Man Convicted on Federal Charges for Diverting River, But It’s Just What Rescue Boats Needed

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A Michigan man has been convicted in federal court of illegally diverting a river with a simple shovel and some rocks.

Andrew Blair Howard was arrested after he built a small dam out of rocks in August of 2022. The man’s digging caused a change in the flow of the Platte River near Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Howard was convicted this month on charges of tampering and vandalism at the state park, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Michigan.

It appears that the 63-year-old man had dug a channel by hand to cut through a section of sand that had built up along the Platte Point shoreline which was making access to and from Platte Bay almost impossible for boats, according to MLive.com.

This blockage of sand had been building up for years because in 2017 park managers had stopped the nearly 50-year practice of dredging the mouth of the river, MLive reported. Beachgoers loved the new, sandy area, but boaters most assuredly did not, especially those engaged in the annual coho salmon fishing run.

“On August 15, 2022, Howard used a shovel to dig sediment and rocks from the river basin and stacked large rocks on a dam to divert the river’s natural water flow toward a newly created channel out to Lake Michigan, contrary to a decision by the National Park Service to let the river follow its natural course,” the news release states.

“The diversion created an unauthorized access for large boats to enter Platte Bay. Within days, the natural power of the water and the dam caused the new channel to reach approximately 200 feet wide.”

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