(upbeat music) - Celebrating vibrant people, captivating places, and remarkable things.

This is "Living West Michigan."

(upbeat music continues) - [Presenter] Celebrating our vibrant community together, powered by your dedicated support.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - We all know West Michigan is home to beautiful sceneries of nature, largely known for the breathtaking beaches across Lake Michigan.

And while we reap the freshwater's recreational benefits, this next organization is working hard to ensure natural resources, like Michigan's Great Lakes, are protected.

The Annis Water Resource Institute.

- When people look at on our waterways, we say, "Oh, there's enough water to last forever," right?

But we don't wanna think of it that way.

- We have a resource here that's far, far more precious than all the petroleum reserves in the world.

- People have to have it for life.

It's not a luxury.

It's an essential.

- [Alan] One thing we don't wanna do is exploit them in a way that's non-sustainable.

- Having people that understand these aquatic ecosystems and can develop those policies just seem like a critical step to have.

- These are visions we need to dare to make.

We're all mostly water.

Conserving the greatest body of fresh water on the planet should be a top priority.

- [Narrator] With more than 3,000 miles of shoreline, 36,000 miles of streams, and almost 11,000 inland lakes, water is a defining feature of Michigan.

Since 1986, the Annis Water Resources Institute has dedicated itself to numerous research projects and water education.

- We help inform the community about water-related issues.

We provide information to them, data that we've collected that helps the local municipalities make better-informed decisions about water-related issues.

- We're not even limited to just the Great Lakes.

My colleagues, some of them work on the watersheds of Eastern Europe, and I work with colleagues in Spain.

- We've had folks from Poland, and most recently, we've had twice now a group of women from Africa.

- So in that sense, our footprint is bigger than not just local.

Although our focus from the beginning has been to provide science to the society here.

(inspiring music) I'm just an observer of ecosystem change.

About 15, 16 years ago, I got funded by EPA on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for having this buoy on this lake, which is one of area of concerns in the Great Lakes because of its legacy of pollution and land use impacts.

These observatories can give a very powerful image of fine-scale ecosystem change, be it in oxygen, be it in chlorophyll that traces algal biomass.

Very powerful way of repeatedly measuring an ecosystem remotely and in a way that doesn't pollute the system.

The sensors go on, and they work and then come back.

And then the most important thing is these observatories can relay information in real time.

You can share them with the world, a real-time data of how the ecosystem is behaving.

- Each lake is unique.

They each need an individual diagnosis.

We can't make generalizations about, you know, one lake applying to another one.

For Muskegon Lake in particular, which we sit on here, our research over the last 20 years has basically shown the Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, now EGLE, that the lake has met its restoration targets.

And hopefully this year, if not next year, we will be delisted as an area of concern in the Great Lakes, which will be a huge, huge achievement.

And it wouldn't happen without the science showing rigorously that we've met these restoration targets.

- I have a pending request with EPA to continue to fund it because it's very important not to declare area of concern like Muskegon Lake delisted and go away, walk away from it.

It's very important that we monitor it.

So none of those original problems reoccur.

The most meaningful thing I do is share my science with society with no limits or conditions.

Like the observing system data, it's openly, unconditionally shared, whether it's a student or as a fisherman, can figure out the science.

I think in that sense, sharing my science with society is the most meaningful work I see myself as doing in my position.

- [Narrator] From young school children to graduate students learning about water policy, AWRI's educational cruises have reached over 192,000 people.

- Planting that seed for the next generation becomes a really, really important part of what we do.

Get 'em excited about being out on the water, giving them a little bit of an understanding of how our aquatic ecosystems function, how special they are, how important they are to West Michigan and our culture.

If we can light a little spark in a young person's mind at this point, that might motivate them to look down the road into the future and think, "Boy, this is just really, just really fun."

- And I would say every fifth or seventh graduate student has been on our vessels too.

- I went to school locally and went out on the Jackson in like, sixth grade I think.

And so it's cool now to like go on it for the three times a year monitoring.

So I got my undergrad in zoology and then focused in marine biology.

So I've always been kind of aquatics-based.

And then I applied to the Master's of Biology program here and emphasized in aquatic sciences.

And so then my advisor, Dr. Biddanda reached out and was just kind of interested in having me in his lab, and I was interested in being here.

So we just came up with some research ideas.

- You know, we have two vessels.

One here, that Jackson is here.

The Angus is on Grand River in Grand Haven.

So between them, most of West Michigan school children have been on our vessels.

- So we're able to subsidize the vast majority of the expense or the cost of operating our boats, which is the expensive part of all of that, and only charge a small fee to the schools, any groups that wanna come on the boats for that educational experience.

The water policy program, I felt that that was a critical degree to start.

There's very few programs around the country that are explicitly water resource policy.

And in my mind, in the future, water is gonna be one of the most critical aspects of life.

Water is essential.

People have to have it for life.

It's not a luxury.

It's an essential.

And I've seen so many changes in the last 40 years since I've been involved in aquatic sciences in our water resources, that having good policies in place, having people that understand these aquatic ecosystems and can develop those policies just seemed like a critical step to have and a program that we could really support given our location in West Michigan.

- So I came when this building opened in 2001 as director.

We had about 15 staff and students, and now we're up to about 65.

And then this building that we're sitting in right now was the largest capital campaign that Muskegon had done to that point because they were so interested in bringing the institute to the shoreline into Muskegon Lake.

Here's one example that I think is telling.

When I got here in 01, you know, I knew people in the Great Lakes region, even though I'd come up from working on the Everglades in Florida, and I said to them, "Look, I'm new to the area.

If there's opportunities to collaborate, please let me know as we develop our own research program here in Muskegon."

And now they come to us and wanna collaborate with us because we've established ourselves in such a way that we're a go-to institute.

So I think that's really indicative of the status that we've attained over time.

There are things that we all can do as individuals.

And collectively, they will make a difference.

- We can all work at the local level, at the watershed level, to try and improve conditions within our local region.

If everybody kinda got together and took that approach, working on within their own watershed, within their own system collectively, then I think we can start to see the benefit within the Great Lakes.

- What is the one thing that we can do, Al, to make sure that, you know, we take care of the Great Lakes for future generations, I tell them it's vote wisely because their elected officials will making huge decisions about how our natural resources are treated in the future.

So that would be the ultimate solution.

- Oceans have what are called marine-protected areas where you're not allowed fishing, mining, and other things.

We need something like that for the Great Lakes.

These are visions we need to dare to make so that someday they may come true.

They're part of us.

We are all mostly water, yeah.

Conserving the greatest body of fresh water on the planet should be a top priority.

Being next to 20% of the fresh water reserves on the planet, that we have a resource here that's far, far more precious than all the petroleum reserves in the world.

It deserves sincere and serious protection for the future.

(inspiring music) - We're staying outdoors for this next segment and saying hello to Michigan's Department of Natural Resources.

Our friend Heidi is giving us an inside look at some beautiful spots in Saugatuck and Muskegon.

So strap on your hiking boots as we take a trip through the trails.

(upbeat music) - [Melina] To many, the ecology of West Michigan is incredibly special.

(upbeat music continues) Where 300 miles of gorgeous lakefront line the fifth largest lake in the world.

This region kindly lends its beauty to residents and visitors.

(upbeat music continues) The sandbanks in Saugatuck Dunes State Park are a unique spectacle amongst the many natural wonders of West Michigan.

- So Saugatuck Dunes is really cool because it does have a kind of rustic feel.

It's still very connected.

It's accessible, but you get an off-the-beaten-path feel to it.

Saugatuck Dunes is a coastal state park.

I think we're about a thousand acres thereabouts of wooded, publicly accessible lake frontage.

There's trails to hike and a really nice, high-quality beech-maple forest, some hemlock in there as well.

- [Melina] An integral piece of these forests, the eastern hemlock is a foundation tree.

Its structure helps hold together the critical dune that lay below.

- What we see in the habit of hemlock is that it does grow in a distributed fashion a little bit, but we find it really concentrated, at least in this part of the state along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

And it likes to grow in dense clumps on the north faces of dunes.

We don't have a lotta hemlock in this part of the state, but where we find it is really important.

Those stands and those forests are high priority because they're holding the sand dune in place.

They provide habitat for migratory birds, and they're really cool to look at.

They're a long-lived species, and they're one that, you know, as a part of the forest component, they're more of a what we call foundational species.

So one of these long-lived species that's really a key element of that forest type.

What makes ecology here so cool, it's because of the sand dunes and the sand itself, and we have what's called critical dune.

So critical dune is a protected landscape.

They're some of the most spectacular dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

So as you walk the landscape, you've probably noticed it's a little hilly.

Those are giant mounds of sand essentially.

And so the forest grows in top of that.

It's roots hold those sand dunes in place.

- [Melina] This forest to dune partnership is just one in a series of similar symbiotic relationships throughout West Michigan state parks.

- P.J.

Hoffmaster's also another state park along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

That park has a high proportion of critical dune as well that's protected.

P.J.

Hoffmaster is one of, you know, a series of parks along Lake Michigan that have really exemplary forest types.

So forests that are protected because, you know, they're on top of that critical dune, but also because they represent a high-quality intact forest of that type.

Beech-maple forest, that includes red oak, hemlock.

Some of these other species that make up that forest are nice, intact, and support species of conservation need.

- [Melina] Conservation efforts are currently underway as a silent threat poses a danger to the delicate balance of the biodiversity in this area.

- Hemlock at this time, they are threatened by an invasive pest called hemlock woolly adelgid.

Hemlock woolly adelgid is not native to the state.

It was brought to the country in the 1950s, and it's slowly spread from the East Coast to neighboring states, and you know, we have HWA now in Michigan.

What that is, is it's a tiny insect, and it fixes itself on the hemlock branch.

And it has a long piercing-sucking mouth part, and it taps into the tree's vascular system.

And so it feeds off of that tree.

So it slowly robs the tree of everything the tree needs to grow.

- [Melina] While hemlock woolly adelgid is fairly new to West Michigan, we have seen the devastating impact it has had elsewhere as many as 80% of the hemlock trees in Shenandoah National Park have died since 1980.

The effect appears as just a white trail on the tree.

Seemingly harmless, but as it spreads, it is quietly contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem that surrounds it.

- You know, when those populations grow, that's when trees really start to suffer.

So without the management of this invasive pest, what we would find in about, you know, 5, 6, 7 years or so without any intervention is that we would have dead hemlock trees throughout the park, you know, in those areas where it's scattered, but also in those really dense areas that are on the critical dune landscape.

Hemlock woolly adelgid has been identified at Michigan State Park since 2017.

Our first detection was at P.J.

Hoffmaster.

And in the time since, we have found hemlock woolly adelgid at eight state parks, including Saugatuck Dunes.

What we're doing to manage it is quite extensive effort.

The first of that is to survey.

You know, we've got thousands of acres that we manage where we know we have hemlock, and then that leads into our management strategy.

So the management is an application that we apply targeted to the tree.

What we do is we apply that on the trunk of the tree, and it basically taps into the tree's vascular system.

So the tree carries that compound through its vascular system.

The insect, as it's feeding, takes in some small amount of that insecticide, and then the adelgids die instead of the tree.

With the chemicals that we use, these are things that go directly to the nervous system of these insects.

So they're targeting that insect specifically.

These treatments do have a lifespan though.

Part of our efforts are coming back, surveying, finding out, you know, is it time to retreat to do these actions again?

It's really more continuous survey, continuous management for many, many years down the road.

(soft music) To me and to many others that come and enjoy the park, the ecology of the system is critical.

It's protecting that species.

When we lose a species from a forest type, you know, like losing all of the hemlock, that has consequences.

So that could impact our migratory birds.

That could have impacts down the road on erosion.

So there are those impacts ecologically.

(inspiring music) As far as, you know, supporting this work is to go and visit those parks.

That supports all the work that we do.

You know, the stewardship of these lands is funded directly by participation in recreation passports, camping.

All those activities support the work that goes into invasive species management within state parks.

Saugatuck Dunes, P.J.

Hoffmaster, Ludington State Park, Muskegon State Park, these other parks where we have hemlock woolly adelgid.

The forest type is really something that people come to enjoy.

That's a key part of, you know, tourism in the state.

It's a key part of the culture and supporting that recreation.

Folks enjoy coming to the park.

That also contributes to the local economy as well.

So folks that are coming here on vacation are bringing in their dollars to this region to come and enjoy the forest here at Saugatuck Dunes and along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

(water gushing) (birds chirping) - We certainly spent a lot of time admiring the great outdoors today, but if you are not the outdoorsy type, no worries there.

There's still plenty of ways to incorporate nature into your life and your home.

Neighborhood flower guy, J Schwanke, is here with the latest tips for creating flower arrangements that pop this summer.

So let's join him now for Living in Bloom.

(upbeat music) - So yellow is the sunshine in our life, and that goes for flowers as well.

Yellow flowers are super positive.

And so when we think about sunflowers or beautiful moms like this, or button pom-poms, or Solidago, or even gerbera daisies, we just think sunshine, and we think happy thoughts.

The great part about flowers is that flowers provide health and wellness benefits for us.

So not only do those benefits come about when we're arranging flowers, the act of actually putting flowers into a vase makes us feel better and releases endorphins that make us feel more happy.

The other thing that's interesting about yellow is that yellow can help people get better faster.

There's proven research that tells us that when people are sick and they get flowers, they get better faster.

But if they're yellow flowers, they get better faster still.

So that's a really positive way for us to think about that.

You'll notice that I started my arrangement by putting in some foliage.

This is called eriostoma, but you could use any foliage you might find in your yard.

You could have different opportunities to use different types of foliage down inside there.

It acts as an armature to help us hold the flowers in place.

As we add more stems, like these button pom-poms, it makes more of a structure down inside there.

And as those weave together, we're able to place other flowers in between them.

This is Solidago.

I'm actually a native of Nebraska, although I've lived in Michigan for 30 years.

But Solidago is the state flower for Nebraska.

And so I like to use it in my bouquets.

This is actually a beautiful type that has been hybridized so that it won't have the allergic reactions that normal ragweed might have.

So we're using that inside here.

Now, sometimes you'll hear people talk about flowers like this being a filler flower.

I don't like to think about that because I don't think that that's a very pretty way to talk about flowers.

What I like to think about is that these are flowers that accent other flowers.

So by placing 'em in here, we're accenting the other flowers that we have.

Now remember, when you're making those beautiful bouquets at home, to be sure that you're taking time out to enjoy them as you're arranging them, because that's another benefit that the flowers provide for us, is as we're placing those flowers in there and we're enjoying that, and we're secreting those endorphins, our body starts to relax.

We feel less depressed.

We feel that we have happier thoughts.

Things are great when we have flowers around us.

And when we gift our flowers to someone else, they actually release dopamine as well.

And so when they do that, they feel better too.

Now look it.

We're putting those all together, and it just looks like a brilliant ray of sunshine that's gonna make us feel happier, and if we're sick, we're gonna get better faster too.

We'll finish up with our little gerbera daisies that are almost like a little mini sunflower, but they have an all-yellow center inside too.

My dad loved yellow.

He was always the guy who got up every morning and was so positive.

And that's what I think about, is those positive thoughts whenever we're creating a beautiful bouquet like this.

A yellow bouquet is gonna bring the sunshine into our life in bloom.

(upbeat music) - Living West Michigan takes a few seconds now to show off some wonderful things happening via local organizations in our community.

Take a look.

(upbeat music) More content can be found on WGVU'S YouTube channel or the PBS app.

Be sure to also check out wgvu.org/livingwestmichigan, where you can submit ideas for future features on the show.

I'm Jennifer Moss, and this is "Living West Michigan."

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