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April 30, 2001Needs ongoing workWorkers try to keep sand from North Bar LakeBy BRENDAN STRAUBELRecord-Eagle staff writer EMPIRE - Efforts continue to stop North Bar Lake in Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore from filling with sand as the dune separating it from nearby Lake Michigan deteriorates, park rangers say. Steve Yancho, Sleeping Bear resource manager, estimates that as much as 14 tons of sand from the dune has blown and slid into the popular lake over the last 20 years. Trampled dune grass is to blame, he said. The grass blocks blowing sand with its leathery blades above ground, while holding sand in place below the surface with a snaking network of mesh-like roots. "Dune grass is designed quite well for holding dunes together," Yancho said. "But it doesn't take impact at all." The unique setting at North Bar Lake - where an inland lake sits just 50 yards from Lake Michigan - has long made the spot just north of Empire a favorite for locals. But Kim Strothers, a biologist for the Park Service, said when the area became popular with summer visitors in the '90s, foot traffic increased dramatically on the dune, killing much of the vegetation there and freeing up the sand to slide and blow into the north end of the inland lake. "This has nothing to do with low lake levels either," she said. "This is blowing sand. Now there's a shallow shoreline and a sandbar that wasn't there before." The Park Service first began monitoring the dune in 1996 with visitor counts and serial photography, she said. A count completed that year showed that about 100 people a day visited the lake during July and August. The next summer that count shot to 250. As the extent of the use and the dune damage became apparent, work began to limit traffic and stabilize the dune. In 1997 and 1998 a wooden boardwalk was put in to funnel foot traffic away from the most sensitive areas, and snow fencing was put up to catch blowing sand and stop foot traffic. Those efforts, she said, have helped. With the foot traffic over the dune cut and sand loss slowed, dune grass was planted there for the first time last fall. Signs explaining the need to stay off the dunes and a less visible fence for blocking foot traffic will likely go up this summer. Last week, Strothers and a group of volunteers transplanted 900 dune grass plants and another planting is scheduled for the fall. Last fall's transplants have done well so far, she said, and the park has had few complaints about the fenced-off dune. Certainly the North Bar area remains popular. A vehicle survey done at the lake last summer found the parking area there to be overflowing, with cars lined down the gravel access road numbering twice what the paved parking area there was designed to hold, Strothers said. The biologist said the outlook for the area is good but work there is not yet complete and may never be. "Oh, this will be ongoing," Strothers said. "This is a great area. We'll always be working on it." Brendan Straubel is the reporter for health, agriculture and environment. He can be reached at (231) 933-1428, or at bstraubel@record-eagle.com |