Tag: coast

Canada’s Blue Flag Beaches

  • Toronto is now getting its beaches certified as safe by an international program called 'Blue Flag' (Photo by Julie Grant)

Beaches on the Great Lakes have
been closed a lot this summer because of
pollution. But instead of raising the
white flag of surrender, in Canada, they’re
starting to raise a blue flag. Julie Grant
reports the Blue Flag Programme certifies
a beach is safe:

Transcript

Beaches on the Great Lakes have
been closed a lot this summer because of
pollution. But instead of raising the
white flag of surrender, in Canada, they’re
starting to raise a blue flag. Julie Grant
reports the Blue Flag Programme certifies
a beach is safe:

(sound of beach)

It’s a clear, cool summer morning by Lake Ontario. Some
people are playing volleyball, others are walking along the
boardwalk at Woodbine beach, on the east side of Toronto.
Nobody is swimming in the lake.

Beach person 1: “No I don’t swim here.”

Beach person 2: “I grew up here, and I’ve never actually
swam in Lake Ontario. Sometimes they were closed and it
was always off and on, so it never seemed like a good thing
to do.”

Beach Person 3: “It’s gross, man. It’s pretty nasty. One
time I found a couple of Band Aids. After that, I was like, ‘I’m
not going back in this water.’”

City leaders say those views are outdated.

Lou DiGeranimo is Toronto’s general manager of water.
He’s in charge of everything from drinking water to sewers
and storm water runoff.

DiGeranimo says the Lake’s bad reputation lingers
from the time when Toronto was a major port for lumber, for
shipbuilding, and for foundries.

“When you talk to certain people in the city, they remember
the old industrial heart of our city and they think that Lake
Ontario is polluted and you shouldn’t swim in it. Well we beg
to differ. You can swim in it and our water quality is actually
quite good.”

DiGeranimo is trying to change the public image of Lake
Ontario one beach at a time. So far he’s been able to get six
Toronto beaches certified as safe by an international
program called Blue Flag. DiGeranimo says the blue flag
shows that someone besides the city is checking up on the
beaches.

“There’s an external group, Environmental Defense, that
actually, we work with. And they themselves are part of a
larger international group who come round and audit to
make sure that we are following the program accordingly.”

Thousands of beaches in The Caribbean, Europe and South
Africa fly blue flags. Toronto has some of the first beaches
in Canada to be certified by the program. The city has to
test water quality every day. It also has to provide
lifeguards, recycling containers, and environmental
education programs.

But water quality is usually the biggest obstacle for beaches
trying to get a certification.

(sound of beach)

A blue flag waves in the wind at Toronto’s Woodbine beach.
But not without considerable cost. The sewer used to
overflow regularly here into Lake Ontario. The city built
underground retention tanks to store sewage overflow until it
could be sent to a treatment plant.

But multi-million dollar sewer fixes usually are not possible
for many cities.

So DiGeranimo says people also need to take action at
home. Toronto has been trying to educate people to be
careful what they wash down the drain. And DiGeranimo
says Toronto banned the use of some lawn chemicals
because they were polluting the Lake.

“If I took a bag of chemicals and then just dumped it in the
river, I could charge you for impairing the water quality. But
if you dumped it on your lawn first, and then it ended up in
the creek, that would be okay. So in the city we passed a
bylaw that restricted the use of certain chemicals.”

That kind of ban would be a tough sell in most U.S. cities. It
wasn’t easy in Toronto either.

But Jody Fry says it’s helped the city earn Blue Flags at
many beaches. Fry is Canada’s national Blue Flag program
coordinator. She says people on all shores are starting to do
the work to certify their beaches.

“It raises awareness both at the beach and throughout the
community of what actions people can take to help improve
the water quality. Which, I think, people are looking for,
because they want to help contribute to protecting the
environment.”

The city of Toronto hopes to raise Blue Flags at five more
beaches soon. For now, they want to spread the word – if
you see a Blue Flag flying at the beach, it’s a signal that you
can trust that the water is clean for swimming.

For the
Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Botulism and the Beach

  • The beach looks beautiful... until you stumble on dead birds and fish killed by Type E botulism. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

A deadly toxin is spreading across
the Great Lakes, killing fish and birds.
Rebecca Williams reports scientists are
trying to put the puzzle together as quickly
as they can:

Transcript

A deadly toxin is spreading across
the Great Lakes, killing fish and birds.
Rebecca Williams reports scientists are
trying to put the puzzle together as quickly
as they can:

(sound of waves lapping the beach)

It’s one of those perfect beach days. Not too hot, not too crowded. Everything’s
just right.

Unless you don’t like rotting fish and dead birds full of maggots.

Hunter Brower is hanging out at this Lake Michigan beach. He says he’s seen a
lot of dead gulls here in recent years.

“It’s disgusting. We’re out here to enjoy our time and it’s just not right.”

The birds and fish are being killed by Type E botulism. Basically, it’s food
poisoning. For about a decade now, botulism has been killing huge numbers of
birds in the Great Lakes.

We’re talking about more than 75,000 birds – and scientists think that’s probably
a very conservative estimate. That’s because birds could be dying and not
reaching the shore. And it’s very hard to know how many fish are getting killed.
They’re harder to diagnose.

“It’s really one of nature’s most potent toxins.”

Mark Breederland is with Michigan SeaGrant. He says some studies show the
toxin can paralyze fish.

“They can actually lose their orientation and be bobbing up and down vertically
and that would be easy pickin’s if you’re a loon.”

Loons and other birds eat those poisoned fish, or, even grosser, they’ll eat the
maggots in dead birds on the beach, and get sick. The toxin can make birds lose
control of their neck muscles. Their heads fall in the water and they drown.

Beaches full of dead fish and birds aren’t great for tourism. But scientists are
more worried about what this means for endangered species – from the giant lake
sturgeon to the tiny piping plover.

Mark Breederland says they’re also worried about the thousands of migratory
birds that get killed on their way south in the fall.

“They’re just driving down their migratory highway, pulling over for a rest stop to
get something to eat, and that’s their last and final resting spot.”

So scientists are trying to pin down what’s going on.

There’s one main hypothesis. It involves some nasty little critters: invasive zebra
mussels and their cousins, the quaggas. They got into the lakes in the ballast
water of foreign ships.

Both mussels suck in lake water and filter it. They’ve made the lakes a lot clearer
than they used to be.

The clearer water means more sunlight can reach the lake bottom, and that
kick-starts algae growth. When the algae die, it sucks oxygen out of the water.
And, all of that is perfect for a bacterium that produces the botulism toxin to go forth
and multiply.

Okay, now, remember those pesky mussels? Scientists suspect they can take in
the toxin but they’re not affected by it. But fish that eat the mussels get sick.

One fish in particular loves to eat mussels. It’s the invasive round goby. And
there are lots and lots of gobies in the Lakes. That could mean lots of poisoned
snacks for bigger fish and birds.

Researchers have a bad feeling about all this, and they’re trying to confirm their
hunches.

(sound of boat engine starting up)

Brenda Moraska LaFrancois is headed out on Lake Michigan to investigate. She’s
part of a team that’s collecting samples from the lake bottom.

She says this is a tough mystery to unravel.

“These are really complicated systems and unfortunately they’re continuing to
change.”

As soon as scientists think they have a handle on what’s going on, some new
invader gets in and messes everything up again. So it’s really hard to know what
could be done to stop the outbreaks.

The experts say, if you go to the beach, it’s safe to swim. But you shouldn’t eat any
fish or waterfowl that seem sick.

Your local wildlife managers might tell you: don’t touch it, but get something to
bury the dead animal down in the sand, so other birds won’t feed on it and spread the
toxin.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Offshore Oil Estimates Don’t Add Up

  • The President already has lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. He now wants Congress to lift its ban. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)

President George Bush says Congress
should remove the ban on offshore drilling
because there might be a decade’s worth of
oil off the US coasts. Lester Graham
reports that might be an optimistic estimate:

Transcript

President George Bush says Congress
should remove the ban on offshore drilling
because there might be a decade’s worth of
oil off the US coasts. Lester Graham
reports that might be an optimistic estimate:

The President already has lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. He now wants
Congress to lift its ban.

At an Ohio factory, President Bush talked about wanting to find more oil in the U.S.

“One place where there is, the experts say is, a bountiful supply of oil, perhaps as much
as 10 years’ worth at current consumption rates, is the Outer Continental Shelf. That
would be offshore America.”

But the President’s numbers don’t add up.

The Energy Information Administration estimates off-shore there’s 18-billion barrels of
crude oil that are currently off-limits. The U.S. consumes more than seven-and-a-half
billion barrels a year. That means 18-billion barrels would only last the U.S. less than
two-and-a-half years – not the ten years the President suggests.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Report: Beach Closings Still High

  • Children playing on Indiana Dunes Beach (Photo by Lester Graham)

The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:

Transcript

The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:

The National Resources Defense Council says beaches across the country were closed to
swimmers for more than 22,000 days last year.

Sometimes the beaches were closed when sewer plants would overflow.

Nancy Stoner is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

She says most of the time beaches were closed after a big rainstorm

That’s because rain washes pollution into the water.

“I’m more cautious now after swimming after a heavy rainfall. And the other thing about
it is that the ocean beaches in general tend to be cleaner than beaches that are in bays
and sounds and other protected areas, so it makes me want to go to the ocean.”

Ocean waves tend to wash away the pollution a lot faster.

Beach closings along the Great Lakes were twice as high as the national average.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Co2 Turning Ocean Acidic

  • Researchers have found that the Pacific Ocean is becoming increasingly acidic as a result of CO2 emissions (Photo by A. Kalvaitis, courtesy of NOAA)

The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic.
The corrosive water could start dissolving shells
and coral. The problem is largely caused by carbon
dioxide emitted by cars and power plants. As Ann
Dornfeld reports, researchers say the problem is
happening faster than they expected:

Transcript

The Pacific Ocean is becoming more acidic.
The corrosive water could start dissolving shells
and coral. The problem is largely caused by carbon
dioxide emitted by cars and power plants. As Ann
Dornfeld reports, researchers say the problem is
happening faster than they expected:

Scientists have known for a long time that the world’s oceans are becoming corrosive
from so much man-made CO2. Carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean, and forms
carbonic acid.

The corrosive water is concentrated in deep, cold parts of the ocean. Scientists had
predicted it would approach the vulnerable coastal zones in about a century. So they
were alarmed to find the acidity just a few miles off the California coast.

Burke Hales is a chemical oceanographer. He says this corrosive water could break
down the calcium carbonate in coral and shells.

“So we’re talking about things like barnacles and oysters and mussels and
clams. And some planktonic organisms form calcium carbonate shells, as well.”

Researchers say the acidification approaching the coasts is from CO2 that was emitted
50 years ago. That means we’re just at the start of increasingly acidic oceans.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Sea Squirts Sucking Up Species

  • A colony of tunicates in Guam (Photo by David Burdick, courtesy of NOAA)

Slimy, hungry invaders are moving through
the waters off the Northwest coast of the US.
They’re called invasive tunicates –
or sea squirts. And they’re the same invasive
species that devastated shellfish farms on Canada’s
east coast. If invasive tunicates aren’t controlled,
you could see a lot of seafood options disappear
from markets and menus. Ann Dornfeld has the story:

Transcript

Slimy, hungry invaders are moving through
the waters off the Northwest coast of the US.
They’re called invasive tunicates –
or sea squirts. And they’re the same invasive
species that devastated shellfish farms on Canada’s
east coast. If invasive tunicates aren’t controlled,
you could see a lot of seafood options disappear
from markets and menus. Ann Dornfeld has the story:

It’s a peaceful spring morning at this suburban marina. But beneath the water’s surface, a hunt is
underway.

(water sounds)

Professional divers – like Jesse Schultz with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife – are
combing the docks for invasive tunicates. They don’t have to look far.

“That’s one of the tunicates right there – that’s the guy right there.”

Schultz surfaces holding a jelly-like tube. Sea squirts compete with everything from clams to tube
worms for the plankton they all eat. The sea squirts usually win, because they don’t have native
predators. Three species came here from Asia, probably on boat hulls. Today, divers are cleaning
the hulls of local boats to keep the sea squirts from spreading.

Allen Pleus manages invasive species for the state.

“The whole intent right now is a containment action. We want to prevent any of these boats
from leaving this harbor with the tunicates attached to their bottom, going to another
harbor, and infesting that harbor or marina.”

When invasive tunicates get to a new harbor, they quickly become the dominant species. In the
warm part of the year, they spawn every 24 hours. And along with hogging the food supply, one
species of sea squirts forms a slimy mat that smothers mussels and other shellfish.

Pleus says if tunicates get out of hand, they could make a big impact on the seafood industry.

“It can definitely affect especially shellfishing in this area. Puget Sound, Western Washington is one of
the largest producers of shellfish in the nation. It could also affect other populations of
food fish, including salmon, by taking out a lot of the nutrients that juvenile salmon feed
on.”

Nova Scotia learned that lesson the hard way. Pleus says in Eastern Canada, entire shellfish
farms were recently wiped out by invasive tunicates.

“So the rap sheet is clear. They can grow to exponential sizes, quantities and smother
aquaculture facilities. They can’t even lift up their lines it’s so heavy with these critters on
it.”

To prevent the same thing from happening here, the state workers have to move quickly – and
they have to be thorough.

“Here’s another bag, Justin!” (splashing sound)

Back in the water, diving biologist Jesse Schultz has his hands full with a boat that has apparently
been docked for seven years. Its tabs show that’s the last time it was registered.

“This guy’s getting a free boat cleaning, sort of!”

The state is trying to scrape clean every infested boat in Puget Sound before the summer boating
season. But Schultz says because the docks are still covered with invasive tunicates, they’ll grow
back on this boat if the owner doesn’t keep it clean.

“That’s the biggest thing these guys can do to keep these things from spreading is have
their boats maintained.”

The state is still figuring out the best way to clean the docks. So far biologists have cleaned only
one entirely. When they were done, they’d removed ten tons of critters.

Unfortunately, Allen Pleus says only some of those were tunicates. In order to get rid of the
invasive sea squirts, they have to employ a sort of scorched earth policy.

“That is one of the hardest parts of this is that we have to basically take everything out.”

That means the good with the bad. We sift through a bucket of the creatures scraped from the
dock. Along with plenty of invasive tunicates, there are brightly colored sea cucumbers, scallops,
mussels, rock oysters, feather duster worms and chitons – exactly the kinds of animals the state
is trying to protect. They have to destroy the habitat in order to try to save it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Chester the Molting Monk Seal

  • Hawaiian Monk Seal on Sandy Beach (Photo by Ann-Marie Kirk)

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Transcript

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Chester is among only 1200 Hawaiian Monk Seals alive today. Most of them live in the
Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

They’re called Monk Seals because they’re solitary animals.
They prefer their own company to socializing with each other, especially during a
molt. Molting is a process that renders them weak and vulnerable.

“This animal is on the beach because it is going through a huge physiological change
right now.”

That’s David Schofield. He’s the marine mammal response coordinator in Honolulu for
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s shedding all of its skin and fur in a relatively short period of time, keeping
his behavior very minimal. So he is actually not getting into the water, he is not
swimming; he is not expending a lot of energy.”

He says Chester has
chosen to molt on Kailua, an East Oahu beach that attracts thousands of visitors. It’s not a very safe place for a defenseless seal. Because of budget cuts, NOAA relies almost
completely on volunteers to help protect seals when they come on shore. They keep
curious people and their pets away from Chester.

Chester is known here. He’s been seen on a number of Oahu beaches over the years.
Usually he stays along isolated stretches. But he’s never been seen on the busy east side. In
fact, he is the first Monk Seal anyone recalls seeing on Kailua Beach.

DB Dunlap coordinates volunteers for NOAA. He says this is not the first time he’s seen
Chester.

“I met Chester in 2002. And he was emaciated and skinny, I didn’t think he was gonna
make it through the day he was so pathetic looking. Now I realize that he had just
finished a molt, just exactly like he’s doing here and during that process they lose a lot of
weight.”

The molt takes a while. About two weeks into his molt, Chester went missing. He’d rolled into the water. He
probably went into the ocean to eat. A couple of hours later he was back on the beach
about half a mile farther down. The volunteers quickly reassembled the yellow crime
scene tape around him fifteen feet in each direction.

Now, going into day 19, he appears even more lethargic. And… he smells bad if you’re
downwind. Half of his fur is hanging in dying patches on his now loose skin. David
Schofield, with NOAA, describes where Chester is in his molt.

“His belly and his face are pretty much done. That nice silvery coat is the new fur and
the brown stuff on the back is the old molt. So we’re saying right now he’s at about the
50% mark.”

One of the volunteers watching over Chester is a Hawaiian man named Eric Poohina. He
says though the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian
creation chant, native Hawaiians have spiritual ties to seals like Chester. Poohina refers to him as Kalaheo.

“I’m not naming him, I’m just referring to him as a Kalaheo, a Kalaheo is a verb, it’s not a
noun. Kalaheo is a proclamation, a urgent global proclamation. That animal is doomed.”

As Poohina explains the Hawaiian cultural relationship to this animal, he’s also
expressing the frustration many feel over political and economic values that have brought
the Monk Seal to the brink of extinction.

In the main Hawaiian Islands, military and real estate interests have over-developed the
coastline. They’ve been taking over the seal’s habitat. And in the Northwest Hawaiian
Islands where most of the seals live, young seals become easily entangled in fishing
industry debris. The young seals often drown. And, military maneuvers disrupt normal
breeding and nursing of healthy pups.

Schofield: “If this population is gonna recover, it’s gonna take all of us. We need 2900
of them for 20-years to get them off the endangered species list.”

(chanting)

Volunteer Eric Poohina is chanting about the sacredness of Chester’s ordeal. 26-days after
he started, Chester has finished his molt. It’s a process that has remained virtually
unchanged in his species’ genetic code for more than 15 million years. Imagine, once a
year, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, nature demands that you just have to
stop and let it all go.

Poohina: “What the chant means is we acknowledging the laws of the universe, yeah.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Anne Keala Kelly.

Related Links

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Lingers

It’s been more than 17 years since the Exxon Valdez split open on a reef off the coast of Alaska. More than 16,000 tons of crude oil washed up onto the rocky shores. Now scientists have found that the oil is still impacting the region’s ecology. The GLRC’s Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

It’s been more than 17 years since the Exxon Valdez split open on a reef off
the coast of Alaska. More than 16,000 tons of crude oil washed up
onto the rocky shores. Now scientists have found that the oil is still
impacting the region’s ecology. The GLRC’s Mark Brush reports:


Scientists studied a series of islands that were the first to be hit by the
Exxon Valdez oil spill. It’s estimated that 100 tons of crude oil are still
impacting the region’s shorelines. The researchers found that about half
of the remaining oil is in the more biologically rich areas of the Prince
William Sound.


Jeffery Short is a research chemist with the National Marine Fisheries
Service. He says animals such as sea otters forage for food in these
areas:


“And if they were to encounter oil in their search for clams, it would get
on their fur, and since they rely on their fur to stay warm, they would
have to lick it off during preening and then they would ingest it.”


Short says this could be why the numbers of animals in this area still
have not rebounded since the oil spill. An Exxon spokesman told the
Associated Press that they believe the Prince William Sound has
recovered.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Commercial Fishers Angling for Trout Fishing Rights

  • Steve Dahl is one of about 25 commercial fishers on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Dahl makes a modest living selling herring, but he'd like to be able to fish for lake trout too. When he's fishing for herring, Dahl pulls his gill net up and passes it across his boat, plucking herring from the mesh. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Some fish populations in the Great Lakes have recovered dramatically from the
devastating pollution of the last century. But the very health of the fishery presents a
new set of challenges for people. Who gets to catch the fish? Most states favor sport
anglers, but some commercial fishing operations are asking for a bigger share. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


(sound: engine zooms, slows)


Steve Dahl guides his aluminum boat to his gill net, anchored below the waves of Lake
Superior. He fishes out of Knife River, a small town just up the shore from Duluth
Minnesota. A few feet at a time, the net offers up its catch – slender silver herring
caught by the gills.


“The mesh actually has a little bit of flex to it. That’s why I can squeeze them out. One
that’s too big or fat, you have to back it out, so you don’t harm the flesh.”


The openings in the net are just right to catch herring. Too small for lake trout. Dahl
isn’t allowed to catch lake trout anyway. He says they mostly just bounce off the net.


When the net is empty, about 40 herring – each of them about a pound – are lying in a tub
at the bottom of the boat.


Dahl is working hard for these fish. It’s pretty cold, and the wind is gusting.


(ambient sound)


Dahl says sometimes the current is so strong, he can’t pull the net up out of the water.
Sometimes there are no fish in the net. In the
summer, they move around and they’re hard to find. And of course, he can’t fish when
the lake is frozen.


But he loves this life.


“I get to be outside all the time, my own boss. It’s great fun.”


Steve Dahl sells his catch to the restaurants and fish houses that dot the North Shore of
Lake Superior. He makes his living this way. He says he doesn’t make a lot of money,
but it’s a good life.


Dahl says the money would be better if he were allowed to fish for lake trout. He figures
he’d be able to make several thousand dollars more a year if he could catch even just a
few hundred lake trout.


“That’s all we’re asking for is to be able to supply the local restaurants through the peak
tourist season.”


Lake trout were almost wiped out by over-fishing and by the parasitic sea lamprey in the
1960’s and 70’s. The lamprey are under control now, and decades of stocking lake trout
have brought the population back up. People who fish for sport have been catching more
and more lake trout. Last year, they caught about 15,000 of the fish on the Minnesota
side of Lake Superior. But so far the state of Minnesota won’t allow commercial fishers
to go after them. Neither will Michigan, although Wisconsin and Ontario do.


Don Schreiner manages the Lake Superior fishery for Minnesota. He says restoring the
lake trout population is taking a long time. That’s why they don’t want to open it up to
commercial fishing just yet.


“Right now we’re pretty cautious, we’ve just started kinda pulling back on stocking and it
seems a little premature to start thinking about opening the door for commercial
fisheries.”


Next year, Minnesota plans to create a new ten-year plan for the fish in its Lake Superior
waters. Don Schreiner says during the planning process, everyone will be able to have
their say. But sport anglers far outnumber the two dozen or so commercial fishermen on
the North Shore. So they’ll need to find allies in their claim on the lake trout.


Paul Bergman is likely to speak up in favor of commercial fishing for lake trout. He
owns the Vanilla Bean Bakery & Café in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He buys herring from
Steve Dahl. He says half his customers order fish, and they love it when it’s locally
caught.


“People really do come up here for the native fish on the North Shore, so we’re getting so
many more repeat customers now from the cities. More and more are asking for the fish.”


Bergman puts a sign in the window when he has fresh herring, and he says it pulls people
in. He’d like to be able to do the same with lake trout.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Drawing the Line on Beachfront Properties

Some homeowners on Great Lakes coasts are concerned about how state governments decide where the lake ends and private property begins. In one state… landowners are pushing legislation to protect their private property rights. But the bill worries recreation and environmental activists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Some homeowners on Great Lakes coasts are concerned about how state governments decide
where the lake ends and private property begins. In one state, land owners are pushing legislation
to protect their private property rights. But the bill worries recreation and environmental
activists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:


Dennis Bring is a big, burly guy who looks like he wouldn’t be scared of anything. But he says
he is scared. He’s afraid of the bureaucrats at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
They say the land he once owned is no longer his, simply because of the erosion caused by Lake
Erie’s waves.


It started more than twenty years ago. That’s when high waters on Lake Erie started to batter his
shoreline property and erode the bluff. Bring decided to use concrete and large limestone blocks
to protect it. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources required him to get surveys, pay for
engineering, and construction. It cost thousands of dollars. Then he was told he had to sign a
lease agreement, to lease the land that he thought he already owned.


“They said it wasn’t a big thing. But when we got it, we found out it was 17 to 20 pages long and
basically they had the rights to our property and we had basically no rights and they could come
on our property at any time.”


The cost of the lease isn’t that much, but Bring’s deed says he owns that land. It’s been in the
family for three generations and he pays taxes on it. But the state also wanted him to carry a
million dollars worth of liability insurance on the erosion protection structure.


So he called the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to complain. A state regulator told Bring
that he no longer owns the land because anything up to the high water mark, including the eroded
part that once belonged to Bring, actually belongs to the state.


“And I asked him, I said, ‘You’re telling me the lake is your property, correct?’ And he said ‘Yes,
that’s our property.’ And I said, ‘According to my gist on this, is that your property is damaging
my property. I’m trying to protect this property.’ But I said, ‘In turn you’re making me pay back
what is already mine.’ He said, ‘And we could tear your structure out if we wanted to.’ And then
I hung up the phone, and my wife and I were scared to death.


The state plans to enforce its claim that it owns up to the high water mark. But many lakefront
owners say the state is taking more than its share. They want Ohio’s jurisdiction pushed back
toward the lake – to the low water mark. The difference between the two adds up to thousands of
acres along Ohio’s 262 miles of coast.


Brian Preston grew up fishing in the marshes around Toledo. Speaking at a public meeting on
behalf of the environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation, he argued that the state is
right, anything the lake touches belongs to all the people, not just those who own the adjacent
private land.


“We’re not talking about their land; proximity doesn’t imply ownership. Those 262 miles in the
land going into the water is our land. Just because it’s in front of their house doesn’t make it their
land”.


But property owners disagree. They’ve pushed a bill in the Ohio legislature to move state
ownership back toward the lake. It would also take away much of the state’s authority to regulate
the shoreline. The private land owners say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already monitors
the Great Lakes shoreline. Homeowner Jim O’conner says that’s enough regulation.


“For years, shoreline structures have been built along the lake and have been fine. The Army
Corps has kept a pretty close eye on it. But now this program has turned into a radical mess by a
few people that have extreme radical views on what private property owners, shoreline owners,
should relinquish. In order to live on the lake you’ve got to relinquish your property.”


The state says without its additional regulation there would be all kinds of problems. That’s
because in the past houses and other structures have been built too close to the shore and
eventually storms eroded the dirt from underneath them and they fell into the lake. Some
scientists are also concerned that the engineered structures that protect the land from erosion end
up destroying public property. State geologist Don Guy says erosion provides the sand size
material that builds Ohio’s beaches.


“And by armoring the shore, we’re eliminating that source of beach-building material. And as
waves continue through natural processes to carry sediment, at least along this part from east to
west, eventually the sand is eroded from the beach at a given site and there’s nothing to replenish
that beach. So that’s maybe the hidden impact of all the shore protection.”


And that’s one reason the Ohio Department of Natural Resources wants to protect the beach.
State representative Tim Grendell sponsored the bill that would change the boundary from the
high water mark to the low water mark. He says it won’t have any negative impact on the
lakeshore or the environment. He says the state has taken control over more land than it should.
He notes that property deeds often say landownership stretches to the low water mark. Grendell
says state shouldn’t regulate beyond that.


“It recognizes what the Ohio constitution recognizes, that a government agency of the state has no
power to take away people’s property by redefining what they own.”


But most Great Lakes states regulate to the same boundary as Ohio. They say state ownership is
at the high water mark. The state of Ohio says it’s willing to drop some of the things it mandates.
For example, it might drop insurance requirements and help pay engineering costs of shoreline
structures it approves. But Ohio says it will not support turning public ownership over to private
landowners.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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