Commentary
By Ken Winter
Back years ago, there used to be a joke that rural dirt roads were either sprayed just before local elections to keep the electorate happy or a township or county official lived along the road. Same held true for snow plowing. The roads still get sprayed, but some people are beginning to ask with what? After the Traverse City Record-Eagle first reported on a road spraying complaint last month in Benzie County, west of near Traverse City, other county road commissioners are being asked the same question. The incident started when Bryan Black, a Benzie County farmer and former oil industry welder, first raised concerns about the liquid a truck was spraying on dirt roads around his farm north of Lake Ann to the Michigan Department of Environment Quality.