comes to “sustainable development,” environmentalists, industrialists, developers and lakeshore residents are all in agreement …
They agree that not one of them can specifically define this most recent focus in planning philosophies.
But many also agree that this elusively defined philosophy might be the best chance out there to get everyone talking - together - about crucial decisions facing the Lake Superior basin without conversation disintegrating into combat.
Ask what “sustainable development” - or for the developmentally squeamish “sustainability” - projects exist in Lake Superior’s basin, and you will be regaled with an extraordinary range of examples like:
• School children spray-painting links-to-Lake Superior reminders on town storm drains.
• Cities weaning industrial operations from waterfront areas to create lower environmental impact businesses and lakewalks to attract visitors.
• Citizens restoring sites once contaminated by past ill-informed industrial practices.
• Lumber operations cooperating with multi-layered forestry management that not only ensures future log harvests but future ecological diversity.
The lists, like the definitions, seem endless. What, then, is “sustainable development?”
Essentially, it’s three legs for any project to stand on … planning that takes equally into account the environmental, social and economic impacts of actions. Give short shrift to any of the legs, and the stool becomes unstable and wobbly, just as the project would for those who believe in the three-way balance.
“Sustainable development,” as described in the 1987 report of a world commission on environment and development, strives “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
The concept has gained national and international attention. In the United States, the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in 1996 published a report titled, “Sustainable America: A new consensus for prosperity, opportunity and a healthy environment.” It followed an international lead from 10 years earlier.
Around the lake basin, states and communities are gathering their own councils on “sustainability.”
The Lake Superior Binational Program has encouraged a focus on “sustainability” within the lake basin. In defining the role of a “Developing Sustainability” Committee, however, the program’s Lake Superior Work Group, a collection of U.S. and Canadian government agency representatives, skirted a specific definition for outlining of broader concepts and dropped the word “development.”
Jim Cantrill, U.S. co-chair of the work group and a professor at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, outlines the three legs this way:
“You don’t want to save the environment to run everybody out of the basin. You can’t foreground just the economics … because that’s not going to be sustainable. You can’t sacrifice the (region’s) social values on the altar of economic and environmental sustainability.”
The concept in this region borrows in philosophy and language from cultures with a longer history around the lake: the Native American idea of the Seventh Generation.
While many elements of “sustainable development” started with moves toward environmental awareness in the 1960s, the concept gives humans a new role. Rather than putting humans outside the ecosystem as either simply users or abusers of it, sustainable development incorporates them into thinking about the system.
“At least for me, in resource management for 20 years, I felt I was looking at the landscape, I was looking at wildlife and I was looking at water quality, but when it came to human beings, I came to separate them as … part of the problem,” says Carl Lindquist, member of the Lake Superior Binational Forum and director of the Chocolay River Watershed Project.
“We are part of it. We are here to stay; we’ve been here since the removal of the glaciers.”
Cantrill agrees. “Agencies and industry across the board have come sooner or later to that decision: that we are part of the ecosystem.”
Some planners feel “sustainable development” is just a fancy term for what should be common practice.
“I think it’s one of those buzz words, with a nice, warm fuzzy feeling about it,” says Jim Hendricks, planning and development director for the city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
“It’s basic, fundamental garden-variety responsible planning.… Comprehensive planning, when developed properly, takes in all of the economic, environmental and social issues.… Thousands of competing issues have to be balanced to provide a community with quality of life.… You’d minimize the adverse impacts with anything you do.”
According to others, the “sustainability” may reflect the ability to sustain on-going discussions between groups that often find themselves in battle over development projects. Commitment to balance environmental, social and economic needs may give common ground for conversation.
“Is it simply a way of keeping those with diverse interests at the table talking? A way to try to balance the various and the sometimes conflicting views?” asks Mark Smith, long-range planning manager for Thunder Bay, Ontario.
“For me, it’s such an obvious concept, it’s like living within your means,” says Mary Rehwald of Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. She’s one of those who has been instrumental in gathering diverse groups for four years in a regional Alliance for Sustainability.
“Too often we build our bunkers and climb within them and lob our stones whether we’re on either the green or the brown side of the controversy,” says Cantrill.
Whatever name is given to integrated planning, all also agree that now is the time in the Lake Superior basin for local residents to take command of future development and preservation.
“Certainly, at the level of landscape, you’re dealing with a relatively pristine body of water, so there’s an imperative here,” insists Cantrill. “If you can’t start developing sustainable lifestyles in a place that hasn’t been raped over by the ravages of time, where can you do it?”
For those concerned with the health of Lake Superior, what happens in its narrow watershed remains vitally important.
“The lake isn’t an entity itself. It’s a product of the land around it,” says Mike Gardner with the Sigurd Olson Institute and the Inland Sea Society in Ashland.
Rethinking how to plan and mending wounds of past development vs. environment battles will take time, Cantrill advises. The benefits of opening the discussion will be reaped well beyond the present.
“When you look at sustainability, it is measured in generations, not years. The things that we do today, we may not see the results of in our lifetime,” he adds. “Whether they start today or tomorrow, it really doesn’t matter. Whether it starts sooner rather than later, that does matter.”
Remembering the Seventh Generation
For the Ojibway communities around Lake Superior, “sustainable development” is truly johnny-come-very-lately.
Traditional use of natural resources for the Anishinabeg and other native peoples always reflected the philosophy called “The Seventh Generation.”
The concept is simple, and culturally ingrained, explains Jim St. Arnold of Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) near Odanah, Wisconsin.
“When you do things today, you don’t do things for today, you do things for the future,” he explains.
The resources should be “protected not for your children or their children, but for children seven generations down.”
With that goes some other simple beliefs. People have their place within the natural systems and there is a give and take within that circle.
“It’s more of a teaching that puts things into perspective,” says Neil Kmiecik, also of GLIFWC. “When you take something, you always give something.”
St. Arnold gives an additional example of wise resource use: “A little to those who have gone. Some to those who are living. But most to those not yet born.”
Sustainable Cities
Lake Superior’s municipalities are looking to the waterfronts that created their past as they consider a “sustainable” future.
Both Duluth, Minnesota, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, point to makeovers of their downtown waterfronts as key to refreshed city identity and to future ability to attract economic growth. For Thunder Bay, Ontario, and smaller municipalities, the process of waterfront “reclamation” from strict industrial commerce into broader community use is gaining resident and financial support.
Not everyone sees such development as “sustainable.” City planners counter that the change inflicts less environmental stress than past uses.
“We’ve moved from a very industrial waterfront … to make it a pedestrian friendly place,” says Sault city planning director Don McConnell when giving examples of the city’s “sustainable development.”
The city created its St. Marys River boardwalk in about 1996. Stretching along much of the downtown waterfront, the walk emanates from the lock that became active in 1998 after years without use. The Canadian lock serves only non-commercial vessels, with the exception of the lock tour boats. In December, the city announced another development that will link to the walkway: a downtown casino run by the province. It’s one of four new casino developments approved within the province.
McConnell makes no apologies about the waterfront renovation’s main purpose: to attract tourism and tourist dollars. But the process of cleaning up the area and building that walkway attached the two other legs on the three-legged sustainable development stool.
The walkway and gathering place at Roberta Bondar Park has helped Sault residents to re-identify with the waterway that generated the city’s reason for being.
“On the social side of it, that’s a wonderful opportunity for people to go down there,” McConnell says. “You always take (visitors) down to the waterfront … to walk on the boardwalk. It’s part of a community identity now.
“That’s what makes Sault Ste. Marie unique, and people are very proud of it.”
The project’s environmental leg could be twofold. Less industrial use of the area puts less environmental pressure on it.
Meanwhile, creation of the boardwalk coupled with other waterfront projects boosted the fish population in that part of the St. Marys River.
“With our boardwalk development, we created a very good fish habitat,” explains McConnell. “It beats the heck out of old industrial development.”
Now the fish have become a renewable resource. The city hosts fishing derbies twice a year and locals take advantage throughout the season.
“Where else can you go and stand in front of city hall and catch fish during your lunch hour?” chimes McConnell. “You can’t do that in Toronto.”
Duluth, too, looks to its waterfront as a renewed resource. It and other waterfront projects are what Business Development Director Tom Cotruvo calls sustainable development.
“I think people may be doing ‘sustainable development’ and don’t call it that,” he speculates. Cotruvo recently went as Duluth’s emissary to a sister city in Bulgaria to create a sustainable development council.
“We have not been seeing economic development at any cost,” Cotruvo outlines changes in planning philosophies. “We’re looking for industries that are clean industries.”
Cotruvo cites Cirrus Design, an airplane manufacturer, and the “technology village” under construction as “sustainable development at a very high level.”
Construction of the city’s technology “soft center” meant removal of older, some say historic, buildings. But the new developers have promised construction that blends with historic downtown. And Cotruvo says the businesses that will locate there will have low environmental impact while creating jobs with higher economic and social benefits. This kind of development allows residents with advance educations to find appropriate local employment rather than needing to leave. That translates to sustainability of a community’s social foundations.
Duluth’s latest bayfront plan, while controversial for some, tries to incorporate the natural attributes of the water with a blending of retail, entertainment, educational and green spaces. The expanded area will incorporate retail options near the Great Lakes Aquarium, currently under construction, and guards open space for community events like the popular Bayfront Blues Festival.
“Certainly the whole Canal Park plan is using the natural resource … the lake being our greatest natural resource,” says Cotruvo.
Preserving, as well as employing, the natural resource is par for the sustainable course. Cotruvo, who’s been with the city for 25 years, says there’s been a change from heavy industrial development to economic plans with a more moderate environmental impact. With unemployment of only 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent, “we’ve achieved real success in our economy without sacrificing the environment and without sacrificing the social (aspects),” claims Cotruvo.
In its long range plan for economic diversity, the city does want to attract more industrial enterprises. Manufacturing accounts for only about 6 percent of Duluth’s economic base, well below the state average of about 18 percent.
While the “soft center” demolished some buildings, Cotruvo points to other downtown historic buildings that have been renovated thanks to grants and city encouragement. “This is sustainable development, I believe, because we’re going back to our resources, renovating them to give them another 100 years of life.”
Even the downtown system of skywalks are called “sustainable development” by Cotruvo because they make existing retail space more attractive to shoppers. “It’s addressing one of the limitations that we have which causes urban sprawl,” he explains.
Cotruvo says the city is evolving with slow, steady progress rather than dramatic change - another way to control development and its impacts.
Like his Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, counterpart, Cotruvo believes making the waterfront attractive to residents and visitors boosts the city’s pride.
The same is true to the north of Duluth, where Lake Superior’s largest municipality is tapping its water assets.
“We, too, are working toward the development of our waterfront,” says Mark Smith, Thunder Bay’s manager of long-range planning.
Smith says the city has been buying waterfront property and plans to seek help from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, available to various projects leading to economic development and job creation.
“We are going to be submitting an application for several million dollars to undertake work that will enhance our connection to the lakefront,” Smith says.
Plans for the south side of the city include a park on the shore of the Kaministiquia River. Such development again addresses the social and environmental needs of the area while using the resource.
“(Sustainable development) is a term that gets flipped around a little bit too frequently,” Smith cautions. “It must be consistent with preserving the value of the natural environment.”
In examining its next steps, the city of Thunder Bay released in January 1998 a plan called “The Next Wave,” outlining a variety of development, according to Smith.
Mapping of fish and wildlife habitat far beyond the urban limits will be part of the information gathered to assess environmental impacts of any plans.
“This process is taking a long time, longer than we had anticipated,” acknowledges Smith.
A change in planning philosophy can be illustrated in Thunder Bay with a specific reclamation project, according to Jake Vander Wal, manager of Lake Superior Programs Office.
Vander Wal describes a contaminated area in Thunder Bay Harbour, impacted by the former manufacturing practices of a wood-preserving facility.
Rather than simply clean up the damage, Vander Wal says, project planners considered wider implications and opportunities. He calls this process a reflection of the three-legged sustainable development model.
“The original thing was to clean up the sediments,” Vander Wal says. Negotiation with the company resulted in plans for a general cleanup of the area, plus improvement of public access and environmental enhancements.
The resulting $10 million project “improves the viability of the company to do work here, creates habitat, creates esthetics,” Vander Wal says. “We’re going to end up with value-added stuff.”
Planners say cities will look more and more toward value-added attributes when considering projects.
The change in attitudes about interaction with the environment will demand such consideration.
“The degree to which we value that component of the natural environment,” says Smith, “has grown by leaps and bounds.”
‘People are now realizing when you do development you have to think of all the impacts’ - Tom Cotruvo
Talking the Talk
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.
“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.
“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.”
‘What makes this unique … is that we’re looking at what’s best for Lake Superior.’ - Carl Lindquist
Walking the Talk
“The initial catalyst was we needed more beds … simple as that.”
But when Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, determined its “simple” need for more dormitory space, explains the college’s director of student development, meeting that need meant honoring the college’s environmental principles.
“The college has adopted a goal to become the leading environmental liberal arts college,” says Tom Wojciechowski. The college claims a 25-year-old environmental mission.
Three and a half years of meetings and $4.1 million later, the college opened its Environmental Living and Learning Center this past fall and took its sustainable living concepts from classroom to dorm room.
“We have to live the way we’re learning,” confirms Wojciechowski.
As with any “sustainability” project, the first decision came not in how and what to build, but whether to build at all.
“One of the philosophical questions was: ‘Should the college grow?’” Wojciechowski recalls. “To me, the strongest answer is if we are teaching people how to live softly … that’s greater than any negative impact of that growth.”
Wojciechowski acknowledges that the resulting two-story, 32,374-square-foot structure isn’t fully “sustainable.” But it probably comes the closest of any dormitory in the country.
“(It’s) one of the most environmentally advanced residence halls in the world,” William Mansfield III, former deputy executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, is quoted in a Northland brochure.
The building features construction materials and furnishings that met as many “green” criteria as possible, Wojciechowski says. Furniture of recycled plastic, bathroom countertops of soybean hulls and old newspaper and attic insulation of recycled newspaper kept sustainable manufacturing in mind.
Cedar shakes on the exterior walls were harvested in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula rather than requiring long-distance transportation and even the wainscoting uses wood derived from certified sustainable forests.
Some “green” features are surprising. The linoleum flooring may seem shades of the ’50s, but isn’t “your mother’s vinyl flooring,” Wojciechowski assures. Linoleum is made primarily of organic materials, linseed oil (from flax) and wood powder. “It’s durable, long-lasting, naturally anti-bacterial … and renewable because of the sources and it’s biodegradable.”
Hundreds of choices were weighed and not everything might be considered the most “green.”
The siding, for instance, is brick. Brick needs a great deal of energy in its production, but it has a 100- to 200-year life span. “It really is a green material from that perspective,” Wojciechowski says.
Helping to meet the building’s energy needs is a system of “green” generation: a 120-foot, 20 kilowatt wind tower, three free-standing photovoltaic (solar) arrays and 14 solar panels. The building should achieve energy and water efficiency at a rate 50 percent greater than a typical building.
Two apartments use a composting toilet, along with a conventional toilet that meets the legal code.
The dorm can house 114 students in three wings that offer double rooms, suites or apartments, as well as common areas and two greenhouses.
The “sustainability” experiment doesn’t end with the building, but includes the residents’ lifestyles. Retraining helps keep the human element on track. In the laundry, for example, a load in cold water costs 50 cents, but hot water boosts the price to a buck.
Wojciechowski also created a sustainability course mainly for the dorm’s students but open to others. One side lesson from this first course offering, says its instructor, was modification of the usual us-and-them mentality of students towards business enterprises.
Students discover that sometimes the “them” is “us,” he says. “Everything we do has some impact. We have to be aware of that and make some choices.”
Students also found that sound environmental practices now concern many industries. “Some of the very prominent leaders in the field are from industry,” acknowledges Wojciechowski. “Name a plant and it seems like there’s someone there who cares about this.”
Some of those leaders are Northland graduates, who land jobs in fields ranging from the “green” building industry to Ford Motor Company.
What students ultimately discover is that “sustainability” means weighing all of the needs.
“One of the things we’re finding,” Wojciechowski says, “is that a lot of the problems we’re facing need holistic approaches.”
Yet to Come
This has been a story of beginnings … the molding of attitudes and organizations to benefit Lake Superior and its peoples. The testing kiln of the future will determine whether these initial forms withstand the heat of increasing pressures on the basin’s resources. The final period on this page will not end the story for Lake Superior Magazine. In this 20th year of publication, the magazine renews its commitment to coming issues of vital importance to the lake, its inhabitants and visitors. In the coming months, look to these pages for stories on land and water use, the forest and paper industries and more examples of “sustainable” thinking practiced around the Great Lake’s shores.