As this article in Crain’s Detroit Business describes, as Michigan rises from the Great Recession, housing and commercial development is coming back to Southeast Michigan and our watershed.
What does this mean for our watershed? Should we “rouse the troops” and rejoin the fight against the development that raged throughout the 90’s and 00’s?
Here at HRWC, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to address the issue of development as it returns. The greatest threat to our watershed is the altering of the watershed’s ecology and hydrology due to runoff pollution caused not by any particular sources, but by buildings, pavement, lawns, and farm fields. And so, this is a very important issue for the watershed.
The typical development patterns of the recent past consumed large areas of farmland and natural areas and created large amounts of impervious surfaces such as roads, parking lots and rooftops.
To maintain the Huron Watershed’s health into the future, we need to encourage a different land development pattern; one that consumes less land per person and creates as little impervious surface as possible. This means higher density where built infrastructure already exists, and the preservation of natural areas where “Green Infrastructure” (i.e. wetlands, forests, creeks, lakes, etc.) exists so those lands can continue to provide ecological services necessary to maintain quality of water, air, land, and life.
Here are some resources to check out to learn more about how Smart Growth can help preserve water quality:
HRWC publications related to Smart Growth
Protecting Water Resources with Higher Density Development