Federal officials are working to undo the impacts of nearly 50 years of dredging on the Platte River at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
The Platte is one of few rivers left in Michigan that is "free-flowing" — meaning the mouth of the river isn't built up with breakwalls or harbors, and its water flows into Lake Michigan uninhibited.
Now, the National Park Service is excavating more than 2,000 cubic yards of sand on the landside of Platte Point to restore the area to pre-dredging conditions.
The dredging spoil material will then be placed along the adjacent beach and dune areas, and the site will be recontoured and planted with native fauna.
Scott Tucker, the park's superintendent, said the goal is to "let the Platte be the boss."
"...to let nature continue as it has for thousands of years," Tucker said. "It will impact piping plover habitat and create habitat for natural plant succession, and it will let the lakeshore advance on its own terms."
While the Platte is unique as a relatively unaltered drainage basin, Tucker said the effects of dredging from 1968 to 2017 have significantly altered the riverscape.
"The short-term memory of what has happened to this location in the last 50 years is much louder than the thousands of years of the river being here, doing its thing," Tucker said.
In addition to restoring habitat and safeguarding the river, Tucker said the project has historical and cultural implications.
"The goal would be that [Anishinaabe] communities that were here [historically] would recognize it today, and seven generations in the future will recognize what their great, great, great grandparents also experienced," Tucker said. "The last 50 years is just a blip in thousands of years of human use."
Tucker said the restoration effort has been in the works since 2017 and is unrelated to the illegal diversion of the Platte that happened last year.
He said he can't comment on how the diversion will affect restoration plans due to an ongoing trial.
Work on Platte Point began last week and is expected to wrap up in January.
