09-19-1977 Planning Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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e f imped years back der to form sandy t * V lake care of the kend, we so care- of asbestos with !lon to section of rhokes the weeds the weeds simply rifting away, too Some lakes, like Jlluted from poor aced septic tanks lanning that they Igae. Dead. than almost any il questions. At of Natural Re satellite reports I to 20 acres in images through nt can tell how ming. lent tells me, the little worse, al- ous plans to re- s lowering the le lakes in order It the bottom of micals. s, and we look iln jJt the hordes*^- ing to build sub-. cs and who will careful balance hese years. Are one must be to st be what we ging w’aves and e a magic, to be eir meandering ether so many I’s watery light er O'" Midwest- e our lakes. To s W'rapped lov- itle ripples lull- . ffy clouds bus-- ou -r- that, per- •• people of lakes lake farewell JblS ■m y the sea, if you can get fiear it By William Serrin * •*. ' ' Grosse Pointe, Mich/ Going to .the beach'.: ceremony. Daydreaming. Dozing. Basting in the sun. Wallow ’ing in the water like w'hales; plunging like porpoises. We came from the sea, and that, psychologists, sug gest,' is perhaps why we enjoy going back so much, a primal com pulsion to visit the place we came from. Or maybe psychologi.sts are putting on airs; maybe it is only that beaches can be pleasant places. Yet, wTiile more than half the na tion’s population lives within an hour’s drive of the Atlantic or.Pa cific Ocean, the Great Lakes or the Gulf of Mexico, many Americans cannot use the shore. Much of the coast is private pi-operty. Much has been developed. Much has been de.stroyed by dredging and filling. Little public access exists, and often the routes are demean ing — a rough road, a narrow, weedy lane. Many municipal beaches bar nonresidents. m The result? We drive many miles in hot cars to the few public beaches; *ve crowd onto the dirty sand; we sit there, sweating, drinking our beer, cooking our ribs, like extras waiting call in a DeMille movie, like refugees wait ing for an evacuation ship. The problem is illustrated in the five Grosse Pointes, on Lake St. Clair. Each community maintains a shorefronl park from which non- . , ■ The Unitea States has 94,153 miles • * .. . ’ of shore. Of that, 33,904 are in • > • Alaska and 1,092 are in Hawaii, a summer- That leaves, for the contiguous United States, .'59,157 miles" of co.ast. But only the tiniest bit of clean, wild coast is open to the public. The National Bprk Service operates, or has been authorized to ' 'f* • •California'has passed a promising coastal law: Public access will be slresscdi and t|ie, state will guide coastal dcvelopnie'nt. Perhaps 30 pefeerit of the shore Is open to the public. But development and ob structions bar extensive public use. • * z A National Open Beaches Bill, purchase, 1,773 miles of shore'in sponsored by Rep. Bob Eckhardt, ■ ‘ ■ ■ Democrat of Texas, would declare that it is federal policy that the nation ’s beaches be open to the public. The act would prohibit ob structions barring the public from using beaches, defined as running to the vegetation line, or, where no vegetation exists, to 200 feet in land. . ' Oth(^r reforms are needed. Shore construction should be barred ex cept when a waterfront site is imperative. .Shoreline acquisition should be accelerated, particularly in metropolUan areas. i. # We should rebuild shore areas. The Army Corps of Engineers has dem onstrated that this Is possible; it has constructed marshes on Chesa peake Bay and the Mississippi Riv er. Government should move against communities, like the Grosse Pointes. whose municipal parks are barped to nonresidents. • we mu.<t alter our view of proper ty rights. Whefl' private citizens are able to seize so'much of the coast, the public is gravely injured. Property laws have been narrowed many times to benefit the public. This mu.st continue. It is concern that limits us, not law. the contiguous United States — about 3 percent of the coast. Local and state parks increase the amount of mainland shore open to the general public, but only to about 4 percent. Of the 6,000 miles of New Engfand coa.st, only aKaiit 5 percent is open to the general public. The great barrier beaches of the Atlantic and Gulf are largely developed. A tiny fraction of the Gulf shore is open to the public, and while public areas Increese markedly on the West Coast, as maby as 200,000 people may cram onto a few miles of beach in southern California on a pleasant weekend. A nuclear- power plant is under construction at Indiana Dunes National Lake- shore on Lake Michigan. The most progressive state is Or egon, where about 60 percent of the coast is under public owner ship. Moreover, Oregon defines a beach as running not to the mean high-tide line, as in md.st coastal states, or the normal high-water mark, as in the Great La ’KCS, but to the Vegetation line, Texas allows the public to use a number' of Gulf beaches to the residents are barred. The rest of vegetation line. About 20 percent ; the Grosse Pointe shore is in pri vate hands, hidden behind large homes or, when publicly m.ain- tained, barred from nonresident use thxpUgh hundreds of signs ban ning parking, fishing, swimming, picnicking, loitering. of the Texas Gulf shore is puolicly owned; almost all is made up of Padre Island National Seashore, from .which oil-drilling equipment may be seen and which serv es as a repositor>* of junk washed up from theGUlf. ■ - Willhm Serrin is writing a book bn housing and land use in the United Slates. . I i • .4 • V