2 minute read
Letter from our WLAC Board President
CONTENTS
02 Letter from our WLAC Board President By Michael Hatch
03 2022 Calendar of Events 04 Mill Pond: A Lasting Legacy By Lauren Macintyre
06 Classic Cottages of Walloon: Part Two By Lauren Macintyre
08 Clean Boats = Clean Water By Russ Kittleson
09 Move Your Wake, Respect The Lake By Connor Dennis
10 Nature Via Water By Jac Talcott 11 Ways to Give 11 Ellis Woods Expansion Project
12 Over a Century on Walloon: The Wilhoit/Ice/Smith Family By Lauren Macintyre
15 The Crooked Tree District Library: A Walloon Lake Treasure 16 Member Thank You 16 Recipes By Chef Eric Latcham 17 In Memoriam
ANNUAL MEETING
Please join us for our first in-person Annual Meeting since 2019. We will be honoring a notable Wallooner with the Damschroder Award this year along with a special keynote presentation, Walloon: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. August 4th, 2022 at 4:00pm The Talcott in the Village
Letter from our WLAC
BOARD PRESIDENT
Dear Friends,
Extraordinary times call for extraordi-
nary measures. A cliché but also an understatement when describing the alignment of converging pressures we must overcome here at the WLAC. With property values ascending new heights, the quickening of generational succession, and of course the COVID demand and supply-chain inflation on all our minds, these macro forces are felt by many. Combining these forces plus the unique challenges that impact our small Up North community, makes it critical that we all work together and contribute our boldest solutions.
This season, the WLAC Board of Trustees and staff are embarking on developing a long-range vision and intrepid 5-year strategic plan (2023 - 2028). Paramount to this process is a basic agreement of what we are all working for: protecting Walloon. Perhaps this is best illustrated by understanding a “worst-case scenario.”
The photos included are from a case study recently presented by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy on advancing shoreline best practices on inland lakes. The first is an aerial photograph from 1938 of a small wetland area of Lake X (unnamed here so as not to shame anyone). Exhibited is a healthy, ecologically productive and undeveloped shoreline/wetland/lake interface. Seventy-six years later in 2014 (in one lifetime – let that sink in), you can see the lakefront development and overcrowding that has occurred on Lake X.
Across the seven decades documented in these photos, 48% of this lake’s productive shoreline wetlands were destroyed, contributing to an ever-decreasing water quality. The cumulative impacts of harmful shoreline alterations, non-point source pollution, run-off from impermeable surfaces and overloading the environmental carrying capacity is a sure way to expedite the inevitable demise of a lake.
