MML The Review MarchApr 2021 Magazine

Learning to Live with Great Lakes

SHORELINES

By Richard K. Norton T he Great Lakes offer some 4,900 linear miles of lake shoreline in the U.S. Michigan enjoys the lion’s share, covering more than 3,000 of those U.S. shoreline miles. In Michigan, 183 townships and 68 cities and villages touch Great Lakes waters (including Lake St. Clair), and more than 90 percent of them have less than 10,000 residents. In other words, Michigan has a lot of Great Lakes shoreline, and a lot of local governments, most quite small, manage the use and development of the shorelands along them. Because the Great Lakes are currently high, there is some confusion and controversy over what to do. Responding today so as to be efficient, effective, and fair in managing coastal shorelands over the long term requires understanding some key attributes of the lakes, along with the consequences of trying to manage them, and then thinking carefully through a number of options with those long-term consequences in mind. Great Lakes Shores Are Like Ocean Shores, But Different Expansive and deep, the Great Lakes are large enough to behave like oceans in important ways, especially in terms of the physical dynamics along their shores, and their shores are highly valued especially in terms of the desires they engender to reside and recreate close to the water’s edge. Coastal shorelines also provide important ecological services and support vital industrial and tourism economies. The challenges that Great Lakes coastal communities face today are much like those that ocean coastal communities face. Unlike oceans, however, the Great Lakes are

20 THE REVIEW MARCH / APRIL 2021