04/09/2006

Honoring the 'green governor'

Former Republican governor fought to clean up state environment

By PATRICK SULLIVAN

psullivan@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Gov. William Milliken once asked his staff and Department of Transportation workers to collect trash along a couple of miles of highway.

"It was just appalling what they brought back into my large conference room, bags and bags and bags of the material that had been collected," Milliken said.

The garbage along the state's highways helped convince Milliken to support what then was a radical idea — Michigan's 10-cent bottle deposit law.

"It was a fight, because there were very strong vested interests that didn't like it," the former Republican governor said.

Milliken's support of the bottle return law — which the legislature refused to pass, prompting Milliken and his wife Helen to campaign for it in a 1976 referendum — is just one of many contributions he made to the state's environment, Milliken biographer and environmentalist Dave Dempsey said.

William and Helen Milliken will be honored April 21 at the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council's annual Environmentalist of the Year Celebration. Dempsey will be the event's featured speaker.

Dempsey, author of "William G. Milliken: Michigan's Passionate Moderate," believes the key to understanding why Milliken should be known as Michigan's "green governor" is his lifelong connection to Traverse City and his love of the state's natural beauty.

"An equal measure of his environmental ethic derived from living in such a beautiful region of the state," Dempsey said. "He was Michigan all the way. He is Michigan all the way."

Milliken, a Traverse City native, may have been a Republican governor, but he was willing to stand up to conservatives and business interests to put the environment first, Dempsey said.

Dempsey cited four achievements that highlight Milliken's commitment to the environment — the bottle deposit law, the Michigan Environmental Protection Act in 1970, the Wetlands Act of 1979 and the Natural Resource Trust Fund.

"He stuck his neck out and took some political risks that not too many politicians would have," Dempsey said. "He rebuffed some wealthy conservative supporters."

In one case, Milliken sparred with the Amway Corp. and its powerful co-founder Jay VanAndel.

Milliken backed a Department of Natural Resources proposal to limit the phosphorus content of laundry detergent, which scientists believed was responsible for outbreaks of algae in Lake Michigan and Lake Erie.

The algae threatened the life of the lakes, Dempsey said. Despite strong opposition from powerful conservatives, Milliken pushed the proposal and saw it enacted.

"It paid off. It had almost an immediate impact in reducing algae," Dempsey said. "People are not wandering around in dirty clothes and they're certainly not swimming in dirty lakes, either."

Helen Milliken is a notable environmentalist in her own right.

In the bottle deposit drive, she drummed up support from garden clubs across the state that helped the measure win by a 2-to-1 margin. She was an important supporter of the Pigeon River Hydrocarbon Development Plan. And she's on the board of directors for the Michigan Land Use Institute.

"There are those that say that she played a huge role in the environmental successes of the Milliken administration," said Hans Voss, executive director of the land use institute. "She is a deep and heart-felt environmental advocate."

Dempsey said he doesn't believe politicians since Milliken have had the same courage to stand up to special interests for the sake of the environment.

"There's a lot of lip service paid to that tradition," he said. Gov. Jennifer "Granholm has tried with mixed results. ... The special interest-dominated legislature ... doesn't want to see strong reform."

Political columnist George Weeks, who served as Milliken's press secretary and his chief of staff, said Milliken surrounded himself with good advisors to shape his environmental policies.

Threats to the Great Lakes became more apparent during Milliken's 1969-1982 tenure, Weeks said.

"It was apparent that there were these threats, and he was eager to deal with them, as were some others, both Republicans and Democrats," Weeks said.

Milliken remains committed to environmental issues in retirement.

"I think the critical area now is in the whole area of land use," Milliken said. "We are gobbling up farm land and open space at an alarming rate."

The award ceremony will take place April 21 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Waterfront Conference Center in East Bay Township.