Only in Michigan

I received a humorous email this morning with a 'supposedly' true story about a letter sent to a resident in Pennsylvania regarding some dam construction on his property.  As I usually do before forwarding these on, I went to snopes.com to verify the information.  I would guess that nine times out of ten the information in these emails is bogus and I toss the email. 

But guess what?  This morning it turned out to be true, except that the letter was written by the State of Michigan.  The letter can be found at: http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp

The friend who sent it had wondered if our local environmental boards had ever done anything similar.  Well, while not quite the same, I did remember one instance where I really questioned their sanity.  (On more than one occasion, in fact.)

There was a new development planned in the community and one of the requirements was that the developer install a culvert under a main road to allow the small animals to cross the road in safety.  The developer objected and appealed the decision to our Township Board.

As a member of the Board, I asked the environmental board representative if they also would require signs so our little friends would know that there was an alternative to running out into traffic, with perhaps training of said critters till they got the hang of it.  Geez!

Needless to say, we have no culvert.  There must be something in that Great Lakes water we purify and drink.