The Detroit News. The Detroit News David Rayner and Springfield Township Clerk Nancy Strole look over Long Lake, which is part of the area the six communities want to safeguard. The six communities will rework their development plans and ordinances to protect the areas' preservation and demand that developers be creative in building around them.
Growth is inevitable.
The community has grown 40 percent to 14,200 people, Strole said. Fourteen Oakland communities have to pay for improvements to the drain because years of storm water and sewage overflows have led to pollution of the Clinton River. A prairie fen is a sensitive system of wetlands that harbors rare and often endangered plant and animal life. The study also highlights Springfield Township's Huron Swamp, a 1,850-acre wetlands complex forming the headwaters of the Huron River. Without some kind of safeguards, many of them will disappear in the next 50 years.