Sea Grant Testimony Informs Beach Grooming Debate

An important part of Sea Grant’s mission is to provide science-based information to decision makers at all levels of government. Most recently, we had the opportunity to inform upcoming legislative action governing beach grooming activities carried out on Great Lakes bottomlands.

In 2003, the Michigan legislature temporarily approved two amendments to the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. Provisions contained in the two amendments exempted mowing and other beach maintenance activities from wetland protection requirements. The provisions also established two pilot areas, Grand Traverse Bay and Saginaw Bay, where removal of vegetation in Great Lakes coastal wetlands would be given expedited approval.

Those provisions are scheduled to sunset in November 2007 and June 2006, respectively, which provided a window of opportunity to evaluate their impacts. As part of the evaluation process, I provided testimony in May 2006 to the state Senate and House Committees with authority over this legislation. The testimony focused on an independent peer-review Sea Grant coordinated of two studies that the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) commissioned to assess the impact of grooming activities on the ecosystem.

These two studies, which were intended to provide the environmental basis for a decision by the legislature, reported that mowing and other beach maintenance activities had measurable negative impacts on native wetland vegetation and fish and invertebrate communities.

We conducted an independent peer-review to evaluate the quality and integrity of the work to ensure that legislators received accurate science-based information upon which to base their decision to reinstate the provisions or let them lapse. As part of the process, six reviewers assessed the appropriateness of methods, clarity of experimental design, accuracy of statistical analysis, and validity of conclusions and interpretations.

We were pleased to share the results of the peer review: independent reviewers validated the conclusions of the studies and confirmed that they form a solid basis for assessing the environmental impacts of beach grooming.

Michigan Sea Grant’s independent review of the methods, results, and interpretation of the environmental studies justifies the legislators using them as a solid basis for understanding the environmental impacts of beach grooming. However, scientific information is not the sole basis for making policy. Social, economic, and equity issues are also very important – and policy makers need to juggle all of those issues, along with the scientific information in order to arrive at sound, socially acceptable decisions.

– Donald Scavia, Michigan Sea Grant Director

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