Years after high water crisis, lax policies leave Michigan coast vulnerable

• Dramatic images of coastal erosion in 2020 spurred calls for regulatory fixes to protect Michiganders, but most proposals stalled once the water receded 
• Some communities have established new limits on shoreline development or banned hard armoring that worsens erosion. But other towns still take a laissez faire approach to coastal land use
• The end result: Michigan residents remain vulnerable to more destruction and debate when Great Lakes levels inevitably rise again

LAKE CHARTER TOWNSHIP — Kathy and Tom Brickley knew erosion would be an immutable part of owning a property on Lake Michigan when they moved into their dream cottage 15 years ago.

For the first decade, the erosion caused by waves wearing away at beaches and dunes in annual cycles was manageable.

Then the water started rising.

Extreme rainfall and reduced evaporation during the 2010s caused the Great Lakes to rise to record-breaking levels by 2020, swallowing up beaches and digging away at the dunes behind them, threatening waterfront homes like the Brickleys’.

“Plenty of sleepless nights,” Tom Brickley recalled while looking out at the water on a recent afternoon. 

Back then, dramatic footage of homes tumbling into the water spurred calls to reform state and local policies that leave Michiganders vulnerable when the waters rise. 

Lawmakers gathered testimony, sought federal funding and considered creating a task force to combat coastal erosion. Local governments looked to replace outdated zoning rules that let people build too close to the shore. Experts suggested fixes, from incentivizing property owners to move their homes farther inland to banning seawalls that ultimately worsen erosion.

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But the political will for change seemed to recede with the water.

Five years since the height of the crisis — with water levels now six inches below average — most Michigan communities still allow home construction perilously close to the shore. Bills aiming to curb construction on coastal dunes or make it easier for homeowners to protect their homes with temporary barriers have failed to gain traction in the Legislature. 

“The reality is that most townships have not implemented coastal erosion plans,” said Mark Breederland, who works to help communities implement shoreline protection practices through the Michigan Sea Grant.

The end result is that many communities that faced crisis during the last high water event will be no better protected when the waters inevitably rise again.

“The state knows they’re probably not as prepared as they should be for the next cycle,” Breederland said. “But nobody knows when that will be, or how severe it will be.”

The high water also highlighted the divide between homeowners determined to protect their shores and experts who point out that the only long-term solution to erosion is retreating. 

“The concept of giving the property to the grandchildren and having it go on is just not realistic in the Great Lakes or along the ocean,” said Guy Meadows, director of the Great Lakes Research Center.

The Brickleys made it through the erosion crisis with the help of large sand-filled tubes placed at the edge of their property to keep the waves from scouring out their lawn.

Now they’re fighting with the state over whether those tubes can remain in place now that the waves pose no immediate danger. 

“Everybody's breathing a sigh of relief,” Kathy Brickley said. “However, we all know that eventually the water is going to go back up.”

A regulatory patchwork

Amid the crisis, thousands of waterfront property owners received state permits to fortify their shores with sand tubes, seawalls and riprap.

It provided short-term protection for those properties but in the long run will only worsen erosion by deflecting wave energy onto neighboring shores. Those defenses can also block public access to the shoreline by burying beaches under an artificial barrier.

“Armoring is, at best, a temporary type of fix that ultimately will fail,” said Wendy Rampson, director of programs and outreach for the Michigan Association of Planning.

Planning experts say the long-term solution is to strengthen shoreline development policies to keep people from building homes dangerously close to shore. 

Along the vast majority of Michigan’s 3,288-mile coast, state law allows property owners to build right up to where water regularly reaches, called the “ordinary high water mark.”

About 250 miles of shoreline designated by the state to be at high risk of significant erosion or sensitive coastal dunes are more tightly regulated. There, property owners need prior approval from the state for activities like building a deck, installing a fence or expanding a driveway. 

Outside those lands, any additional regulation is up to local governments, which have historically taken a hands-off approach.

The high water crisis forced local leaders to rethink those lax policies, said Herasanna Richards, legislative associate at the Michigan Municipal League. 

But, five years later, only a few of the state’s 387 coastal communities appear to have followed through. Rampson, of the planning association, put it at “maybe a dozen.”

Among them is Saugatuck Township, on the Lake Michigan shoreline, which now restricts the size of new shoreline homes and requires them to be far enough inland that it would take 60 years of erosion for the waves to reach them. 

Lax development policies worked in an earlier era, when Michigan's coast was dotted with small cottages that could be easily moved inland if erosion worsened, said Township Manager Daniel DeFranco.

But the unmovable mansions that have proliferated along the shoreline in recent years often come with “invasive building practices” that destabilize bluffs, he said.

In Chikaming Township, near Bridgman, officials have banned hard armoring and implemented a 150-foot setback for new shoreline developments. 

“We didn’t want to become a community of solid, hardened shoreline,” said township Supervisor David Bunte.

One possible reason other communities have not followed suit: Short-staffed local governments may hesitate to take on the time-consuming and logistically and politically complex process.

In Lake Charter Township, where the Brickleys have their cottage, the local government doesn’t have a specialized setback for lakefront lots, instead using a standard 25-foot setback from the ordinary high water mark unless the lot is in an area tightly regulated by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

That hasn’t seemed to cause any issues, said Building Administrator Rich Kubsch, particularly because there are only one or two undeveloped lots on the lakefront where the setback would apply.

“It’s just not something that comes up a lot,” Kubsch added.

Over the past five years, EGLE has doled out $4 million to dozens of communities and organizations interested in better protecting their coastlines. 

But not every community that engages with the program sees the process through to completion, said Adam Arend, coastal community development coordinator for EGLE.

“Sometimes we’re able to capture a moment in time where the community is really interested,” Arend said. “And sometimes communities are just less interested and more focused on other issues.”

Defending property versus protecting nature

Elsewhere in Michigan, homeowners and state regulators are fighting over how long sand tubes can remain in place now that the crisis is over. 

The Brickleys are in the center of it all.

Their home sits on a critical dune, which makes it subject to special regulations limiting construction. That includes seawalls and riprap.

During the height of the high water crisis, EGLE denied some residents’ requests to install hard armoring, but allowed sand tubes as a temporary measure that would eventually need to be removed.

That day came sooner than the Brickleys had hoped. EGLE officials called for removal in 2023, sparking outcry from landowners who argue the erosion crisis isn’t over.

“To have them taken out would just disrupt the dune that was now being held up by the sandbags,” Kathy Brickley said.

In cases where sand tubes are supporting the bluff, EGLE is usually fine with leaving them in place, said Audrie Kirk, the district supervisor for EGLE’s Grand Rapids office Water Resources Division. 

“We’re not interested in removing bags that are going to cause harm to critical infrastructure,” she said.

When the sand tubes don’t play a role in supporting the dune or are exposed to the open air, increasing the risk of breaking down and contaminating the area, EGLE is adamant that the bags must come out, Kirk noted.

Property owners have rallied support from state Rep. Joey Andrews, D-St. Joseph, who introduced legislation in April that would allow soft, sand-filled armoring to be installed permanently without a permit, so long as it is made of biodegradable or synthetic textiles, shielded from sunlight to keep it from breaking down and doesn’t restrict public access to the beach. 

The legislation would also require EGLE to prioritize landowner’s rights over public access rights when reviewing an application for such armoring.

Andrews called the proposal “the least bad of our options” to protect houses built on eroding dunes.

But environmental groups have criticized the legislation, arguing that permanent armoring could scour beaches, release plastics into the water and obstruct publicly-owned beaches with private infrastructure.

“The state can never abdicate its public trust duty, and the Legislature cannot legislate it away,” said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of environment group For Love of Water. 

For now, EGLE is allowing their sand tubes to remain on the beach as long as they’re covered by the sand.

Long-term, the Brickleys know erosion will inevitably claim the land upon which their cottage sits. But they hope the sandbags will keep it from happening in their lifetime.