Man who shoveled new channel into Lake Michigan convicted
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For some reason historical satellite photos are available in Google Earth Pro (which is free) but not on maps.google.com or earth.google.com
When you're talking about Google products, fragmentation comes built-in as expected. There is no reason for 3 versions of maps to exist within Google ecosystem but I don't think they really care
Another example: Google Street View is available on the web - unless you use an iPhone and enter the address directly on maps.google.com instead of google.com. On the maps hostname with an iPhone, clicking the Street View preview just shows a nag screen that it’s only available in the Google Maps app. That’s not true, so I assume that app installs is some group’s KPI.
I didn't get whether this was before or after the channel was dug, and whether there was any causation
In this case, it's taking care of the riparian environment near the mouth of a river. It doesn't always have to be about human interests.
I looked at the pictures of Platt Beach, and I think the NPS chose correctly.
Myopically selfish comment. One can absolutely let nature rebound. This one-way fatalism is shield for continuing to make bad decisions.
The fact that most people visiting the park prefer a more natural, wilder-seeming environment is great. But accommodating them is not the same as a proper "rewilding" approach - which would presumably mean removing access roads and trails, allowing seasonal flooding, avoiding intervention for dangerous-to-human wildlife, etc.
That disappointed some fishermen who used to be able to navigate into the bay with a boat. Tired of having to push their boats over the last bit, they dug a channel themselves instead.
The NY Times article has more info: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/us/michigan-river-nationa...
"Park officials decided to restore the river to its natural state in 2016 after an environmental assessment found that the sand and gravel dredged from the river mouth interfered with dune vegetation and the enjoyment of beachgoers.
According to the assessment, dredging benefited “a small, short-term user group compared to the deleterious effects for the larger recreational groups during the full summer.”
It was a controversial decision, prosecutors said in court papers, because in the Platte River’s natural, non-dredged state, the river mouth became too shallow for boats to pass.
“If you had a boat, it sucked,” said Brian Seiferlein, a chartered fishing boat guide. “You would need two, three guys to push your boat about three-fourths of a mile in ankle-deep water.""
The environmental review is here: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/showFile.cfm?projectID=60589&MI...
The dune vegetation point seems very hand wavey.
The environment impact is rather long but it appears to essentially say less human activity and boats may cause less disturbance to wildelife. Although this seems to undermine the point of it making the beach more accessible to other humans. I didnt see any acute or specific harm cited like damaging some endangered species or something.
Basically, it sounds like they just plain dont want boats to be able to access the lake from the river. It seems like they are repurposing the park and hiding behind the wildlife assessment.
> It seems like they are repurposing the park and hiding behind the wildlife assessment.
"Park" here is a bit of an ambiguous term. This area was designated a "National Lakeshore" in 1970, which is a lot more protection than your typical county park would have. In this case the federal government, by act of Congress, stepped in and said they wanted to preserve this land for the future, unimpaired. https://www.nps.gov/articles/nps-designations.htm and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Bear_Dunes_National_L.... This protection is closer to something like Yellowstone or Yosemite than your local fishing spot. And apparently its management was always contentious: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/slbe/adhi_intro...
In other words, Congress specifically tasked the NPS to preserve this area, which is a specific designation that is meant to emphasize natural resource preservation over recreational usage. There are other land designations too, both higher like wilderness (MUCH more protected) and lower (like most USFS and BLM land, which can be managed for resource extraction alongside recreation, with limited conservation).
Probably the area shouldn't have ever been dredged for recreation, if they were to follow the true spirit of the law. But NPS personnel and values have changed over time too, as well as our science, and over time it probably has become more protective than in the past (like we don't feed the bears in Yosemite anymore).
Most of Lake Michigan doesn't have this sort of designation; it was only a few scenic spots that Congress wanted to protect (most recently, Indiana's dunes were added a few years ago).
> The environment impact is rather long but it appears to essentially say less human activity and boats may cause less disturbance to wildelife. Although this seems to undermine the point of it making the beach more accessible to other humans. I didnt see any acute or specific harm cited like damaging some endangered species or something.
PDF pages 28 and 29 summarizes the impacts and tries to weigh the pros and cons of various "alternatives". An "alternative" here is just an "option", i.e., a bunch of what-if scenarios. Alternative 2 is what they proposed, and what was ultimately chosen (https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?documentID=83442). But the public comments on that page are worth reading too, with anglers and other community members wanting more access, more boat launches, giving the land back to the state, etc.
This project ultimately resulted in a "FONSI", a "Finding of No Significant Impact", which means the agency thought that it wasn't a big enough deal to warrant a full investigation. The environmental assessment they did was just a preliminary review; if they had found significant impacts, it would've turned into a much longer investigation, like this 382-page environmental impact statement for another seashore (https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=358&project...).
By contrast, even at 30-some pages, this is a pretty typical EA. The agency has to be relatively thorough and check a bunch of boxes, or they can risk getting sued by environmental watchdogs, local activists, property owners & developers, etc.
Aaaaaaaaanyway, I hope I don't sound like I'm lecturing here. I don't have a dog in this race and I don't know all the facts, I just wanted to somewhat briefly explain the long and convoluted process that is NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act), which is a super important piece of law that the government is absolutely terrible at explaining or marketing. Even this overview flowchart is super complicated, and the actual process is waaaaaay more complex: https://www.fs.usda.gov/emc/nepa/revisions/includes/docs/NEP...
For example, each stage of this process usually has a public comment period, which is the "official" way for the public to provide its input on projects. Sometimes they get a lot of attention, but other times they fly totally under the radar. I wish the government were more invested in publicizing these things and getting the public to be aware of them (such as mandatory notifications via email or social media or SMS or whatever). But even when the public does provide feedback, the agency isn't really obligated to agree with them, merely to acknowledge and respond to them. In this case, the public comments I linked to above explicitly requested more boat launches, other dredging options, etc., and the NPS explained its rationales about why it didn't do those things, why those things are out of scope for its proposed projects, etc.
It's a lot of red tape and bureaucratic language that basically boils down to "Thanks for your comment. We're going to do this anyway." And that, IMO, is a separate failure of the current law: there is not really an avenue for direct democratic participation in these processes. You can scream at them all you want but ultimately it's not your call. And that's how we end up with vigilante fishermen who take matters into their own hands.
NEPA was a groundbreaking law in its day that helped protect a lot of our public lands that otherwise would've been irreparably harmed or destroyed outright. But it's also 50+ years old now and probably in need of some updating and streamlining and more opportunities for public participation. But that's the sort of unsexy infrastructure and resource discussion that most hotshot politicians don't want to focus on, instead arguing about the latest hot-button culture war issues.
Man, I wish people invested as much emotion into these things as, say, bathrooms or movie casting. By and large people just ignore our public lands management until something suddenly changes that they don't like (even though it's often been planned for years if not decades, again, usually completely under the radar just because the governments are so bad at marketing and publicizing).
In the environmental assessment (https://parkplanning.nps.gov/showFile.cfm?projectID=60589&MI...), Alternative 3 explored the possibility of adding another boat launch and parking area. This is discussed in detail from PDF pages 22-25.
A similar alternative, building a boat launch past the former dredging area, was also considered but dismissed because currents would likely submerge it within a few years. A few other sites were also looked at, but ultimately they went with not building any new ones.
The NPS's subsequent response to public comments (https://parkplanning.nps.gov/showFile.cfm?projectID=60589&MI...) discusses these further on PDF pages 19-20. My summary of the NPS's response is basically that anglers make up a little less than 1% of area visitation, and their main mandate is preservation of the natural resources.
> Regarding the ecological health of Lake Michigan, the mission of the NPS does include preserving and enhancing ecological health and processes within the National Lakeshore. However, maximizing angler opportunities in an effort to increase state licensing fees is not an efficient, or appropriate, way for the NPS to attempt to achieve this.
They were also asked why they didn't build more parking, grant the land back to the state, allow the state to take over dredging, etc.
It's worth a read if you're interested.
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I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the NPS's stances here, FWIW. Just wanted to show more of the NEPA process (the National Environmental Policy Act, which is what makes the NPS have to go through all these environmental reviews and public comments). These public comments are the official way for members of the public to respond and critique the federal government's (including the NPS's) planned management efforts.
Of course, sometimes that doesn't work out, and, uh, vigilante land managers volunteer their shovels...
I can't just go out to Yellowstone with an axe and make myself a nice meadow to relax in, divert a nearby stream to make it more convenient, dig a big ol' cesspool and then scream IT'S MY LAND TOO! I mean, that'd make a pretty entertaining YouTube episode, but I would expect a small fine...
Curses and hexes are not prohibited by the law. If you want to damn a river, damn it. You don't even need to buy the land first.
to those who say "it's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness" I say "Damn the darkness!"
Even if someone is lucky enough to own land with a river running through it I'm pretty glad that somebody will "get in a man's way" if that man decides to do something like dump heavy metals into the river with abandon or dam it up without any consideration for those further downstream. I'm also glad that the somebody doing the job is ultimately working for the public and that voters who can decide to increase/decrease the amount of oversight as needed. The majority of the US population feels that the government isn't doing enough to protect the environment.
In May last year, SCOTUS significantly narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States” - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackett_v._Environmental_Pro... - so some of these cases which would have required a federal permit (EPA or Army Corps of Engineers) may no longer require one.
Whether a state/county/municipal permit is required is a completely separate question - it is a matter of state and local law, which varies from state to state and locality to locality
However, that case did not narrow the definition of the phrase “waters of the United States” at all. No, it merely prevented the EPA from widening it over time. Keep in mind that the Sackett’s property does not actually contain a wetland or navigable waterway; it just has a ditch that occasionally channels rainwater away from their lawn. This returns us to the definition that the EPA decided on in the 1970s and 1980s.
SpaceX had requested a wetland reclamation permit from USACE for expansion of their launch site in Texas; in 2022 (a year before SCOTUS decided this case) they withdrew the application [0], exactly why is unclear, but it seems they concluded that bureaucratic process was unlikely to produce the result they wanted. Possibly, under this decision, the wetland (tidal flats actually) they wanted to reclaim is no longer “waters of the United States”, in which case they might be able to go ahead without the permit. If that’s the case, then in practice the definition really has been narrowed
[0] https://www.tpr.org/environment/2022-04-07/army-corps-of-eng...
Every specific case is a bit different, of course.
That said, removing a meander can improve boat navigation, but it reduces total water contact with shore line interface, filtering effect of weeds, opportunities for water way animal breeding locations, increases flow rates, etc.
The downsides can be loss of habitat and species, more polluted water, faster water in flood times leading to stronger gouging effects, banks bursting etc.
Wetland habitats clean and filter water, near the ocean and large lakes they reduce storm surges, etc.
Where rivers drain into oceans or lakes with different water properties (oceans have higher salt levels) banking at the river mouth reduces backwash from the larger body up into the river and preserves the distinct water types which can benefit fish species, water based plants and animals, etc.
It's a swings and roundabouts problem domain.
My city got tired of the river flooding the downtown area, so decided to reroute the river. Of course, they made it much straighter than it would naturally form. So nearly a century later, they started to go back and add in bends and areas for the water to pool in areas. It has done a lot in a positive direction.
The river flooded in 1938, tearing out bridges and trestles. It killed more than 100 people, trapped movie stars on their San Fernando Valley ranches, and forced a three-day delay in the Oscars. The water tore away the Warner Brothers studio’s prop department.
That flood wrote the real river’s death warrant. It was the Depression; L.A. needed jobs, not a killer river. The river was timbered and troughed and cemented over, mile after mile. Only in parts of its 51-mile bed would it assert itself and remain persistently unpaveable: for about three miles around Atwater Village, and along more than two miles at the broad reach of the Sepulveda dam wildlife area.
It took 20 years and 3.5 million barrels of cement, and now we have a paved river as a testament to the hubris of man. fwiw, it did not solve the floods this year.
Hellish for humans to walk about and navigate, sure.
Very good for temperature stabilisations, wetland life, water retention in areas that would otherwise drain and dry out, etc.
That has pluses and minuses.
For one, it’s really terrible living in an area that beavers insist on turning into swamps, if you don’t prefer swamps.
Having some swamps somewhere, does help nature though.
Just like it’s terrible not having a roof over your head, or getting flooded out.
Having some flooding somewhere is good for nature though.
Prior generations optimized for getting housing in place quickly and cheaply, and having predictable flooding behavior even if it looked ugly.
And they got it.
What should we optimize for now?
pick your poison. Pros/cons, etc.
To use available technology and information of the day in an attempt to improve outcomes for millions of people.
> It killed more than 100 people
I guess that doesn't "irk" some people. I suppose they've adopted a mindset that the dead somehow "deserved" it for some imagined choice they made, or that humanity as a whole "deserves" to be doomed.
> as a testament to the hubris of man
Engineering is an act of compromise. One that has mostly worked in our favor. You can either give up because we are incapable of perfection or you can dig in and try to make the next incremental improvement.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-02-08/lives-s...
They are terrible, but I think the alternative was probably not to build in places like Huntington Beach (population 200,000).
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-01/why-we-t...
For some time now, Los Angeles and Orange County have been in the process of adding soil and plants to the bottoms of the concrete channels.
Here’s the website for the L.A. river revitalization.
https://www.greatlakespipingplover.org/
Disclaimer: I'm just an amateur birder.
As a person responsible for maintaining a harbor in Lake Michigan, I am allowed to move 1 cubic yard of material a year, by hand, with a shovel (last time I checked, the rules change). Anything else requires a detailed permitting process with lots of limitations on what is even possible.
You are looking at a body of rules built up to prevent draining large wetlands without permission, destroying your neighbors waterfront, dredging huge plumes of PCB contaminated sediment into the active water zones, wiping out a regional spawning bed, or casting an intermittent shadow on a patch of lake bed of the great state of redacted. This is administered by a staff who will be held accountable for unforeseen damage and has limited resources.
So you do the paperwork, wait for your permits, only work during the weeks of the year when work is allowed, and try to generally make do with less than you wanted.
looking at the picture he could have made a smaller channel moving the legal limit letting the water enlarge it over time.
It’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything significant by moving a cubic yard of anything. Except gold bullion or Plutonium.
Even diverting a small stream for awhile would require very thoughtful application of something pretty durable (concrete?).
Not impossible, but very improbable.
Which is probably why they set such a small limit. That’s literally ‘dude with a shovel and an hour’ territory.
No, the guy didn't hurt anything, and essentially "restored" it to how it's been the last 40+ years. If anything, what he did improves the dunes in that area. Would I have done it, no, though it would be kind of fun to divert 500 ft of river with 30 minutes of digging.
Edit to add a quote from the article:
"Within days, the natural power of the river opened the channel 200 feet wide, drawing an influx of fishermen.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said the diversion helped the river’s flow of sediment and relieved oversaturated marshlands, MLive.com reported.
The Park Service viewed it differently and issued a plea for help with its investigation."
Michipicoten beach is a high long sand bar with a strong flow where the river enters the lake. It's a neat surfing spot in a canoe or kayak.
[1] https://www.instructables.com/Portage-cart-for-canoes-and-ka...