Shifting Sands: On The Path To Sustainability

“I think it’s a microcosm of the struggles we face on global scale to maintain our way of life without destroying the basis on which we all depend.” – Sir Peter Crane, Yale School of Forestry

For more than a century, North America's giants in manufacturing (U.S. Steel, Standard Oil and Bethlehem Steel) and preservationists battled over a 47-mile stretch of sandy shore along Lake Michigan that contains one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet — the Indiana Dunes region.

While the factories provided jobs and contributed to the community’s economic growth, they also wiped out a tremendous amount of rare habitat, and polluted the waterways.

In “Shifting Sands: On The Path To Sustainability,” the hour-long documentary takes a look at the decades-long effort to create the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore amid the presence of heavy industry along Lake Michigan.

It also highlights the collaborative effort to clean up and restore the region.

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Beach hike group with signs that read “Save the Dunes,” Indiana Dunes region. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Workers excavating the channel from center line west, Indiana Dunes region. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Men with horses excavating dunes, Indiana Dunes region, 1906.

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Standard Oil plant looking south, Whiting, Ind. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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U.S. Steel mill. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Industry (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Blast furnaces. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Steelworker next to Crane Hook, 1900s.

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

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Floyd Swink (second from left), Stewart Udall (center) and Herb Read (right) in a photo that reads “To remember a day we made history. - Stewart Udall.” Udall was an American politician and played a key role in the enactment of environmental laws. (undated photo)

Courtesy of For Goodness Sake Productions

The clash over the Indiana Dunes — considered to be the birthplace of ecological science in North America — would lead to the creation of public policy with worldwide impact, and it would give the United States one of its first urban National Parks.

Today, that decades-old battle has transformed into a new model of cooperation, where industrialists and environmentalists, once bitter adversaries, are now working together to steer this community toward sustainability.

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CREDITS:

Produced by Green Heron Productions. Presented by WYIN/ Lakeshore PTV. Distributed by American Public Television. Producer/Editor/Writer: Tom Desch. Producer/Director: Pat Wisniewski. Producer/Director of Cinematography: Rana Segal. Editor/Story Consultant: Brian Kallies. Associate Producer/Editor: Paul Nelson. Associate Producer/Camera: Matthew Keene. Executive Producer: Lee Botts.