The Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ announcement Friday about its memorandum of understanding with the Michigan National Guard appeared to be a remarkable piece of news — and a masterful sleight of hand.

This agreement allows the Guard special-use permits to conduct exercises on up to 52,000 acres for training purposes. The deal was inked April 21 and took effect immediately, but the public wasn’t told until a week later.

It certainly appears that the fix was in — despite overwhelming opposition to the original proposal.

Since last year, the Guard had been pressing to nearly double its footprint at Camp Grayling by leasing 162,000 acres nearby to train for modern cyber, electronic and space warfare.

Public resistance to this request is strong. Residents, conservation groups, local governments and tribal communities — people from every political persuasion – have opposed it. The DNR seemed stymied by the fact that it received more than 10,000 public comments on the proposal.

To make matters more difficult, a district supervisor from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy’s Remediation and Redevelopment Division in Gaylord wrote that the DNR should reject the Guard’s request.

What could the DNR do when faced with such strong, well-reasoned conflict within and without?

Remember, though, this is state government at work – the same state that somehow came up with $175 million to encourage a Chinese company to locate about 100 miles down the road from this sprawling National Guard facility. (See Saturday’s edition for the issues piece by Sen. John Damoose for more on that topic.)

In his statement about the memorandum of understanding with the Guard, DNR Director Shannon Lott said, “Public concerns and feedback from Tribal governments, coupled with our own review of the proposal, led us to decide against a 20-year lease on such a significant portion of state-managed land.”

Well, at least they got that much right.

So they figured out a way to modify the plan. This deal is different, they say. It modifies the terms, puts some protections in place and limits some activities.

Yet it allows the Guard to have access to more property it didn’t have access to in the past.

“We continue to be opposed to the expansion of Camp Grayling, by any method,” Joe Hemming, president of the Anglers of Au Sable, said in a statement Friday. “We support our military, but have serious questions about the department’s authority to issue a permit and the need for additional property for its electromagnetic warfare training.

“The Guard needs to improve its operations and relations with local governments before it gets access to even more state property.”

We couldn’t agree more.

We wrote last June that the community, advocacy groups and the DNR needed to hold the Guard to high standards of environmental stewardship before blessing any expansion.

Nothing since then — nothing — has occurred to change our view. Ongoing issues of contamination from PFAS (an acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), stemming from its use in firefighting foam during training exercises at Camp Grayling, remain a major concern.

The Anglers also raise some excellent questions: Does the DNR actually have the authority to issue such a permit that allows electromagnetic warfare training on additional state land?

They also point out that “the Guard never explained why the 230 square miles it already controls is insufficient for the training it wishes to conduct.”

We would hazard a guess that unexploded ordinance on some of the Camp Grayling property may present a bit of a hazard to participants in these exercises the Guard hopes to conduct.

But it’s tough to really know what is driving these National Guard needs — and that’s another issue that the Anglers point to: How can the DNR verify that its requirements are being met — and how will it enforce them if they are violated?

The Anglers of the Au Sable are pledging to remain vigilant as the process proceeds. That’s good.

We can only hope there are no more bait-and-switch tactics like the ones we’ve just described.

But we wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

— The Traverse City Record-Eagle