TRAVERSE CITY — A black and white photo displays a young boy holding a fish half his size. He learned to catch it on the scenic Platte Lake, about an hour west of Traverse City. Many years later he taught his grandchildren to fish on the same lake.
But not before fighting for its survival.
After a decades-long legal battle with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wilfred Sweicki and the Platte Lake Improvement Association gave the lake a voice. Sweicki has decided to step down from his position as the PLIA president after 40 years. He was honored at the PLIA’s annual meeting for his lifetime of service.
Flashback to the early ‘70s: When Wilfred Sweicki was in his college years, he decided to take his then-girlfriend to visit the northern Michigan Lake he grew up visiting as a child. What he saw was not what he remembered.
“I had known the lake like the back of my hand prior to that — from being a little kid after spending summers up here,” Sweicki said. “And then, when I came back the whole place was pea-soup-green.”
While Sweicki was attending engineering school at the University of Michigan, the Platte River State Fish Hatchery converted to rearing salmon to address the increasing Great Lakes alewife population. Located upstream from the 2,500-acre lake, the facility began giving the fish high phosphorus food.
When water bodies take in high phosphorus levels, a process called eutrophication causes increased growth of algae which can result in decreased levels of dissolved oxygen. Using his expertise as an engineer, Sweicki was able to investigate and determine the hatchery as the most likely culprit.
Hatchery discharge was more than 4,221 pounds of phosphorus per year.
“People were concerned, a lot of them didn’t really know what to do or what to expect,” Sweicki said. “The biggest thing of all, was that they had assumed the government was looking out for their best interest.”
The PLIA became an official nonprofit in 1981. With Sweicki at the helm, the stage was set for court proceedings against the DNR. Five years later, the PLIA filed a suit for the impact hatchery operations had on the quality of Platte Lake. Even after bringing forth his findings — sediment samples that correlate the high phosphorus levels with the fish hatchery conversion — Sweicki said it had little effect.
The DNR denied culpability — and many were on their side.
“It’s unclear why we made the decisions we did,” said DNR Program Manager Gary Whelan. “I could go back and second guess the people in the 1970s. But the decisions we made weren’t good ones. Ultimately, it’s pretty clear that we were responsible for a high percentage of the phosphorus going into Platte Lake.”
Even after the verdict was handed down by Judge Thomas Brown in Ingham County circuit court in favor of the PLIA, the DNR continued to deny responsibility. The next 12 years were spent working out a settlement agreement between the PLIA and the stalling DNR.
Whelan came onto the scene in 1998 as part of a new guard of DNR personnel that recognized the fault of the state.
In 2000 a settlement agreement finally passed that required the DNR to pay for 98 percent of the lake and river sampling until the DNR demonstrates compliance with the 175 pounds per year hatchery discharge limit for five consecutive years, among other terms.
“We were fighting a fight that, frankly, was wrong, and we weren’t ever going to win anyway,” Whelan said. “Even though many people thought it would be impossible to reach a settlement with, with the PLIA, and Wil in particular, it took us about a year and we got it done.”
It took 15 years for the fish hatchery to come in compliance with the discharge limits set by the court ordered consent agreement. Throughout that time, however, relations between the PLIA and the DNR had shifted drastically — largely thanks to Sweicki and Whelan.
The two organizations that butted heads for years now worked closely to repair the damage.
“Because of the efforts of PLIA and particularly Wil’s leadership, we have a hatchery that produces the least amount of phosphorus for its size, probably anywhere,” Whelan said.
Sweicki said the water discharged from the hatchery is oftentimes cleaner than the water it takes in — serving as a model for other hatcheries across the nation.
Much of this progress, the PLIA attributes to one man. However Sweicki said, if not for Dorthy MacAnlety, John Spencer, Michael Pattison, Ray Conaly and many others he would not have made it this far.
“It was a brilliant, driven man with one issue that his whole life was focused on,” PLIA secretary Jerry Heiman said. “I would have never been able to. I would have compromised long before the the issues he demanded. I can’t believe that the DNR caved to some of those issues. But Wil was able to make them do it.”
Sweicki will remain active in the PLIA as the chair of its research committee. Even though the battle over the fish hatchery is over, Sweicki said Platte Lake still needs protection from other threats.
“We really have to be ever vigilant,” said PLIA director Bill Anderson. “Anything that floats downstream, or swims upstream is going to be a problem. So invasive species, pollution that sort of thing.”
Anderson will assume the presidential roll after Sweicki steps down. He said some of his goals are to increase homeowner engagement with the PLIA and ramp up volunteering in addition to carrying on Sweicki’s legacy.
“It was all built and driven by Wil,” Anderson said. “A lot of people helped, no question. But nobody shouldered the burden to the level he did. Nobody.”
