03/23/2007

Editorial

State, feds must unlock the problem in Alanson

Every year thousands of boaters travel northern Michigan's Inland Waterway, a combination of lakes and rivers that connects Crooked and Pickerel lakes near Petoskey to Cheboygan and Lake Huron.

Now, spring has arrived and the boaters won't be long behind. But the lock at the mouth of the Crooked River, which allows boats to pass into the rest of the waterway, is closed and there doesn't seem to be a deadline for fixing it — or even a deadline for setting a deadline.

The lock, which has suffered a host of mechanical problems in recent years, is one of those federal/state creations that can give local officials fits. While the chain of ownership and responsibility is usually clear on paper, the reality is often less so.

In this case, while the Army Corps of Engineers owns the lock it is operated by the State Department of Natural Resources at a cost of about $30,000 a year. The federal government pays about $7,000 of that as part of a lease agreement, but the rest comes from the DNR's waterways budget.

Although the state started charging boaters to use the lock a few years ago — $4 for a one-way trip or $30 for a season pass — that money goes into the DNR's general waterways fund; none is allocated directly for taking care of the lock, which is the feds' responsibility anyway. Clear on that?

Boaters and the people who depend on the waterway to help boost tourism business are angry, and rightly so. Although the lock was open all last year, it has been beset by a host of mechanical problems in recent years. Although the DNR wouldn't be specific about what's wrong now, problems have hardly come as a surprise.

Members of the Pickerel-Crooked Lakes Association are frustrated; all they want is for someone to get the system working again, and they don't much care who.

"We're hoping that somebody's going to get a fire lit under them and get moving on this thing,” said association board member Dudley Marvin. "For the life of me, I can't understand why the DNR doesn't just hire someone who knows what they're doing to come” for an initial inspection.

While the DNR is as strapped for cash as any other state agency, Inland Waterway boaters have, after all, been paying their fair share for years; they expect something in return.

The Corps says its lock experts are busy making winter repairs to the Soo locks, which of course dwarf the waterway in both size and economic terms. But some compromise needs to be found.

The waterway is a key economic and leisure asset; letting it sit just isn't acceptable.