06/11/2006

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Beulah resident Ed McIntosh is strongly opposed to any plans of the National Park Service to scale back park public access for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. McIntosh, the president of Benzie Fishery Coalition, is discouraged by management of the proposed plan and lack of public involvement.

Sleeping Bear officials again looking to future

Management plan for area draws concerns about public's input

By PATRICK SULLIVAN

psullivan@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/
Tyler Sipe
Dennis Tacey and son Zachary, 10, of Grand Canyon, Ariz., walk along the banks of the Platte River at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

EMPIRE — National Park Service officials are again drawing up plans for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore's future, jump-starting an endeavor halted almost four years ago amid outcry over a move to scale back park public access.

Whether the latest attempt to develop a general management plan and wilderness study will go over better this time around depends on who you ask.

Ed McIntosh, president of the Benzie Fishery Coalition, is angered that park officials decided to develop a 20-year management plan before establishing a park wilderness map, which, if enacted by the federal government, could establish boundaries in the park where access would be strictly limited.

"We're 100 percent opposed to it the way it's being handled," McIntosh said. "They want to restrict as much of the acreage (as they can), roughly half of it, and ban public use."

On the other hand, Jeannette Feeheley, president of Citizens for Access to the Lakeshore, is optimistic that this time, officials will be more responsive to the public and make recreational use of the park a priority.

"They revised what they said the purpose was," she said. "What they are calling their formative document, it looks very promising to us. ... Now how they're going to apply that, we don't really have any idea yet."

Citizens for Access formed in 2002 in response to plans unveiled that year that called for much of the park to become "wilderness," or to revert back to nature. Access to the dune climb could have been limited, roads to many Lake Michigan beaches could have been eliminated, and park officials talked about ending coho salmon stocking in the Platte River.

Park superintendant Dusty Shultz said she hopes to have completed new plans by the end of 2008, and she said park employees worked hard to ensure the public is involved in how the plans turn out.

She said the new plan could call for an entirely new configuration of what lands would be designated wilderness.

"We've really made quite an effort to increase our public involvement in this second round," Shultz said. "Instead of us presenting something to the public, we'll be asking for their involvement in developing the alternatives."

She said one of the public's chief concerns — that dirt road accesses to Lake Michigan beaches from M-22 will be closed — is unlikely because many of those accesses are owned by Benzie or Leelanau counties, and officials which are unwilling to cede control.

The public can take part in planning workshops at Traverse City West High School on June 20 and 21. For more information, call the (231) 326-5134 or at www.nps.gov/slbe