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The latest round of Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grants included monies for several important regional greenspace and trail projects.  During the next several days, I’ll focus on them one-by-one.  In this post, I’ll cite the section of the state’s press release related to the Waterloo State Recreation Area.

For those who are unaware, Waterloo is the largest state park in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.  It’s 20,000 acres lie in a heavily-populated region between Jackson and Ann Arbor.  The park is contiguous with the 10,000 acre Pinckney State Recreation Area, effectively forming our region’s largest wild area.  Backpackers rely on the area as the region’s only true backpacking trail.

Waterloo finds its origin during the Great Depression when farmers in the area could no longer pay taxes on their farms.  Land was abandoned or reverted to government ownership.  The National Park Service later assembled these lands for a National Park demonstration project.  Efforts by groups like the Detroit News hiking clubs helped to plant trees acrosss the landscape.  Now, the area contains one of the largest collections of threatened species of any park in Michigan.

The challenge is that there are many private inholdings within the Waterloo State Recreation Area boundaries.  The state is attempting to purchase some of these properties.  Here is the excerpt from the state press release:

DNR, Waterloo Recreation Land Initiative, $2.5 million.

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