Man sentenced for tampering, vandalizing Sleeping Bear Dunes

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Michigan man will pay thousands in restitution after illegally dredging the Platte River inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Andrew Howard, 63, of Sparta and Frankfort, was sentenced to 60 months of probation and ordered to pay $22,472 in restitution, as well as $3,947 in court costs, according to a Tuesday release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan. As a term of his probation, Howard was also banned from being on National Park Service property, the release says.

He was convicted in February of two federal misdemeanors for tampering and vandalism at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, according to the attorney’s office.

The office says Howard disagreed with the National Park Service’s decision to let the Platte River follow its natural course. On Aug. 15, 2022, Howard used tools to dig out sediment and rocks from the river basin and divert the Platte River’s flow into Lake Michigan, according to the release.

That allowed bigger boats to illegally enter Platte Bay. According to investigators, within days, the natural power of the water and Howard’s dam caused the new channel to wash away a path of land nearly 200 feet wide.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says the diversion also drained protected wetlands and negatively impacted plants and animals alike. The National Park Service spent “significant” resources sending crews to evaluate the situation and ultimately decided not to pursue major remediation, because such a project would disturb the area’s fragile ecosystems. It’s still monitoring the area, the office says.

“Mr. Howard had a policy dispute with the National Park Service over whether to dredge the Platte River. Reasonable people can disagree on the best course of action, but Congress gave NPS the power to decide, ” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten stated. “While Mr. Howard had the right to disagree and advocate for his position, he did not have the right to take the law into his own hands and force his favored result. Doing so was a misdemeanor, and this sentence holds Mr. Howard accountable for his offense.”

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