DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – The Department of Natural Resources President and Chief Finance and Operations Officer highlighted many of the DNR investments inside the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget put forth by the Governor. 

Acting Director Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Shannon Lott, started the presentation before the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Natural Resources  by showing a breakdown of the total funding budget laid out by Governor Whitmer for $584.2 million- $529.4 million coming in the form of Ongoing Funding and $54.8 million in the form of One-Time Funding.  

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An important funding area for the DNR according to Lott was investing $3.7 million in Emergency Response and Wildfire Suppression because responders are “getting spread pretty thin.”   

“We do have the largest state forest system in the country, and that does require for us to protect that and preserve that as well,” Lott mentioned. 

Currently, the state has less than half of the 142 recommended fire officers needed to maintain the parks system, leaving the department in somewhat dire conditions.  She also referenced the Blue Lakes Fire May 13, 2022 as proof because it took Fire Officers from 17 of the 26 DNR Fire Offices to fight the fire. 

 Conservation Officer pay equity also was important because according to Lott  not only compared to other state law enforcement but also for DNR recruitment which has previously had between 1200 to 1500 applicants for the academy.  

“Last summer we had less than 200 for the academy we put on,” Lott said, “We wanted 25 bodies in that academy; we ended up with 15 and graduated 12.” 

Belle Isle would be the recipient of the largest one time investments of all the state parks as it would see $43 million in improvements, most of which would go towards infrastructure and removing hazardous waste.  Since the DNR took over care for the facilities nearly a decade ago, they have invested $118 million so far, with roughly a 300 million infrastructure backlog of requests according to Lott. 

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Representative Donavan McKinney (D-Detoit) inquired about how the funding would help with flooding concerns to the property. 

“We’ve been working with MDOT not only on traffic flow but flooding, signage, and potentially speed bumps,” she said.  

A “major issue” in the area he represents according to Rep. Ken Borton (R-Gaylord) is the possible expansion of Camp Grayling – which would lease more than 160,000 acres of land.  Borton inquired if Lott was in favor of the expansion. 

“Statute does not allow us to lease land like we did in 1941,” Lott said, “So we are looking for other ways to help them do some of the training exercises that they need to do.  We all want to protect our natural resources up there, all of us do as well as obviously in the agency.  I’ve met with General Rogers about some of the exact needs that he has for some of the cyber training that they’ve talked about.”  

Lott shared that she’s received thousands of emails from people and said that the area will remain open to people in that area.  

“We’ve been very clear about conversations about cyber testing making sure that’s really the only thing that they need, and there’s only a few days a year where they really need to do that, so we’re going to winnow it down to some of those really specific times that they need to do that,” Lott said, “And they don’t need 162,000 acres to do that. 

A release about Camp Graylings future will likely come out within a week and a half after working with the Governor’s office according to Lott from the DNR.