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Column from Door County Environmental Council

The controversy over blasting/dredging to revitalize the boat launch facility at Schauer Park, south of the village of Jacksonport, is heating up – with the advent of a funded feasibility study. The study, to determine possible actions, was requested to best address the problem of local access to Lake Michigan.

Everyone agrees there is a need for a boating facility, somewhere in the Jacksonport area, to provide access to Lake Michigan for all users. The facility must be located with the best interests of the lake’s fishery and ecology being balanced with long-term benefits to the entire town of Jacksonport.

Historically, small villages up and down the peninsula have had permanent docks or boat launch facilities located right within those villages. Local business interests have benefited, and the boaing facilities have helped to sustain the importance of each village.

Jacksonport village had dock facilities in the past but had to deal with storm destruction and constant sand drift complicating the location there. The newer location at Schauer Park has the problem of an exposed rock bottom, for several hundred feet before the water gets deep enough for boating. This problem is not unique to Jacksonport – similar situations exist around the entire Lake Michigan basin and the other Great Lakes.

The prospect of continual lowering lake levels, predicted by most experts, will further complicate the Schauer Park location. Official charts, at both locations, show shallow water depth extending far out into the lake – a distance that will increase as water level drops, creating a never-ending need to extend blasting farther into the lake.

The feasibility study may help determine the course of action needed to resolve this problem. DCEC hopes this study will include an in depth examination of the long-term effects on whitefish spawning on the rocky bottom (known to be the preferred spawning areas of adult whitefish in the entire lake). The study should also address the possible transfer of invasive species to Clark Lake, because of its close access.

Still other considerations to be addressed are: possible benefits to all residents of the community, including Jacksonport village, and the impact that unending blasting, dredging and concrete construction could have on the future of this small community on the lake.