Park unveils revamped General Management Plan to public

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
In early June, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service) will hold three identical public meetings on consecutive days to present four action alternatives, including the Park’s “preferred alternative,” for a new General Management Plan (GMP), and solicit public comments in the process. The Park will hold meetings on June 3 at Platte River Elementary School in Honor; June 4 at the Hagerty Center in Traverse City; and June 5 at the Glen Arbor Township Hall — all from 5:30-8:30 p.m. The public can also comment on the alternatives at the Park’s website, www.nps.gov/slbe, until June 13.
Photo by Don Miller

This public comment period represents the beginning of the fourth, and final, stage in developing a new GMP. The Park is still working off its original 1979 plan, and the last Wilderness Study was conducted in 1981. A 2002 attempt to revise the GMP was botched after the public voiced heated opposition to re-labeling certain areas of the Park as “wilderness” and closing county roads within the park were the Road Commission ever to legally abandon them. Assistant Superintendent Tom Ulrich admits that the public’s reaction to the Park’s “preferred alternative” this time around has been much more supportive.
The preferred plan is a combination of three earlier alternatives, labeled A, B and C, from round three of the process, and comments gathered since early 2006. In many ways the plan represents an aboutface from the controversial push toward wilderness six years ago.
The current preferred plan calls for recreational improvement such as zoning for a bike path parallel to M-22 and M-109 within the Park’s jurisdiction; a bay-to-bay hiking path stretching from Platte Bay to Good Harbor Bay, encompassing approximately 30 miles, and potentially three additional campgrounds along that route (plus one more on North Manitou Island); trails near the Bow Lakes east of Big Glen Lake; improved access to the Crystal River and to Little Glen Lake across the road from the Dune Climb, and a guarantee that all county roads within the Park currently open to the public will remain that way forever. One of those, Esch Road, is the conduit to a remote (yet popular among locals) Lake Michigan beach. Parking there could be improved, potentially on par with what’s happened at North Bar Lake, where the Park has paved the parking area, turning it into a popular, and crowded destination during the summer months.
The only curbing of recreational use in the Park’s preferred alternative is on Bass Lake, north of Glen Arbor, where motorboats would no longer be allowed.
“The preferred alternative formalizes some things we’re already doing now, like promoting historical zones,” says Ulrich. The Port Oneida Rural Historic District, for example, would be considered an Experience History Zone and not wilderness. “Instead of emphasizing nature and solitude — a wilderness designation would call for the least amount of mechanical intrusion — we’d no longer be constrained by that,” Ulrich adds. Under “Experience History” Port Oneida could be rehabbed somewhat for modern use (the grass at the Basch farm could be cut with a lawnmower, for example), whereas under “Experience Nature” it would only be preserved. The Park would also continue to promote creative partnerships and other types of philanthropy that utilize and maintain Port Oneida farmsteads.
Ulrich stresses, though, that any changes within the Park requiring development, and thus money, would take years before Congressional approval is acquired.
Other notable news expected in the Park this summer includes a push to re-light the lighthouse on South Manitou Island in connection with the 50-year anniversary of the light going out. The Manitou Island Memorial Society is attempting to raise $46,500, which will be met with Park federal matching funds. In addition, the Nature Conservancy is working to eliminate invasive Baby’s Breath at the south end of the Park.

Read our coverage of the Park’s controversial 2002 General Management
Plan preferred alternative on our website at: http://glenarborsun.com/archives/2002/07/wilderness_dune.html