A congressional earmark or a fundamental change in how the federal government funds recreational harbor maintenance will be needed to address sedimentation and weedgrowth problems that are choking the Les Cheneaux Islands navigation

channels, said Wayne Schloop, chief of operations for the Detroit district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Saturday, September 20.

Problems with the channels are diminishing the boating-dependent economy at Les Cheneaux. To ensure seven feet of depth and enable commercial and tourist traffic to increase, the community wants the 7.5-mile-long, 100-footwide channel through the island chain dredged, and a coalition of area organizations invited state and federal lawmakers and the Corps to learn more about the problem, and appealed for federal money to be set aside for a solution.

The Les Cheneaux channels has not been fully re-dredged since the initial dredging by the Corps in 1967.

Mr. Schloop was one of several who spoke to a group of more than 44 people at Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville Saturday. In attendance were Michigan State Representative Gary McDowell; Sheri Davie, regional manager for U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow; Roger Srigley, congressional aide to U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak, and Amy Berglund, regional representative for U.S. Senator Carl Levin.

To explain the need for dredging, several speakers addressed the economic value of recreational harbors like that at Cedarville, and the specific conditions in the Les Cheneaux area. Speakers included Gary Reid, chairman of the Les Cheneaux Islands Waterways Restoration group; Linda Hudson, Clark Township supervisor; Bob Smith, environmental chair for the Les Cheneaux Islands Association; Bob Dunn of Les Cheneaux Islands Waterways Restoration, and John Torsky of Les Cheneaux Waterways Restoration. The meeting was attended by members of Mackinac County government, the township government, state agencies, including Waterways Commissioner Bob Brown, private businesses, and other groups concerned about the waterway, including the Nature Conservancy.

Mr. Schloop is responsible for 90 harbors in the Midwest, including the Cedarville harbor. Maintenance of recreational harbors, also known as shallow-draft harbors, are within the Corps of Engineer's mission, however, they are considered low priority compared to commercial harbors, based on the national government's view of their economic importance, he explained. Harbor maintenance is also paid by commercial shippers.

Mr. Reid called the system "flawed" because it forces individual recreational harbors to push to have their own projects earmarked for federal money, and he stressed the economic importance of recreational harbors, while providing data to back his position.

Of Mr. Schloop's 90 responsibilities, about 50 are shallow-draft harbors that require 13 feet or less of navigable water. In terms of how seriously the waterway has filled in with sediment, the Les Cheneaux channels are about in the middle of the priority list, he said.

This year, all of the projects scheduled for dredging or infrastructure maintenance in his region are commercial harbors, which require access to water 20 feet deep or deeper, he said.

The Army Corps of Engineers has little control over which harbors are maintained, he explained. Corps funding is part of the federal budget, which requires its priorities to be based on the overall economic impact of each harbor on the U.S. economy. The more tons of material vessels bring through a given harbor, the higher the priority rating of that facility, Mr. Schloop said.

Since recreational harbors see little tonnage transported, they are low priority, he told The St. Ignace News.

"We can't budget for recreational or shallow-draft harbors," he said, even though he and the administration understand that recreational harbors are economically valuable, too.

In terms of the list of priorities funded across the U.S., "we'll never get down to shallow-draft harbors," he said.

Legislators can push for funding to get projects done. A short-term way to enable the Corps to address the needs of Les Cheneaux Islands navigation channels would be to set money aside in this fall's congressional Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.

This is known as a congressional earmark, and they led to completion of many projects that would not have been funded last year.

The budget proposed by the president for 2008 would have limited dredging projects in Mr. Schloop's region to 15, all of them commercial harbors, but congressional earmarks raised the number to about 40, including several recreational harbors. For example, U.S. Congressman Dave Obey of Wisconsin successfully pushed for $1.5 million that addressed the needs of three Lake Superior harbors, three Michigan harbors, and one Minnesota harbor.

Funding seven harbors in one package is more economical than funding seven individual harbors, he said.

After doing tests in the Les Cheneaux area this year, the corps estimated that about 85,000 cubic yards of material should be removed, to ensure that the entire channel is seven feet deep. He said he doesn't know the composition of the sediment to be removed, but assumes it is contaminated, and, therefore, estimates the cost to dredge it and to dispose of it on land would be $20 to $25 per cubic yard, making the cost approximately $1.9 million.

"This is expensive, from our vantage point," Mr. Schloop said.

If a Les Cheneaux earmark is approved in October for the 2009 budget year, the Corps could do the preparation work to dredge the channels this fall, Mr. Schloop said. The cost would be $75,000 to $100,000 for sediment sampling, completing environmental documents required by the federal government, and to draw up plans and specifications for the dredging project, he told The St. Ignace News.

The dredging itself could be completed next summer, he added.

Rather than earmarks, Mr. Schloop said he favors a fundamental change in the way the United States funds maintenance of recreational and commercial harbors. Rather than basing priorities on tonnage, and requiring earmarks for shallow-draft projects, a maintenance schedule spread across all harbors would work better, he said, just as it did for the seven harbors dredged this year.

The Corps estimates that $5 million a year would be enough to dredge and maintain 20 to 25 harbors across the Great Lakes region each year.

With that amount of funding, the Corps could do a credible job of maintaining all harbors over time, he said.

This could only happen through legislative action. Congress would have to build the $5 million into the Water Resources Development Act, a bill that is passed every two years, he said.

If this occurs, the Les Cheneaux project would take a large share of the $5 million appropriation the first time around, compared to other Great Lakes projects, Mr. Schloop said, but once dredged, the channels would be in good shape for many years and maintenance would not require as much funding.

While residents proposed using the dredged material to expand the launch ramp, enlarge parking areas, and possibly augment the airport grounds, Mr. Schloop said that would not be a feasible plan.

"My opinion is that we could not place [the material] on the shoreline," Mr. Schloop told The St. Ignace News.

Owing to the likelihood that about 50% of the material dredged will be organic, namely weeds such as invasive Eurasian watermilfoil, the material would have to be moved upland, he said.

The material may be able to be used at the shore if a steel sheet pile wall were built and the material were placed behind it, he added.

If no dredging is done, the corps will continue to monitor the condition of the channels and place the results on its Web site, so that mariners will know navigating conditions.

Citizens at the meeting said a growing reputation for shallow water in Cedarville already has deterred much marine business from the community, and they said they are making an effort to do what can be done without federal help, but are not allowed by law to dredge the channels.

They highlighted the efforts of organizations to improve the area, including controlling the watermilfoil with weevils and mechanical harvesting of weeds.

"We are not a community that sits on its hands," said Clark Township Supervisor Linda Hudson.

The local population understands what has gone wrong with the waterway and has done what it can to help, she said.

"We are the people on the ground. We are the people with the most to lose. We ask for your help now to restore our waterways, to restore our way of life, and our livelihood. We ask that you help us now, not in five or 10 years, when it may be too late," she added.

Despite the limits to what the Corps can do now, Ms. Davie of Senator Stabenow's office said the meeting in Cedarville was a great start for the restoration project. Noting the sizable turnout by local, county, state, and federal representatives, she said they will be working together for the restoration project of Les Cheneaux Islands navigation channels.