Watershed District

[lshauser]

Letter to the Leelanau Enterprise (Sept. 18, 2008) by Erik Zehender
Watershed District

The time has come to officially recognize the Lake Leelanau watershed district. Six townships write disparate zoning and tax regulations that directly impact the quality of Lake Leelanau. But as hillside moonscapes increasingly testify and anyone living in Bingham, Centerville, Elmwood, Leland, Solon or Suttons Bay townships has long known, the quality of our lake and the watershed that feeds it are actually no one’s responsibility.

Neighboring counties demarcated their watersheds long ago. Whether organized from the grassroots “up” by a non-profit that has traditionally monitored water quality like the Lake Leelanau Lake Association (LLLA) or from the top “down” as a special county-mandated inter-township overlay zone – as property values stagnate, the need for a district has never been more urgent to watershed property owners paying mortgages on over $1 billion of Lake Leelanau “quality” dependent real estate.

Property investment linked to Lake Leelanau can be as profitable in the future as it’s been in the past, but not if well-intentioned community planners
are constrained by arbitrary township borders drawn before anyone knew that the lake and the watershed are ecologically an inseparable, single jurisdiction. Ignoring this reality in our planning can only further diminish our lake and puts all of our property values further at risk.

As a former LLLA officer, I thank my mother Susan Nichols for hosting 80 “Legacy” donors at Fountain Point this weekend. These generous donors
have raised awareness and are protecting Lake Leelanau from ecologically reckless developments that profit the few at the cost of the many. Thank
you.

Erik Zehender
Kensington Court, London, United Kingdom