The Mecan River Lodge van plucked me from the rain-muddied bank of the Mecan River and whisked me off to the lodge and restaurant. The complex was built in 1994 by Paul and Leanne Harvey and their family. The lodge was laid up from nearly 300 logs of hand-peeled red and white pine that the Harveys cut from their own land. A 35 foot-tall fieldstone fireplace dominated the great room, a restaurant opened off one side, and a bar and store off the other. Five suites for lodgers filled the upstairs. The Harveys also offered canoe and kayak rental out of an out building.
The first order of business was cleanup. I washed all the river muck off the kayak and stored it for the night on a boat rack behind the lodge. I sorted out my gear and dragged most of it up to my room. I washed out what I could, including my damp, foul paddling clothes. The gear was soon hung from every available hook and peg in the room. By the time I finished, the log-walled room looked like an old trapper’s cabin.
I was the only guest that night. It was early in the season. I did not lack for attention, and the Harveys made me feel at home. Paul and Leanne ran the lodge with help from two daughters and their son Mike. Mike was about 24 and his oldest sister, Michelle, was 32. I did not get the name or age of the other daughter, who was off taking care of her newborn. Paul and Leanne’s kids had already given them six grandchildren, including the most recent three – all born within two months of each other that spring.
Sitting out on the veranda, I also met Gray Cat. (The Harveys were straightforward in naming their animals.) She checked me out, and I was soon her newest rubbing post. She couldn’t get enough rubbing, petting, and scratching behind the ears and batted with her right paw whenever I ignored her too long. Her brother, Black Cat, was not as social. He stayed away, slinking through the yard after birds.
Later Leanne and Michelle joined me on the veranda. They told me the tale of the near demise of the springs feeding the Mecan River. It was a tale of a close encounter with an international water-bottling corporation that I will call Pure Flow.
The Mecan, thanks in part to the springs, was a first-rate trout stream, and a joy to canoe or kayak. The State of Wisconsin owned the land upon which its springs arose, and during Governor Thompson’s administration, the state entered into negotiations to sell the land to Pure Flow, which planned to drill into the springs’ aquifer and aggressively pump out 270,000 gallons a day. They would ship the water out by the tanker-full.
None of this was public knowledge until a state worker leaked news of the deal to a former Department of Natural Resources employee who recognized the enormity of the environmental consequences. He went public, and soon a grass roots organization of farmers, environmentalists, fishermen, outdoor enthusiasts, and other citizens, including the Harveys, rose up in opposition.
This organization, Waterkeepers of Wisconsin, weighed in against the sale, held successful referenda against the well in affected communities, and raised enough money to hire a hydrologist. It also brought in a rabid Pure Flow opponent from Florida who funished aerial pictures from every Pure Flow site in the country showing graphically the negative environmental impacts of pumping. The Harvey’s said that she was such a thorn in Pure Flow’s side that they tried to have her thrown out of every public hearing. Between the hydrologist’s research and the Florida woman’s files, the group soon had credible proof of the potential harm and enough questions on Pure Flow to get local and national news coverage. Soon the sale was politically untenable, and Pure Flow slunk off to suck someone else’s water.
The implication that Governor Thompson would destroy an environmental system for the sake of a private economic interest contrasted sharply with one of his predecessors – Governor Gaylord Nelson. Another Wisconsin-born environmentalist, Gaylord Nelson was a principal founder of Earth Day in 1970.1 He rejected the suggestion that economic development should take precedence over environmental protection: “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.”2 The whole story put in mind what Mahatma Gandhi once said: “[The earth offers] enough for everybody’s need, but not enough for anybody's greed.”3
With the tale done, the draining of my bottle of beer, and the setting of the sun, I retired to my room and was soon asleep, but not for long. Early Sunday morning, about 1:30 a.m., a thunderstorm rolled in, waking me with a brilliant lightning flash and nearly simultaneous thunderclap. Rain beat on the windows and the wind roared through the pines. It did not last long, as it raced across central Wisconsin, and by the time I woke again, at 6 a.m., the sky was clear.
I found that I was the only one in the still dark, locked lodge. My room key opened the main door and I let myself out. It was an hour and a half until the complimentary breakfast, so I spent my time packing the kayak and watching birds in the garden. A male ruby-throated hummingbird perched on the top-most leader of a little pine. As it turned, its breast caught the early morning sun, and its red throat patch flashed like a brake light. To reside in the environs of the lodge he must have been very wily, for Black Cat was a reputedly relentless and unrepentant bird-stalker.
At 7:55, just as I was sitting down to breakfast, the storm played one last trick. The lights flickered, and we lost all power. It must have been a storm-stressed limb finally crashing through a power line, or a delayed chain reaction in the power grid after a night of power surges and blown transformers. Slowly all the Harveys and the kitchen help gathered in the window-lit bar. Luanne called a lineman friend to confirm that the power company was repairing the outage. But that work would be too late for me. No power meant no breakfast. Michelle gave me a Coke, and Paul adjusted down my bill before I left.
I could reach the Fox River via a short walk down Highway 23, and then the little city of Princeton via the Fox, so I set off rolling my kayak along.
1. Nelson, Gaylord. Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise. Wisconsin Press, November 2002.
2. Id.
3. Nilsson, Hans. Leonardo Energy website: “There is enough for everybody’s need, but not enough for anybody’s greed”. April 4, 2008. Accessed November 5, 2011.
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