Sleeping Bear averts sequester crisis

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore will not close Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and facilities at the Dune Climb, Glen Haven and other crowned jewels of this National Lakeshore — as local administrators had planned to do after Labor Day weekend, the traditional end of the summer tourism season in northern Michigan.

Deputy Superintendent Tom Ulrich told the Glen Arbor Sun that the Lakeshore was allocated $20,000 from the regional headquarters in Omaha, Neb. National Parks have a contingency fund that rarely dries up, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes made it priority number 1 to maintain Pierce Stocking and other facilities that would have been closed due to the sequester. Ulrich and other officials learned of the good news on Tuesday.

“It was a big relief,” says Ulrich. “Everybody on staff had been dealing with the question of whether the Scenic Drive would stay open, would restrooms stay open. We were getting calls all summer from school groups worried they wouldn’t be able to visit the Lakeshore in the fall.”

“Sequestration will still have some impact, to be sure.” But our National Park, and autumn tourism economy, may have just dodged a bullet.

The infusion will allow the Lakeshore to keep Pierce Stocking open through the third weekend of October, or approximately Oct. 20. That will allow tour buses, school trips, the elderly and disabled to enjoy the autumn colors in the heart of Sleeping Bear without hiking off-road. Bathroom and garbage facilities at the Dune Climb, Glen Haven and Platte Point will remain open, and the Park will retain season staff and interpretive programs, until at least Sept. 30 — the end of the National Park’s fiscal year. Those popular destinations will remain open throughout the fall season, but Lakeshore officials don’t yet know if they’ll be able to keep facilities open into October.

Sequestration may force the Park to cut up to 8 percent of its budget in fiscal year 2013-14 (3 percent deeper than this year), which begins Oct. 1, and that could mean reduced facility services at the Lakeshore’s most visited spots, says Ulrich. The boardwalk at Pierce Stocking’s coveted Lake Michigan overlook may also be removed at the end of September. But, most importantly, the Scenic Drive will remain open through the fall color season.

Federal sequestration had forced the Park to cut its budget for fiscal year 2012-13 by 5 percent — a $234,000 reduction from an annual operating budget of nearly $4.7 million. Lakeshore officials were given no other choice by Washington than to leave the Scenic Drive, and facilities at the Dune Climb, closed until Memorial Day weekend, with plans to shutter them again in early September, cut five seasonal positions and shorten the length of employment for 22 seasonal workers.

While the relationship between the National Park and the local community hasn’t always been harmonious since the Lakeshore was authorized 40 years ago, few doubt that Sleeping Bear, and the tourism it draws, has an enormous impact on the local economy. A peer-reviewed spending analysis by Michigan State University released early this year showed that over 1.3 million people visited the Lakeshore in 2011 and spent nearly $133 million in communities surrounding the Park. This spending reportedly supported 2,347 jobs in the area.

ABC’s Good Morning America show featured video from Pierce Stocking overlooks when it bestowed Sleeping Bear with the “most beautiful place in America” honor in August 2011. That international attention significantly boosted tourism to Leelanau County that fall and gave us a “summer on steroids” in 2012. Tourism remained high this summer as the Sleeping Bear Dunes registered its second highest visitor tally, ever, for the month of July, but local business owners worried that the impending Lakeshore closings in the fall would hurt the economy during the “shoulder” seasons.

Read more about the Lakeshore’s planned closing of facilities this fall, and the reaction of local businesses to the sequester.

Correction: an earlier version of this story reported that sequestration WILL force the Park to cut 8 percent of its budget in fiscal year 2013-14. That’s not certain: sequestration MAY force the Park to cut “up to” 8 percent. Congress hasn’t yet released its budget for next year.