Court Supports Public's Right To Walk Great Lake Beaches

The Michigan Supreme Court, in a powerful opinion late last week, sorted through the conflicting views and reached a decision in three parts that finally brought some reason to an age-old pastime. First, the court ruled that large bodies of navigable water, including the shoreline, are valuable resources owned by the public that the state is obligated to manage as a public trust. Second, the court said that when the state granted the authority to private landowners to build along the shoreline, it was done so with the express provision that the state would continue to allow the public to use that resource. And third, the court ruled that citizens had the right to stroll on Great Lakes beaches in the area between the water’s edge and the “ordinary high water mark.” The court built its decision around Wisconsin law, which defines the ordinary high water mark as the place where “the presence and action of the water is so continuous as to leave a distinct mark either by erosion, destruction of terrestrial vegetation, or other easily recognized characteristic.”