Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
How in the world do you get your local natural resources dept to sign off on this? If you have world class fishing in a stream adjacent to the lakes and you will be blending lake water and stream water (or I presume using the stream water to refill the lakes when the water table drops or evaporation kicks in?) freely?

Our DNR would have a conniption that water laced with boat exhaust, oil, human trash, and waste from the man made lakes would enter the fragile ecosystem of the natural stream nearby. Then they would put up enough barriers to make any developer choose to go elsewhere. Shoot, if they couldn't find an existing law that prohibits the project, they would either find an endangered previously undiscovered mosquito on the property or would find some 'sawgrass' on the edge of the existing creek and dub it a wetland in order to protect it from any development.

I'm glad our DNR has an eye out for protecting our water ways and our Great Lakes resources, but they do carry it a bit too far at times too.

How in the world do you get permitting to turn what sounds like a very valuable resource in the 180 acres around that stream into what they would probably view as a very profit oriented, 'glamping' destination for the upper crust? Don't get me wrong, for the folks who can afford it, it sounds like a great opportunity for recreation. I don't fault folks who like those activities and are willing to pay for them.

You have to remember that most of us in West Michigan are first or second generation Dutch immigrants and we usually make copper wire by pinching our pennies... Just the thought of doing a water based recreation with the cost meter running and the tab going up on the 15 minute interval would be an awful killjoy for me.

But again, we are spoiled in our State with almost an unlimited amount of water sport opportunities all around us in all 4 seasons.

I can see that you have a lot of experience in this area and I by no means would want to slow you down by showing my amazement that you can even pull this off smile



A project like this is certainly not without hurdles. Beyond the permitting, there will be numerous city council meetings where a handful of residents will be screaming that the boats are going to wake them up from a nap a mile away. Side note, the boats run below 55 decibels, which is about equivalent to a normal human conversation. Also, I'm not suggesting that we can just throw a pump into the river and start filling the lakes. But that property has plentiful water rights. The farming operation currently on it uses far more water than we will. But this won't be about water use, it will be about properly isolating the lakes from the river. But for perspective, if I travel 9 miles down river, there is a 2-lake ski community somewhat similar to this in which the boat lakes themselves are literally bordering the same river with just a berm separating them. Also consider that we are the second driest state in the nation, next to Nevada, so almost all of our large bodies of water are reservoirs. Nearly every one of these reservoirs allow power boating. So there are already boats "polluting" the waterway with fuel and exhaust both upstream and downstream from this location.

Our setup is actually MUCH more eco-friendly. On the public reservoirs/lakes, there aren't really any enforced regulations on the boats. It is not uncommon to see many people running a 30 year old boat burning more oil than fuel. There is no doubt that they are also not very vigilant about preventing oil and fuel leaks. And when garbage ends up in the water it just goes downstream. In our case, there are no private boats allowed. The 3-4 boats will be new each year operated by a single charter company and replaced after about 500 hours of use, so no opportunity to develop environmental problems. There is a professional lake management team to ensure against pollution and littering. There will also be catches to ensure that any inadvertent garbage entering the lakes is prevented from entering the river.

You also have to realize that if we don't do this project, the land will be filled with low-end subsidized apartment buildings, with the right hand section developed for industrial complex. Which would they rather have?

Re: the cost of boating here. You might be surprised to learn that for most people it will actually be far cheaper to live and boat in this community instead of living in a normal development, owning their own boat, and boating on the public reservoirs. In fact, when I do the math, the cost of living and boating in this community with a brand new comp level boat and guaranteed perfect water conditions is roughly equivalent to splitting the purchase of a 20 year old boat with your brother and taking turns pulling each other at the crowded local reservoir. It's just the beauty of crowdfunding the shared amenities. Everyone pays a little to ensure full use of the equipment instead of one person paying a lot for minimal use.