Legal Tools Website Summary

The Legal Tools to Protect Coastal Environments was designed to provide government officials, non-profit environment groups, shoreline property owners and concerned citizens with the tools they need to better understand and protect Michigan's coastal environments. The first Legal Tools workshop took place on June 18-20, 2008 and was funded by the National Sea Grant Law Center.  The program was created by the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute at Northwestern Michigan College; Olson, Bzdok and Howard, P.C.; Inland Seas Education Association; Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore; The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay and Michigan Sea Grant.

The Great Lakes are increasingly under a myriad of pressures, including water withdrawals, development pressures, point and non-point source pollution, deposition of airborne contaminants, aquatic invasive species, and climate change. There is a raft of legal regimes in place that are aimed to protect the Great Lakes, but these can be confusing and overwhelming to citizens that are not well-versed in legal issues. An increased understanding of available legal tools can increase public participation in Great Lakes decision-making and focus the public discussion on the gaps in current protections. The Legal Tools workshop was designed to address this need.

The Legal Tools workshop offered a unique combination of legal analysis sessions and field experiences related to coastal environments. The legal analysis sessions of the workshop were held at the Great Lakes Campus of Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, MI, and were used to teach participants about specific federal, state and local legal tools related to Michigan's coastal environments. Practical ways to apply these legal tools in Great Lakes decision-making and citizen action were emphasized. The field experiences of the workshop took place at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, along the shore of Grand Traverse Bay and on the bay itself aboard the schooner, Inland Seas. These field experiences provided participants with the opportunity to gain content knowledge related to key issues affecting coastal environments, and allowed participants to explore the natural resources that the laws are created to protect. The connection between the collection of scientific data and the outcomes of legal decision-making processes was emphasized.

Participants of the Legal Tools workshop received a comprehensive Legal Toolkit that contains relevant legal resources, contact lists and action steps to help them educate others and to work to protect coastal environments following the workshop. These resources are intended to be used and shared among others interested in protecting coastal environments. Each chapter of the Toolkit includes a summary of the topic, a list of accompanying resources and the resources themselves. Click here to view the contents of the Legal Toolkit.