By Dan Alstott
When we founded the Au Sable Manistee Action Council (AMAC) in 1987, Camp Grayling was virtually out of control. National Guard troops were trespassing, aircraft were buzzing private residences and the noise of cannon firing and bombs exploding went on all day and all night for days on end. This had to stop, as residents and tourists could not sleep. Children were scared so badly that vacations were cut short. Many dogs spent many days hiding under beds. The Army was arrogant and disdainful toward those who took exception to their terrible behavior.
As an initial action, we promised our contributors and supporters that we would try to stop much of this by attempting to determine what Rasmus Hanson meant in his grant of 14,000 acres to the state, when he said it would be used as a Fresh Air Camp for government employees, a Nature Preserve, a Forest Preserve and as a Permanent Maneuvering Ground for the Militia of this State and "for no other purposes." Did he intend for many states and nations to use his donated land or not? AMAC went to court on this and, after several years of dodging and weaving by all manner of State entites, including its Department of Military Affairs, the State Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal. So, nobody yet knows what the intent of Hanson was, because no Court would hear the AMAC lawsuit. The camp now covers 147,000 acres and is available for use by any military unit that may apply from anywhere in the Free World. No help from local and state courts this time!!
During this court fiasco, we were able to get then Governor Blanchard to appoint a Camp Grayling Management Advisory Committee (CGMAC), whose mission was to find out the extent of Camp Grayling's problems and to implement corrective measures. This committee was quickly split into two opposed factions through the intervention of one Colonel Brian Downey, the Michigan National Guard's chief Public Relations officer. This resulted in a lack of consensus because of the Guard's dissenting faction issuing "minority position papers" whenever things were not going their way. Despite all this the CGMAC did accomplish some important changes, such as stopping heavy weapon firing three hours after sunset, as opposed to firing 24 hours per day for several days straight during each twoweek training period. They also created a moratorium on heavy weapon firing on Trout Opening weekend and on major summer holiday weekends of Memorial Day, July Fourth and Labor Day. Other constructive changes also were adopted despite the National Guard's continuous attempts to "monkey-wrench" the proceedings.
Interestingly, Colonel Downey threatened to have this writer arrested and prosecuted under federal law for "stealing federal property" (picking up military debris) from the forest to show to the committee. When we told him to "do it now" and that we would wait for his military police to arrive, he quickly backed away from that position. What a circus that would have been!!
During this period, the National Guard came out with an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) covering all sorts of projects at Camp Grayling. These Guard guys really were going all out, with over tweny projects on their shopping list, including a new all encompassing firing range and even a new dirt landing strip alongside the Manistee River to enable their C130's to practice "assault landings" under highly simulated combat scenarios. The primary motivation here was to get all their goodies in place so they could be more competitive in attracting more military units to train at Camp Grayling. The old "Bigger is better" syndrome!!
This EIS was so badly prepared that AMAC, with the help of the Anglers of the Au Sable and other opposing groups were able to get it withdrawn and sent back to the drawing boards. After many months, we heard that the EIS contractor had been dismissed and that the Guard itself was coming out with a scaled back version. That finally emerged just a few months before the nearly $9-million federal funding commitment was to expire. All that was left of the 20+ projects were two minor fueling facilities, which were a betterment, and the new firing range. The Assault Landing Strip was history and the Manistee River folks could breathe a little easier. Not so for those affected by the new multipurpose firing range!!
We had promised in the beginning that AMAC would go to Court if required to prevent the construction of a new Multipurpose Range Complex Heavy (MPRCH) on the site of the Camp Grayling Tank Range. We did file suit in the Lansing Federal Court in an attempt to stop this new high tech shooting gallery because the Environmental Impact Statement was still so poorly done and the new range would act as an attractive feature to lure all manner of additional trainees who would be able to fire "every conventional weapon in the US Army inventory," according to Vern Andrews, our former adjutant General under Governor Blanchard. We drew a Judge who was appointed by President George Bush and who also was an Army Reservist. Given the "hawkish" nature of George's party and our request being to stop new military construction, it really came as no surprise that the National Guard won and got itsnew $9,000,000 range with the help of special government lawyers who were brought in from coast to coast. No help from the Federal Government here!!
During these later fiascoes, the National Guard was doing pollution testing on its Artillery Range, under a directive (Consent Order) from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), issued when David Hales was its director. Dr. Hales later found better places to work and a far less courageous director came into the picture in the person of Rollie Harms, who presided over the dismantling of the DNR by the governor's newly appointed agent named Russell Harding (nicknamed Darth Vader by some ). Harding now heads the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the splinter agency now in charge of Michigan's environment. We recently learned that old Rollie is working for the Michigan Oil & Gas Industry as a consultant, after retiring from his emasculated DNR.
For obvious reasons, the DNR was in chaos. Attempts by AMAC's expert professionals to intervene in setting better testing protocols were outright ignored by DNR and later, DEQ staff.
The DEQ at the bidding of present Governor Engler continues to give every appearance of being soft on polluters.
We found out, early on, that the testing consultants were putting the best possible spin on their findings in order to create a favorable outcome for their military customers. This went so far at one time as to have those consultants blame local anomalies on "Rogue Glacier" activity accounting for observed local background values "exceeding" established norms. Reports were changed to the extent that final summaries were totally incomparable and out of phase with drafts. In short, the Guard's testers were, in our opinion, "cooking the books." But the DNR/DEQ continued to ignore this whenever we pointed it out.
Testing work plans were designed to tap dance around the real problems and to find as little pollution as possible. A prime example of this is the fact that only seven tests were run inside Camp Graylng's 7,000-acre artillery/bombing impact area. And, these were all remote from central points of high explosive munitions impact craters. The National Guard spent about $2 million doing these skirt-the-real- problem tests. AMAC and the Anglers were never convinced otherwise.
It seemed we were near the end of our rope on the testing subject, however, one major accomplishment was achieved concerning open burning of unused gunpowder. Artillery rounds are shipped in packages containing the projectile and a specific number of bags of propellant. If the shot is aimed at maximum range, all the bags are inserted into the cannon behind the projectile and are used up. For lesser range shots, fewer bags are used, leaving some as unusable waste. During actual combat these bags of gunpowder are customarily burned off in shallow trenches to prevent unauthorized use. That was the case for decades during training at Camp Grayling until it was determined that this action was poisoning the ground, whereupon it was stopped by order of the DEQ. Score one for our side!!
Then, new pollution developments at the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR) began to be uncovered by a local environmental intervenor group working in league with investigative reporters from the Cape Cod Times. This resulted in the US EPA, Region 1, issuing a Cease Fire order for the MMR until the pollution findings there could be remedied. Staff from Camp Grayling had earlier scurried out to Massachusetts armed with their tap-dance testing documents in an attempt to monkey-wrench local, regional and federal efforts to get things right. AMAC and the Anglers interacted with local interveners and reporters on Cape Cod giving them positive reinforcement data which assisted them in getting the Cease Fire order into place.
The severity of weapons related pollution at the MMR, which used the same weapons as Camp Grayling, to a lesser extent and over a shorter period of time, convinced us that our low opinion of the testing at Grayling was accurate. This led us to aproach the US EPA region 5 in Chicago, asking for their review and oversight of the Camp's testing program. Our first submittal became "lost in the mail" according to Chicago staff and had to be resubmitted. This request made the Guard and the DEQ quite anxious and the guard began calling on the EPA Chicago staff in person.
The DEQ asked for a meeting with AMAC and its consulting staff wherein they promised to "regard your comments from now on." This was like locking the barn after the horses have escaped or been stolen, as the case may be. The regional director of EPA's Chicago office retired, and was elected as President of Lithuania during the time EPA took to review our request.
The upshot of the EPA review was to explain to us that Camp Grayling's situation was different than that at Cape Cod and they essentially brushed off our request, except to offer to act as a peacemaker between AMAC, the DEQ and the Department of Military Affairs (DMA). The EPA offered this because they sensed that our "working relationship" was strained. That was putting things mildly at best. Our response to EPA Chicago was not a happy letter which ended with:
"You need to know that this dismal experience with your office and its equally dismal outcome has served one very useful purpose. It confirms and reinforces our belief that there are few places in the USA that concerned citizen critics of any facet of government can go in hope of being granted relief. We have watched this process worsen for more than ten years, wherein all the involved governmental agencies under challenge, from local to federal, collectively circle their wagons and merge together under a cover of sovereign immunity, insinuation, half truths, lies, threats and disdain, casting an unfortunate aura of skepticism over even the best of intentions. The courageous action of EPA Region 1 at the MMR is a notable exception to this syndrome. It is like a breath of fresh air."
Again, no help from the Feds here!! We have not heard back from the EPA but rumor has it that tere are new rules coming out regarding testing at military impact areas which may enable us to reopen this matter in the future.
Finally, one of the bones we got out of the MPRCH lawsuit was a commitment that the new range would result in lower noise levels. We were skeptical but hopeful until July 20, 1997 when all hell broke loose at Camp Grayling. The noise from weapon firing got so bad that Combat Veterans from past wars became disoriented and suffered flashbacks to events that took place more than 50 years ago. We obtained the computerized noise records from Camp Grayling for that day and compared them with records of a similar day in 1991. These comparisons showed that the 1997 noise was 14+% higher in Lovells and 44% higher at Stephan Bridge. That shows the value one can place on a commitment from the National Guard. We will be taking action on this violation of trust before the 1998 summer training begins. RWOL
© Copyright 1998 - , Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified: February 11, 2002
