GOING 'GREEN': City is embracing the environment

With many jumping on the "green' eco-friendly bandwagon, the city of Grand Haven is no exception in its efforts to help out the environment. According to Sam Janson, assistant to City Manager Pat McGinnis, there are a number of things taking place within the city to help it be environmentally friendly. Examples of this include vegetative roofs on local dumpsters and a planned "green' roof on the Grand Haven Community Center, to making sure fishing line is properly disposed in tubes along the city's pier.

Alex Doty

Grand Haven

Apr 20, 2011

There are other items that aren’t as visible that the city also takes care of, Janson said.

“We meet and exceed stormwater standards throughout the city,” he said.

Janson said the standards are set by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Janson said the city is also working with local group Wetlands Watch to control invasive phragmites from Harbor Island and along the shores of local waterways.

“It’s actually worse downstream than it is up here,” Janson said of the plant.

Phragmites is a common reed plant that has taken over shorelines, canals, drainage ditches, wetlands and prairies. It out-competes the native plants and creates a monoculture of weeds, reducing biodiversity of plants and animal life.

To read more of this story, see today’s print edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.