Economy blamed as state's boat fleet drifts from top

The Grand Rapids Press has this article on the decline of pleasure boating in Michigan:

Swamped by job cuts and an exodus to warmer climates, Michigan no longer is the top state for registered boats. Boat registrations in Michigan have fallen 6 percent since 2001, from about 1 million boats to 944,800.

Florida has taken that spot, leaping over California and Michigan, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

Despite the drop in boating in Michigan, the Midwest leads the way in boat registrations, according to the NMMA. The Great Lakes states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin account for 27.4 percent of all boat registrations.

2006 water level forecast looks dry for Great Lakes

WOOD TV8 - Grand Rapids news and weather has a 2006 forecast for the lakes:

Last year, Lake Michigan [and Lake Huron] water levels were eight inches below normal. The forecast for 2006 looks even drier. We have seen dramatic ups and downs with the water levels throughout the years. The levels have been well below normal since the late 1990s. The average levels of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron in 2005 were well below the mean. But even more noteworthy is the forecast for 2006, which falls even further below the average.

Lake levels fluctuate in most part due to natural ebbs and flows in weather patterns or changes in ground water levels.

For 2006 it looks like more sand and lower water levels will be back.

Groups link to protect water in Great Lakes

The Post-Tribune (Northwest Indiana) has this article outlining state and local governmental actions to clean up the Great Lakes:

Kay Nelson, the environmental director of the Northwest Indiana Forum, was one of more than 1,500 representatives of government and nongovernment agencies who worked together during the past year to draft a comprehensive strategy for the Great Lakes. Their effort, called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, pulled together and prioritized ideas for improving the lakes.

The Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy, signed Dec. 12 in Chicago, outlines a 15-year strategy for cleaning up and restoring the Great Lakes and their surroundings. The next day, the governors of eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces signed an agreement to prevent new or increased water withdrawals from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin. An update of the Great Lakes Charter, a 1985 agreement, it also requires states and provinces to implement water conservation programs.

SUPREME COURT TO HEAR BEACH WALKING CASE?

Sorry for the lack of posts lately -- news has been slow.

The Great Lakes Radio Consortium reports that shoreline property owners are asking the nation's Supreme Court to revers a ruling that says the public has a right to walk along the beaches of the Great Lakes. The petition is available on the Save-Our-Shoreline site:

Save Our Shoreline announces that it has aided Richard and Kathleen Goeckel with a Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed today with the U.S. Supreme Court. The Petition asks the high court to review a July decision of the Michigan Supreme Court which for the first time held that private Great Lakes beaches are subject to public use. That ruling changed a 1930 decision that limited public rights to the water’s edge. The July ruling extends public rights to the dry
shore up to a so called “ordinary high water mark.” The decision also extends the public’s rights, historically limited to fishing, hunting, and navigation, to include recreational beachwalking. Finally, the decision opens the door for future courts to authorize further public uses which may be considered “inherent in the exercise of” hunting, fishing, and navigation.

Although many commentators focus on the right of beachwalking, SOS is primarily concerned with the expansion of public control over Michigan’s beaches through the so-called “public trust doctrine.” If the Michigan decision stands, then government, and not individual
owners, will decide how the beaches will be used, and whether fees will be charged for beach use. For example, state and federal government officials have opposed beach maintenance along the Saginaw Bay on the basis that it violates the public trust doctrine. Those same government officials steadfastly oppose beach grooming at the Bay City State Park Recreation Area, whose once widely renowned beach has been converted to a vast wetland inundated with nonnative, invasive species.