0
0
A 62-year-old Michigan man was recently sentenced on federal vandalism charges for diverting the Platte River. The Frankfort resident avoided jail, though he was placed on 5 years of probation. The part that really hurts is the $22,472.22 he has to pay in restitution. The National Park Service was furious over what he had done. That’s a little hypocritical because they used to keep that waterway dredged and open themselves. An ill considered decision to let the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore deposit sand wherever the currents take it also cut off a really convenient way to get big boats into Platte Bay.
Diverting the Platte River
Diverting the Platte River into a more convenient channel is something that really freaks out the National Park Service. It’s amazing how much trouble you can get into with just a shovel. Even the Coast Guard was after Andrew Blair Howard.
Arrested and charged last year, he was convicted in February. The court finally got around to deciding his fate.
The final sentence handed down by federal Magistrate Judge Ray Kent is a stiff one. Howard got hit with “60 months’ probation and ordered to pay $22,472.22 in total restitution to the National Park Service and U.S. Coast Guard, along with $3,947.71 in costs related to the court proceedings.”
Pitifully light punishment for Andrew Blair Howard diverting a river & wrecking a long established shoreline pattern https://t.co/QeCQhs0pDD pic.twitter.com/w8DyxmhAEl
— Andrew McFarlane (@farlanewastaken) May 24, 2023
The paperwork accused him of dredging the Platte River inside the federally protected Michigan park along Lake Michigan.
Back in August of 2022, park rangers “investigated reports of a diversion of the Platte River near its mouth.” It seems that on August 15, “Howard used a shovel to dig sediment and rocks from the river basin and stacked large rocks on a dam to divert the river’s natural water flow toward a newly created channel out to Lake Michigan.” Freely flowing water did the rest.
The thing that ticked off all the officials is that what Howard did was “contrary to a decision by the National Park Service.” He didn’t create that channel all by himself, he simply got it flowing again.
Follow its natural course
Before human beings and their pleasure crafts came along, the river would move around all over the place as the sand shifted around the dunes.
Until 2017, the park service would dredge out a channel to keep it clear of sand and running past some amenities for recreational use, including a boat launch in the park. It also supplied “access for large boats to enter Platte Bay.”
Liberal environmentalists decided to allow the river to return to it’s natural state. Boaters were left with a whole bunch of useless infrastructure and no way to get their boats to the bay.
I personally witnessed 2 men digging the trench that diverted the river. I provided a statement and time stamped pictures to the park service. They are completely ignoring my and several other people's testimony. Please share. He's innocent of this crime. https://t.co/TxeS6JPFfJ
— inglorious bastard (@danotseehunter) February 10, 2024
After a few hours work with his shovel to clear the inlet channel and shore up the already standing diversion dam, “the natural power of the water and the dam caused the new channel to reach approximately 200 feet wide.” For that, authorities charged Howard with “one count of tampering and one count of vandalism.”
At his bench trial, the judge noted it was pretty clear that the defendant “intended to and in fact did divert the flow of the Platte River into Platte Bay.” Scott Tucker, Superintendent for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, admits the decision to stop dredging has been a “hot topic in Northern Michigan.”
They simply want to let nature be nature. “It allows the natural resources to be on their own terms, in a sense.” Boaters and other recreational users of the river will simply have to get over it.
