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Reflections from a retiring DOT environmental policy leader · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:09
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:11
  Jeff Cranson: This week's episode is a little bittersweet for me.
• 0:17
  Jeff Cranson: We're saying goodbye to Margaret Barondess, who is a manager in MDOT's Environmental Section Unit.
• 0:24
  Jeff Cranson: She's been with the Department of Transportation for 33 years and was really a pioneer in helping to establish many of the policies and procedures at the state level to honor the National Environmental Protection Act, which was passed just a little more than 20 years before she took the job and really built up a little more than 20 years before she took the job and really built up that part of the process at MDOT.
• 0:50
  Jeff Cranson: She works with a lot of very talented and committed people and I've enjoyed working with her and learned a lot from her over the years.
• 0:57
  Jeff Cranson: And she talks about the balance that someone in her role has to strike and this is, you know, both the federal US DOT level and certainly at all state DOTs and at the local level too, transportation agencies between trying to honor the public's need for mobility but also the need to protect the ecosystem and how important biodiversity is to our state.
• 1:20
  Jeff Cranson: And obviously the state of Michigan cares a great deal about the environment, especially when it comes to water, which is so important to us, so I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:32
  Jeff Cranson: So, Margaret, thank you for making a repeat appearance on the podcast.
• 1:36
  Jeff Cranson: Can you talk a little bit about, we didn't talk before, I think, about your career trajectory and what brought you to this.
• 1:45
  Jeff Cranson: I'm guessing in college you didn't think you'd be in a role trying to educate people about the delicate balance between mobility and limiting the effects of road projects mostly road projects, but all kinds of transportation projects on the environment.
• 2:01
  Jeff Cranson: What got you to MDOT 33 years ago?
• 2:07
  Margaret Barondess: It's amazing what career trajectories people have, because I actually came to Michigan to go to graduate school to become a professor, working in archaeology, and I finished my master's degree in 1990 and I thought I don't want to be a professor, you know, I just didn't care for the environment of the university setting and you know you're young and you're trying to learn about what your likes are and dislikes.
• 2:34
  Margaret Barondess: So my next move was to go to the State Historic Preservation Office and work there, and so I was a regulator for a few years before I came to MDOT and I thought well, you know, this is sort of you know, I have people who are angry at me quite a bit.
• 2:50
  Margaret Barondess: I'm not sure this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
• 2:53
  Margaret Barondess: So I got recruited to apply for a job at MDOT as the staff archaeologist.
• 2:59
  Margaret Barondess: So low and behold, I get the job and start in January of 1991, really having no idea what is ahead of me and listening to my father who said you're majoring in what and what?
• 3:16
  Margaret Barondess: Are you going to ever be employed?
• 3:18
  Margaret Barondess: And I remember thinking, walking in the door at MDOT I have a job in archaeology.
• 3:24
  Margaret Barondess: I am just beyond amazed that this is happening.
• 3:29
  Margaret Barondess: And so then the really fun part for me was I got to participate in project teams on environmental impact studies at the time because MDOT was studying, you know, widening of I-94 in Detroit.
• 3:43
  Margaret Barondess: We were studying freeways all over the place, new freeways M6 was one of the freeways we started to study in the 90s too, and I was a member of all those teams and I learned about the National Environmental Policy Act working on those teams and I loved the experience of planning projects, working with the public, thinking about how to balance environmental quality with transportation needs, and I really did fall in love with the industry and one of the things I liked the most about my work was that you could see the results of what you had planned and you could see your impact on the resources and what was happening with the resources when the project was completed.
• 4:37
  Margaret Barondess: And you can say, you know I had a role in that and I think the project's better.
• 4:43
  Margaret Barondess: You know because I participated in a team approach and so you know it was sort of a natural move for me to start writing environmental impact statements.
• 4:54
  Margaret Barondess: So I wrote the first tier one and tier two and the only tier one and tier two document environmental impact statement for MDOT for the M59 Boulevard near Howell and a project which, by the way, has never been fully constructed.
• 5:10
  Margaret Barondess: But that gave me even more experience with these teams, these team-based approach to developing projects, and so from there I was able to do a couple things.
• 5:24
  Margaret Barondess: I was able to build the environmental staff with some of the negotiations that we did as an agency with the regulators.
• 5:32
  Margaret Barondess: We acquired positions for historians, we acquired positions for another archaeologist, so we built our team.
• 5:42
  Margaret Barondess: And then in 2002, around that time, we had an early out and some people may not know what those are, but it was an incentive for people to retire early and it was a financial incentive for the retiree but also for the state of Michigan.
• 5:58
  Margaret Barondess: So you had a lot of people leaving at the same time and we had a position, a section manager position, open environmental services.
• 6:06
  Margaret Barondess: So I threw my hat in, didn't think I would get the job because there was a lot of competition, and again they selected me to be the section manager, even though I had never supervised.
• 6:20
  Margaret Barondess: So it was a whirlwind education in learning how to lead and learning how to supervise folks and learning how to influence the organization in ways that would help make our job easier and environmental a lot of times and that's where you can get everybody together to agree on a better way of doing business that is better for the environment, better for transportation.
• 6:52
  Margaret Barondess: There are tons of opportunities for improvement out there in our government work and I've always been big on grabbing at those opportunities and looking for chances for improvement.
• 7:04
  Margaret Barondess: So that's been sort of a defining element of my career and you know I would have never pictured myself doing this work.
• 7:15
  Margaret Barondess: You know, when I was an elementary school teacher who says I want to be doing this type of work when they're a little kid and often it was hard to explain to my kids what I did they would generally look at bridges and go mom works with bridges.
• 7:31
  Margaret Barondess: You know kind of thing it was easier for them to grasp.
• 7:35
  Margaret Barondess: But you know it's just been an amazing journey.
• 7:39
  Margaret Barondess: I have had so many opportunities to work on exciting projects Gordie Howe International Bridge I was the project manager for the planning phase of that before Mohamed took it over.
• 7:54
  Margaret Barondess: And then I was on the team for the environmental impact statement.
• 7:57
  Margaret Barondess: Us 131 S-Curve project, which was an emergency replacement of the S-Curve Bridge in Grand Rapids.
• 8:06
  Margaret Barondess: That was an incredible experience because we had to move the Grand Rapids Public Museum's storage facility to a new building.
• 8:15
  Margaret Barondess: It was like moving your grandmother's attic on steroids to another building to build the S-curve.
• 8:24
  Margaret Barondess: You know, there's just been so many different experiences that I've been able to engage in even the ones where we ended up with not having a project.
• 8:37
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but I want to freeze on the timeline you indicated.
• 8:44
  Jeff Cranson: You know when you came to the department and really kind of built that office.
• 8:48
  Jeff Cranson: It's interesting to me that that was just barely 20 years after Congress approved NEPA, and neither one of us want to be critical of what was going on at DOTs around the country at that time.
• 9:03
  Jeff Cranson: But does that surprise you in retrospect that it took nearly two?
• 9:08
  Jeff Cranson: It took more than two decades to really put the tools in place to to honor the act and what it's supposed to be?
• 9:16
  Margaret Barondess: I do think it's a continual evolution and I feel like I've been part of history here with the industry and the way transportation has changed.
• 9:25
  Margaret Barondess: When I started in 1991, the lead engineers, the supervising engineers that I worked with, had built the interstate system before NEPA.
• 9:44
  Margaret Barondess: So you almost had to have a generational change before you could start opening yourself up to different ideas for transportation, because what I encountered at that time was, you know, I built the interstate system, you know, before NEPA.
• 9:55
  Margaret Barondess: What are you talking about?
• 9:57
  Margaret Barondess: You know what are you asking me to do?
• 10:00
  Margaret Barondess: And you know I'm not familiar with this, even though NEPA had been around for a while.
• 10:06
  Margaret Barondess: You know, I think these were people who had developed their careers without that particular law in place and so, you know, quite frankly, for them it looked like a barrier to progress or production, because, MDOT, we are very good at producing projects, we're the best in the land at getting these projects done.
• 10:31
  Margaret Barondess: So that was sort of the work ethic thing that happened was we were very, very standards-based at the time with what we call the AASHTO Green Book, which was the Bible of how you design and build roadways.
• 10:48
  Margaret Barondess: And I didn't know it at the time, but I came in as a historian and archaeologist and I did a lot of negotiation that later on would be called context-sensitive solutions.
• 11:02
  Margaret Barondess: Today we call it complete streets, because we would be working in like a historic district and I would say, if you make these changes, you're changing the land use pattern of this particular neighborhood and that's not going to work for a historic area, for example.
• 11:23
  Margaret Barondess: So how can we look at compromises, flexibilities, how can we look at data for the intersections?
• 11:31
  Margaret Barondess: Where are the real safety concerns that are here?
• 11:34
  Margaret Barondess: So you know, for me it was like I was always fighting the green book in my early career.
• 11:44
  Margaret Barondess: But then what happened is we finished the interstate system here in Michigan and nationally, and the industry needed to rethink where am I going next?
• 11:55
  Margaret Barondess: And Congress helped, of course.
• 11:57
  Margaret Barondess: And Congress helped, of course.
• 12:00
  Margaret Barondess: They passed laws that created the Transportation Enhancement Program, which allowed federal funding to be used for bike paths, for pedestrian improvements, for streetscapes, for historic preservation, for stormwater.
• 12:13
  Margaret Barondess: So you know that was a real change in the business.
• 12:18
  Margaret Barondess: And then, so you know, we had opportunities then to experiment with different types of projects and for me, the biggest change that's happened, I would say, over the last 10 years or so, has been the focus on people as the users of your transportation systems.
• 12:38
  Margaret Barondess: So again I go back to a strength of MDOTs being asset management early adopters, great leadership in that area, incredible expertise in asset management Well, you're managing objects when you're managing assets, but we've been able to evolve to the point where why am I managing those assets?
• 13:00
  Margaret Barondess: It's for people to use them.
• 13:03
  Margaret Barondess: So I need to think differently about how I'm managing those assets for those people and learn more about how they're using those assets and what they're trying to do, where they're trying to go, and maybe they need more opportunities to go from one mode, maybe from a vehicle, to a bicycle or vice versa.
• 13:26
  Margaret Barondess: And so I think MDOT's been through these incredible changes and has provided to me leadership on these topics that are related to greater needs that the society is putting forth with respect to transportation.
• 13:45
  Jeff Cranson: Stay with us.
• 13:45
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have more on the other side of this important message.
• 13:49
  MDOT Message: The Michigan Department of Transportation reminds you to slow down, follow all signs and pay attention when driving through work zones, because all employees deserve a safe place to work.
• 14:00
  MDOT Message: Work zone safety we're all in this together.
• 14:06
  Jeff Cranson: Well, you've talked before about this and you know your work as a translator and navigator of environmental laws for the engineering staff and I know early on you faced pushback and you still do, and you still deal with this in public meetings and public events.
• 14:23
  Jeff Cranson: You know one person's red tape is another person's environmental protection, but there are a lot of people that think that you know all these rules and regulations.
• 14:33
  Jeff Cranson: It's just the way the bureaucrats, you know, thwart development.
• 14:36
  Jeff Cranson: And how do you talk about that in a way that says, look, I'm not anti-development, but again, it's all about the balance that's a tricky question in the sense that it seems like how could you have both?
• 14:50
  Margaret Barondess: but I'm a firm believer that you can and I'm also a firm believer in the NEPA National Environmental Policy Act decision making process.
• 14:59
  Margaret Barondess: It's a very intentional process that takes in information from the agency MDOT what are the transportation needs, what are my goals and objectives takes in information from the public and takes in information from subject matter experts, whether they're experts on wetlands or regulators on historic properties.
• 15:22
  Margaret Barondess: It takes all of this information and it puts it together in a plan for implementing a project that is addressing what you've learned from all those different areas.
• 15:36
  Margaret Barondess: And to me, yes, that's time consuming, but I always sort of say let's front load that effort, let's get that going.
• 15:48
  Margaret Barondess: Don't be afraid to get out there and talk about ideas and talk about alternatives and have frank conversations about what's doable, what's not doable, because state agencies have a lot of constraints too, whether they're laws related to finance or laws related to who can do what.
• 16:15
  Margaret Barondess: The public may not know about that.
• 16:16
  Margaret Barondess: So have a dialogue about what we can and can't do so you can reach sort of a point where a project is going to go forward, but there are measures that are in place that are going to make it better because of all of that input.
• 16:26
  Margaret Barondess: So I feel like having a diverse set of eyes and opinions and perspectives whether you're a neighbor, whether you're a commuter with respect to a transportation facility benefits all of us, the taxpayer, society, because we are getting closer to that balance of what are the needs, what should we be designing and building in order to try to accommodate those needs to our best abilities.
• 16:58
  Margaret Barondess: So for me, it's about good decision making you talked about in fact I wrote these words down, I'm glad you brought them up but translator, mediator, facilitator, and I added another word partner.
• 17:13
  Margaret Barondess: And I think that MDOT has really learned how to be a good partner with cities, local jurisdictions, other state agencies like DNR, like Department of Ag, medc, point where we understand that we can't solve all the problems that are out there, but through partnerships.
• 17:46
  Jeff Cranson: We can do better as a state agency.
• 17:47
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, that's an excellent point and I think, in addition to those other state agencies you're talking about, this especially applies when it comes to the local communities, and this is why I know that there's always going to be frustration among community leaders and business owners, especially small business owners who, you know, set up shop on a busy trunk line because it would be good for business and they would hope that that road never has to be, you know, rebuilt or maintained and obviously it does.
• 18:19
  Jeff Cranson: And they think blindly that you know MDOT or maybe other agencies, road agencies, don't really care about their business, but they do.
• 18:29
  Jeff Cranson: And I want to tell the critics play the tape, because we have so many videos of these local leaders and business owners commending MDOT staff on the ground in those places for all the work they do to help mitigate the delays and the people being cut off during that construction.
• 18:51
  Jeff Cranson: And I think that really applies and that hasn't always been the mindset, but it's really become the norm in more recent years.
• 18:58
  Jeff Cranson: So I think I just want to put a fine point on the partnership aspect.
• 19:03
  Jeff Cranson: You have to understand so many things in your job.
• 19:05
  Jeff Cranson: Like you said, you kind of started out with an interest in archaeology and obviously history is part of it but also everything from biology to botany and the protection of these species that a lot of people don't really think about or don't care about.
• 19:18
  Jeff Cranson: And you know, we know what's happened with the protection of turtles over the years, but you know, most of us really like turtles, not everybody likes snakes, so it's really important to the diversity of the ecosystem that we protect all of.
• 19:34
  Jeff Cranson: We treat them all equally, you know, and give them the same protection.
• 19:37
  Jeff Cranson: But how do you answer that when you run into people that say, or you know, dating back to, let's just say, a certain politician demagogued the idea of building a fence to protect turtles on US 31 between Muskegon and Grand Haven, let's just, for instance, let's just say that how do you talk to people about those things?
• 19:58
  Margaret Barondess: Well I talk to people about.
• 20:00
  Margaret Barondess: You know well, first of all, me personally.
• 20:03
  Margaret Barondess: I lean on experts a lot, so because I can't ever know everything about it all the different things that we do in the environmental services area, and I listen to them very closely.
• 20:17
  Margaret Barondess: So when we do protection for endangered species we are not just doing that cavalierly.
• 20:27
  Margaret Barondess: We understand what the goals are of the Fish and Wildlife Service in protecting endangered species and that we also understand the ecology of it.
• 20:38
  Margaret Barondess: Not me so much, but the experts do understand the ecology, that roads are part of the ecosystem and so are snakes and so are cute turtles and deer and and I mean all the wildlife that are out there even protected plants like native milkweed plants, for example, are part of the ecosystem and that you really have to look at the bigger picture sometimes and step back anytime.
• 21:09
  Margaret Barondess: Someone can shoot down an idea at a specific location, say the turtle fence, for example, over in the Muskegon area, and say, well, that's just a dumb idea, but you know that was done after a lot of thought and prioritization about where in the state do we have the biggest problem with turtles trying to cross the road?
• 21:30
  Margaret Barondess: Trying to cross the road, and that one just leapt out from the experts saying we built the road through the floodplain for the river and the turtles need to get from one side of the floodplain to the other side.
• 21:44
  Margaret Barondess: They're going to go there because that's what their biology is telling them to do.
• 21:49
  Margaret Barondess: So you know, we were the ones who came later and put this obstacle in the way.
• 21:55
  Margaret Barondess: Now, you know, if you take the bigger picture of look I took a look at this statewide and this rose to the very top as being a serious issue and I addressed it it takes on a different context and a different tone, I think.
• 22:09
  Margaret Barondess: So we base what we plan and implement in our section on sound science.
• 22:17
  Margaret Barondess: We even participate in scientific research like are snakes basking on our roadside, for example, are they not?
• 22:26
  Margaret Barondess: We work with other scientists to try to figure out the behavior of the animal, because we don't want to just do things for the sake of doing things.
• 22:36
  Margaret Barondess: We want results.
• 22:38
  Margaret Barondess: So you know, in order to get those results, you really have to, you know, be part of the scientific community and understanding our is it performing well?
• 22:49
  Margaret Barondess: Is it where?
• 22:50
  Margaret Barondess: Does this work well?
• 22:51
  Margaret Barondess: Can we use this in other places where we have a similar problem?
• 22:55
  Margaret Barondess: So you know, I think that, again, it's a matter of priorities and, yes, our wildlife is in trouble in a lot of places.
• 23:07
  Margaret Barondess: Yes, we have to deal with resiliency and climate change and, you know, protecting habitat and diversity is part of that picture too, because those tend to be areas that take water, that can hold water, that can help you with flood control and mitigation, that type of thing.
• 23:28
  Margaret Barondess: So, you know, trying to put those big pictures together in a way that makes sense to people and where they're coming from, I think is extremely helpful in my business.
• 23:42
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I think, along with that because you talked earlier about some of the things that you've dealt with in terms of big projects and mitigation projects and mitigation, and obviously I think, as you look at your career, without identifying any single capstone, just establishing what you have for an environmental unit within the department and the number of people that are passionate about it, like you are, and are committed to it.
• 24:06
  Jeff Cranson: But let's talk a little bit about one, at least in my time, that I consider an incredible success when it comes to the biodiversity and the protection of species, but also, you know, enhancing mobility through rebuilding a major, major freeway, one of the busiest in the state in Monroe County, i-75, that basically sits at the same level as Lake Erie, so it presents all kinds of environmental challenges, but it was nationally recognized as a success.
• 24:31
  Jeff Cranson: Can you talk about that one?
• 24:31
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that was a really exciting as Lake Erie, so it presents all kinds of environmental challenges, but it was nationally recognized as a success.
• 24:35
  Jeff Cranson: Can you talk about that one?
• 24:37
  Margaret Barondess: Yeah, that was a really exciting project we got the pleasure of working on.
• 24:41
  Margaret Barondess: We received a grant from Federal Highway Administration through their ecological program to do a corridor conservation plan for I-75 in Monroe County up to 275.
• 24:54
  Margaret Barondess: And our impetus for doing that was that we knew we had to reconstruct I-75.
• 25:00
  Margaret Barondess: We knew that I-75 was in, as you mentioned, basically built on the flood plains for Lake Erie, the wetlands that surrounded Lake Erie.
• 25:11
  Margaret Barondess: That made it what it was historically a tremendous resource biologically.
• 25:19
  Margaret Barondess: We knew that on I-75 in the right-of-way because of our mowing practices we had dispersed lots of seeds over the years for endangered Sullivan's milkweed, which is a native milkweed.
• 25:33
  Margaret Barondess: So we had a lot of that out there on the right-of-way and probably other prairie plants too that were native to the area.
• 25:40
  Margaret Barondess: So it was like a little island in a sea of farms and other types of development for some of this prairie style of biology that was taking place.
• 25:53
  Margaret Barondess: So we got this money for this corridor conservation plan to sort of put together what are the environmental factors that we really need to focus on within the corridor when we go to reconstruct, because reconstruct means you're digging everything up from fence line to fence line so it's all going to get removed.
• 26:16
  Margaret Barondess: So what are the issues that we should be dealing with?
• 26:20
  Margaret Barondess: Whether they're stream crossings, putting in new culverts that are bigger, that have different functions, that help with flooding, whether it's dealing with plants and transplanting them to Sterling State Park, which is one thing that we were able to do, and it was a very rewarding project too, because of the partnerships that we developed with US Fish and Wildlife Service.
• 26:44
  Margaret Barondess: This is an international flyway for migratory birds and there are a lot of natural resources agencies like well, the Nature Conservancy has a very large wetland restoration project called I think it's called Erie Marsh that they're working on there, right on the lakeshore near I-75.
• 27:09
  Margaret Barondess: So we got to work with those partners to help us develop conservation practices for the right-of-way that would help promote these resources for the future.
• 27:14
  Margaret Barondess: And also this set the stage for environmental clearance for the construction projects.
• 27:20
  Margaret Barondess: So we were able to streamline the environmental clearance process by using this corridor conservation plan and some of the action items that came out of that.
• 27:31
  Margaret Barondess: So you know again, that's the balance of trying to be sensitive to the natural environment and how you go about reconstructing your infrastructure and achieving goals that are positive for that natural resource environment that natural resource environment.
• 27:53
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, well said, as you look ahead, I guess what would you tell and I'm sure you've already had this discussion with your team and your successor but what would you tell them to really feel good about what they do and keep the faith in what's going to continue to be a challenging environment?
• 28:14
  Jeff Cranson: You know the push me, pull me between the development world and the environmental protection world, not to mention the underfunded transportation environment that we exist in here in Michigan.
• 28:24
  Jeff Cranson: As we speak, it doesn't look like there's going to be a road funding deal wrapped up before the end of this session and that discussion may or may not start anew again in the next one.
• 28:36
  Jeff Cranson: But what do you say to those people?
• 28:40
  Margaret Barondess: I say to those people that we've brought you here to make MDOT's projects better for clean air, clean water neighborhoods, air, clean water neighborhoods, people.
• 29:00
  Margaret Barondess: We've brought you here to add your expertise to the MDOT team and you have positive contributions to make to the future of project development.
• 29:07
  Margaret Barondess: So take advantage of that opportunity to educate and train our MDOT engineering partners on best practices, things you may have learned from other states, things you learned in school, and the best thing is that you actually get to work with people who are going to implement these practices.
• 29:31
  Margaret Barondess: So you're here to support the transportation project development process and make it better.
• 29:38
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's really nice and it's nice that you can move on to your next whatever of feeling that way, I think, about what you've done.
• 29:49
  Margaret Barondess: It's been a very rewarding career, Jeff.
• 29:51
  Margaret Barondess: I'm a fortunate person.
• 29:54
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that's very, very good.
• 29:55
  Jeff Cranson: Well, thank you, Margaret.
• 29:56
  Jeff Cranson: I really appreciate your willingness to come out and talk about what you do.
• 30:00
  Jeff Cranson: I want to wish you luck going forward and say thank you again.
• 30:04
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 30:08
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout.
• 30:13
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.