National Lakeshore to get federal wilderness approval

From staff reports

The Ticker and other media outlets reported earlier this month that the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will receive the highest level of federal conservation protection for nearly 50 percent of our branch of the National Park Service.

The Ticker reports:

Barring any unforeseen snags in Washington, D.C., approximately 32,000 of the park’s 71,187 acres will be officially designated as “wilderness” this year, after the clock ran out on legislative action last week.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. nearly two years ago along with co-sponsor Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., was unanimously passed by the Senate on Dec. 30, 2012 but did not make it through the House of Representatives before the New Year and expired. That means it will have to be re-introduced to the 113th Congress.

“Senate passage makes me optimistic we can push this important legislation across the finish line in the incoming Congress,” says Sen. Levin in a statement published yesterday on his website.

Tom Ulrich, the park’s deputy superintendent, says the bill “reflects exactly” what the public came up with during the public review process of the lakeshore’s general management plan.

“It did not vary at all,” Ulrich says. “What we heard in that process is that people like the park just the way it is.” All told, the public comment period that began in early 2006 and culminated three years later, involved some 2,600 people in more than 95 informational meetings.

The 32,000 wilderness acres cover six main areas of the park: most of North Manitou Island, a portion of South Manitou Island, around Good Harbor Bay, the section from Empire Bluffs to Peterson Beach, the stretch from Platte Bay to the Old Indian Trail and the Sleeping Bear Plateau (the 4 square-mile field of perched dunes). The plateau is a new addition to the wilderness area, Ulrich says.