T

he University of Michigan 
recently 
announced 
that it has received Bee 
Campus Certification from Bee 
Campus USA, which recognized 
our campus for establishing 
pollinator habitats, creating nest 
sites and reducing pesticides. 
While 
these 
are 
laudable 
achievements, the fact remains: 
We need to do more.
The prospects for insect life, 
and by extension our wellbeing, 
are 
bleak. 
Traditionally 
composing half of all animal 
biomass 
— 
the 
total 
mass 
of 
a 
population, 
reflecting 
the importance it has in the 
ecosystem — insects have seen 
a 
precipitous 
decline, 
with 
the total biomass of insects 
collapsing at a rate of 2.5% every 
single year over the last 25 to 
30 years. The causes of their 
collapse are clear: habitat loss, 
herbicides, invasive species and 
of course climate change. While 
as a campus we may not have 
power to stop the corporations 
burning fossil fuels responsible 
for climate change, we can 
make a difference in the first 
three. Our next steps are clear: 
maintain our grounds without 
the use of synthetic herbicides, 
convert unused lawns into green 
spaces and reintroduce native 
plants. 
The 
benefits 
are 
straightforward. 
By 
no 
longer poisoning the ground 
with 
synthetic 
herbicides, 
mycorrhizal fungi can return 
to the soil and sustain plant 
growth by providing mineral 
nutrients and hydration. Native 
plants allow native pollinators 
to 
compete 
with 
generalist 
European 
honeybees 
that 
could 
otherwise 
diminish 
their population to the point of 
local extinction. Through the 
cultivation of native gardens and 
pesticide-free lawns throughout 
campus, 
we 
fight 
habitat 
fragmentation, allowing for the 
connection and spread of local 

populations of native insects. Not 
only can these insects now play 
their ecological role throughout 
campus, but these populations 
will also have better long-term 
prospects when they are able 
to migrate between spaces of 
natural habitat. 
So why haven’t we done 
more? As the president of the 
Entomology Club and a fellow 
with Re:wild Your Campus, I 
have worked to establish organic 
plots of land on campus. Time 
and time again, two issues were 
raised: funding and image. The 
grounds team and sustainability 
office 
have 
expressed 
enthusiasm about these solutions 
and are already experimenting 
with 
organic 
methods 
like 
compost tea applications and 
organic products, but a larger 
campus-wide 
transition 
will 
require a signature from higher-
ups. In order to save biodiversity 
on 
campus, 
the 
University 
needs to set aside money for the 
initial costs of transitioning to 
an organic campus. At this, the 
University hesitates: Is it worth 
the startup cost? What will 
current students, alumni and 
potential students think when 
the manicured lawn is no longer 
a desert of grass? 
Perceptions 
are 
changing; 
students want to see change to 
campus. This academic year, 
the Entomology Club conducted 
an online survey of 105 people 
distributed on campus, with 
98 student respondents. Out of 
our 105 respondents, 90 (85.7%) 
responded that they supported 
zero 
usage 
of 
synthetic 
herbicides on campus. When 
asked how they would feel if it 
meant that “certain grounds on 
campus would look less green 
and neat for a while,” we found 
that 87% of respondents still 
supported stopping synthetic 
herbicide use as “a necessary 
process.” An additional 11% said 
they would support organic 
groundskeeping, though they 
hope the appearance change 
would not last long. Finally, we 
found that a remarkable 60% of 
respondents would be willing to 

volunteer on campus weeding 
days.
Other campuses are already 
ahead of us. Harvard University, 
University 
of 
California, 
Berkeley, University of Texas, 
Austin and others have already 
taken the steps necessary to 
make their campus synthetic 
herbicide free. Most similar to 
us, UC Berkeley successfully 
transitioned 95% of their campus 
to organically managed land 
over the course of only five years. 
As a result, the microorganisms 
in the soil increased twenty-
two fold. Students driving this 
change at UC Berkeley created 
a national organization, Re:wild 
Your Campus, to encourage other 
schools to also go organic. Most 
importantly, research conducted 
there found that investing in a 
compost tea brewer yielded a 
$100,000 yearly benefit to the 
soil. Harvard similarly reported 
that use of the organic clippings 
as compost saved the University 
an annual $10,000 for 5,000 
acres of land.
This isn’t to say our grounds 
team is not trying. In a recent 
meeting, we discussed a trial 
of an organic product they will 
be using on the Diag. They are 
open to alternatives and have 
already 
implemented 
some 
best practices like soil testing 
and the application of nutrient-
rich compost teas. But, like 
many campuses, our grounds 
department is underfunded and 
asked to maintain a vast campus 
to a world-class standard. 
With support from the student 
body 
and 
enthusiasm 
from 
grounds, it is time that we make 
the leap to organic land care. In 
transitioning to organic land 
care, our campus can become 
Green Grounds certified, a first-
of-its-kind 
certification 
that 
goes above and beyond chemical 
reduction to ensure the campus 
is taking steps to promote 
biodiversity 
and 
ecological 
health. We cannot fall further 
behind. We are the leaders and 
best and it’s time we acted like it: 
It’s time to change how we think 
about our lawns.

Opinion

Op-Ed: Bee Campus 
Certification is not enough

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, April 19, 2023 

MAXWELL KLEIN
Opinion Columnist

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

SHANNON STOCKING 
AND KATE WEILAND
Co-Editors in Chief

QUIN ZAPOLI AND 
JULIAN BARNARD
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Ammar Ahmad

Julian Barnard

Brandon Cowit

Jess D’Agostino

Ben Davis

Shubhum Giroti

Devon Hesano

Jack Kapcar

Sophia Lehrbaum

Olivia Mouradian

Siddharth Parmar

Rushabh Shah

Zhane Yamin

Nikhil Sharma

Lindsey Spencer

Evan Stern

Anna Trupiano

Jack Tumpowsky

Alex Yee

Quin Zapoli

JULIA VERKLAN AND 
ZOE STORER 
Managing Editors

Debates 
on the 
Diag

I

n January of this year, a local 
nonprofit organization by 
the name of Garrett’s Space 
got $4 million in federal funding 
to build a new center focused on 
suicide prevention. A relatively 
new institution, Garrett’s Space 
has been offering professionally 
facilitated, weekly support groups 
for young adults for the past two 
years. After the announcement 
that Garrett’s Space was under 
contract for a 76-acre parcel 
of land in Superior Township, 
neighbors 
in 
the 
Fleming 
Ridge subdivision mounted an 
organized opposition campaign 
to stop the center, citing concerns 
about zoning and the center 
being “quite literally in (their) 
backyards.”
Garrett’s Space is hardly the 
first institution or development 
of any shape or size to face 
“neighborhood 
opposition.” 
A 
well-documented 
phenomenon, 
the 
idea 
of 
neighborhood 
opposition is most frequently 
seen in local debates about 
housing policy. Evidence has 
shown that the empowerment of 
neighborhood opposition raises 
costs and contributes to the 
housing crisis.
The opposition to Garrett’s 
Space is deeply unserious and is a 
clear example of not-in-my-back-
yard tendencies. The neighbors’ 
claims that this center will 
damage their quality of life are not 
based in reality and are another 
instance of when “community 
input” should be disregarded in 
favor of the actual execution of 
community benefits and goals.
In an interview with The 
Michigan Daily, Scott and Julie 

Halpert, the founders of Garrett’s 
Space, said they didn’t expect 
to face this kind of opposition to 
their project. 
“We had no idea that we would 
be facing this type of organized 
… hostile … opposition,” Scott 
Halpert said. 
Scott 
and 
Julie 
founded 
Garrett’s Space after realizing 
there were no care options to help 
their son Garrett when he was 
struggling. 
“This is a new way of creating 
wrap-around holistic supports 
that … really just is common 
sense and we think it will make 
a huge difference,” Julie Halpert 
explained.
Scott and Julie told The 
Daily that they’re not the only 
ones who support their idea to 
build a residential center for 
youth severely struggling with 
mental health. Scott said their 
supporters 
include 
leading 
experts from all over the state, 
from the University of Michigan 
and St. Joseph Hospital, as well 
as the Washtenaw County Health 
Department and other community 
mental health services. 
The Halperts said that much of 
the opposition to Garrett’s Space 
has refused to meet with them. 
In February, they sent out a letter 
explaining their intentions, and 
the immediate response of the 
neighbors was to go to the local 
Superior Township government 
to find ways to stop them. 
Scott and Julie have answers to 
a lot of the complaints lodged by 
their neighbors. 
“We are going to have very 
stringent screening procedures,” 
Julie said. 
Scott added that they will 
not serve as a replacement for 
a psychiatric emergency room 
either.

 “We have to be careful that 
they’re a threat to themselves,” 
Scott said, speaking about young 
people who may come to Garrett’s 
Space for treatment, “but they’re 
not a threat to others.” 
The 
Superior 
Township 
property they have proposed to 
build Garrett’s Space on is in a 
prime location, and Scott and 
Julie recognize this. 
“We just never thought it was 
possible, honestly, to find such a 
perfect place,” Julie said, “(one) 
that’s secluded … accessible and in 
a perfect location.” 
Their board of directors wasn’t 
approving of sites further away in 
western Washtenaw County.
“Importantly, it’s close to the 
more populated areas of our 
county,” Scott said. “So it’s more 
accessible to more people.”
Julie 
added 
that 
it 
is 
significantly easier to get to 
this location than a more rural 
location.
The opposition to Garrett’s 
Space isn’t a novel phenomenon. 
People 
have 
been 
opposing 
change in their communities for 
as long as communities have been 
a thing, even when those projects 
have 
a 
clear 
neighborhood 
benefit. For example, community 
opposition is slowing down our 
ability as a nation to fight climate 
change. A law called the National 
Environmental Policy Act is the 
main culprit here. Originally 
designed to ensure accountability 
for disasters like oil spills, NEPA 
gives anyone the ability to sue an 
entity for reasons related to the 
environment, whether genuine or 
not. Currently, of all the projects 
under NEPA review, only 15% 
are fossil fuel projects, while 
42% are related to clean energy. 

Build Garrett’s Space

ABDULRAHMAN ATEYA
Opinion Columnist 

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