SIMPLIFIED PERMIT APP; GREAT LAKES                                                                                                                       S.B. 61:

                                                                                                                                                                SUMMARY OF INTRODUCED BILL

                                                                                                                                                                                                                IN COMMITTEE

Senate Bill 61 (as introduced 1-28-21)

Sponsor:   Senator Roger Victory

Committee:   Environmental Quality

Date Completed:   2-23-21

CONTENT

The bill would amend Part 325 (Great Lakes Submerged Lands) the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to do the following:

 --     Specify that the ordinary high-water mark of the Great Lakes would be at the elevations currently prescribed, or the elevation of the surface of each lake during calm water, whichever was higher.

 --     Require the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), to develop and make available a simplified application for a permit if the water level of any lake were one foot or more above the numeric level specified for that lake.

 --     Prescribe requirements that would have to be met for an applicant to use the simplified application for a shoreline protection structure.

 --     Specify the information that would have to be included on a simplified permit application.

 --     Prescribe application and processing periods for a simplified permit application.

Ordinary High-Water Marks

Part 325 governs all of the waters of the Great Lakes within the State's boundaries and all of the unpatented lake bottomlands and unpatented made lands in the Great Lakes, including the bays and harbor of the Great Lakes, belonging to the State or held in trust by it. "Land" or "lands", as used in Part 325, refers to the unpatented lake bottomlands and unpatented made lands and patented lands in the Great Lakes and the bays and harbors of the Great Lakes lying below and lakeward of the natural, ordinary high-water mark.

"Ordinary high-water mark" means the line between upland and bottomland that persists through successive changes in water levels, below which the presence and action of the water is so common or recurrent that the character of the land is marked distinctly from the upland and is apparent in the soil itself, the configuration of the surface of the soil, and the vegetation. On an inland lake that has a level established by law, it means the high established level. Where water returns to its natural level as the result of the permanent removal or abandonment of a dam, it means the natural ordinary high-water mark.

Currently, under Part 325, the ordinary high-water mark is at the following elevations above sea level, international Great Lakes datum of 1955:

 --       Lake Superior, 601.5 feet.

 --       Lakes Michigan and Huron, 579.8 feet.

 --       Lake St. Clair, 574.7 feet.

 --       Lake Erie, 571.6 feet.

Under the bill, the ordinary high-water mark would be at the elevations prescribed above, or the elevation of the surface of each lake during calm water, whichever was higher.