06/01/2007

Editorial

State must make punishment fit the beach-grooming crime

At the first sight of the pristine, sugar sand beach in front of the Cherry Tree Inn, East Bay beach owners could be excused for thinking the same thing: "It was worth every dime.”

That's probably what the folks from Omni Hospitality of Medina, Ohio, who own the Inn, are thinking, too. Stack that big expanse of beach against the $35,000 fine for building it and it's a no-brainer: Gosh, that really hurt. Honest.

In May the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality fined the inn for sending a bulldozer up to 122 feet into the bay over Thanksgiving to dredge up and move large quantities of bottomlands.

The results, particularly in comparison with the rest of East Bay, are eye-popping. A wide, beautiful beach all the way to the water's edge with nary a reed in sight. It's a throwback to the days when local promoters dubbed East Bay the "Miracle Mile” and touted its pure white "sugar sand” beach.

But this is 2007 and Great Lakes water levels are near all-time lows; what was once sugar-sand beach is, in some areas, wetlands.

The Cherry Tree Inn, however, has shown that if you have the chutzpah, the money and malleable enforcement, you can turn back time.

Local environmentalists were right on the money when they criticized the fine as "absurd.”

And Omni itself was apparently never worried about consequences. A month after the first dredging the inn sent a machine to groom what it had dug up the first time. The paltry fine was, if anything, a vindication.

The settlement also called for Omni to replant some beachfront and remove invasive vegetation from a nearby road end used as a park. But as Grand Traverse Baykeeper John Nelson put it, the road-end work "should take them about 20 minutes.”

There is a continuing disconnect here that won't be closed until Michigan residents put enough heat on lawmakers to offset the influence of the group Save Our Shorelines and its allies.

SOS has lobbied hard to allow beachfront owners to eliminate wetlands that have grown up as the Great Lakes have receded.

The fact that eliminating wetlands runs directly contrary to the wishes of the great majority of Michigan residents and the health of the lakes has, so far, mattered little. Now, taxpayers and voters must let Lansing and the DEQ know that enough is enough.

The legal issues are clear: The state has jurisdiction in the Great Lakes below the traditional water line and can prevent the removal of emerging wetlands.

State residents expect the law to be enforced, starting now, with vigor. No more slaps on the wrist. No more bulldozers in the bay. No more "sugar sand” unless Mother Nature makes some more.