Protecting Michigan’s Inland Lakes: Starting with Van Buren County
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Protecting Michigan’s Inland Lakes: Starting with Local Government in Van Buren County
Michigan: land of 11,000 lakes with 1,250 townships and 83 counties, who all share a role in keeping our inland lakes clean for future generations. Local officials and concerned citizens understand the benefits of inland lakes to communities, the regulations that govern them, and the opportunities for enhancing protection at the local level.
This guidebook is designed to help local officials and concerned citizens understand the benefits of inland lakes to communities, the regulations that govern inland lakes, and the opportunities for protecting them at the local level. Protecting these important resources does not always require elaborate or expensive regulations. This guidebook outlines a variety of inland lake protection techniques, from the simple enforcement of existing statutes to comprehensive ordinances.
This toolkit is designed to provide local officials and concerned citizens with examples of different ordinances that can help protect the lakes in their communities. This toolkit consists of two parts:
Part I: Is the book which focuses on understanding specific goals and connecting them with specific local options that can help achieve those goals. In this part, case studies from different communities are also highlighted to illustrate how they achieved their goals.
Download: Protecting Michigan’s Inland Lakes: A Toolkit for Local Government Part I
Part II: This part is available online on the Michigan Lake and Stream Associations website: www.mymlsa.org. Here you will find the examples of ordinances from different communities, other support materials to help local municipalities implement changes and related agency and organization contact information.