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Public Docks
August 20, 2004
An editorial in today’s Holland Sentinel really aggrevated me this morning. The author, an event planner for the Piper Restaurant, has noticed the need for more public docks, restaurants and hotels on Lake Macatawa, close to downtown. Her realization is not that extrordinary, but her suggestion is - and I’m appalled.
She suggests we “dredge the marsh” at Window on the Waterfront and build boating access and hotels, shops and resaurants in that area. She comments that the current focus on developing new Kollen Park is futile, since there is no room for expansion due to waterfront industries. This is not true. But more on that in a moment.
The part that upsets me is her blatant disregard for keeping Window as natural as it can be. Dredging the marsh to create better boat access would ruin vital habitat for the local animal and insect populations. Marshland is extremely important for ecology, especially since it is engangered because so many people do see it as expendable. Why destroy the little we have left in this area? Sadly, economic gain, in Holland, is often placed in front of environmental protection.
That said, there is room for waterfront expansion in Holland, but it is in the far future. Among my many visions for this area, I see a waterfront devoid of Padnos and the powerplant. Some industries cannot be moved from the lake, Brewer’s City Dock and Verplank’s, but the others can be moved. Padnos uses mostly truck and rail for its transportation, and therefore could be moved off the waterfront. Other fuels and alternative energy could lead to the decommisioning of the power plant. And, as we have learned in the past week, Lake Michigan Contractors is already vacating the waterfront to make room for a new restaurant.
Therefore, there is no need to destroy the marshland we need so dearly to support the local ecology. All that is required are goal-minded people willing to enact change on already developed areas in order to improve the local water-related economy.
Posted by paul at August 20, 2004 08:46 AM
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Comments
ben said on August 20, 2004 11:41 PMPaul for Mayor.
Murph said on August 26, 2004 02:13 PMYour site looks great
Paul, you remind me a lot of (pause for googling...) an article that Utne published last year, A Greener Shade of Right, about how conservatives used to be conservationists, and only recently did the environment become the sole domain of the left. (There was another article in the issue that was about the current state of Republican environmental groups, but I can't remember it well enough to google it.) The fact that you quote Roosevelt in your next post seals it.