How a new plan before congress could impact you
Read more: Local, National, Politics, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Levin, Hoekstra, Fact Finder, Diana Fairbanks, Fact Finder
Many of us think of the Sleeping Bear Dunes as our own. But it is a national lakeshore. And changes in Washington may impact how we use the area.
A viewer wanted to know what it means for her and other park users.
The answers are tonight's Fact Finder Report.
The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is almost 72,000 acres of sand dunes, shoreline, and forests. But soon almost half of that may be designated as wilderness and given special protection.
Deputy Superintendent Tom Ulrich says, "These are areas they want to keep pristine and natural for people to go and enjoy."
Recently Senator Carl Levin and Representative Pete Hoekstra simultaneously introduced bills to preserve 32,557 acres within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as wilderness. That means for non mechanized recreation only.
Ulrich says, "the other thing this bill will do is continue the management we're doing now preserving the hunting and fishing opportunities the boating and hiking all of the things people come here for that will go on into the future indefinitely and a future manager can't change it and say "oh I'm going to build a new visitor center in someone's favorite mushroom spot."
After three years of public input, the final plan is not as restrictive as an earlier version.
Ulrich says, "But the public wanted to make sure of, and what this bill does is the roads people drive today to get to the beaches and the trail heads will remain open. The previous proposal would have closed several of those roads that are actually used quite often so that's one important change."
There was something else specifically left out of the wilderness area: the shoreline.
"We made sure the beach below the vegetation to the water would not be in the wilderness because we didn't want to constrain people from enjoying the motor boat out in the lake and being able to beach that motor boat with its motor because motors are not an appropriate use of wilderness."
The plan still needs to be approved by congress and signed by the President; Ulrich expects it to move quickly. But once it's approved, you shouldn't see many more changes for quite a while.
Ulrich says, "If there are any changes afterward it would literally have to be an act of congress. Because congress is saying on these acres we want the primary emphasis to be on this non mechanized primitive recreation to give people the opportunity to really get away from it all."
So what do you think about the plan? Is this a good idea? Should we do this in more areas, or is it too restrictive?
Leave your thoughts below.
If you would like to see the map of the areas yourself here's a link. Click on the preferred alternative map.
