Fisherman Convicted of Diverting a Michigan River by Hand

After the National Park Service stopped dredging the Platte River at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Michigan’s lower peninsula, built-up sediment created a sandbar separating fishermen from a coho salmon run.

On an August day in 2022, a fisherman took a shovel to the sand to dredge the river himself, according to federal prosecutors.

The fisherman, Andrew Blair Howard, a financial adviser in Grand Rapids, Mich., was convicted of federal tampering and vandalism charges on Wednesday after a bench trial, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

“Mr. Howard had a policy dispute with the National Park Service and took matters into his own hands,” said the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, Mark Totten.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Howard called his conviction a “tremendous injustice.”

He said that he came upon a fresh trench in the river when he was returning from a fishing trip. He said the current was so strong that he had to enlist four men to help him drag his 16-foot boat over the newly dredged river bed.

For decades, the river mouth had been dredged every fall by state or federal authorities, with a boat launch giving fishermen direct access to Platte Bay and its plentiful coho salmon.

The salmon, which are native to the Pacific Northwest and Asia and were introduced to the Great Lakes in the 1960s, are in Lake Michigan throughout the summer and move with the spawning run in late August and September up the Platte River.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which was established as a national park in 1970 and named after what Indigenous peoples in the area identified as bear-shaped sand dunes, encompasses 70,000 acres along 65 miles of shoreline. The park features the world’s largest freshwater dune system.

Park officials decided to restore the river to its natural state in 2016 after an environmental assessment found that the sand and gravel dredged from the river mouth interfered with dune vegetation and the enjoyment of beachgoers.

According to the assessment, dredging benefited “a small, short-term user group compared to the deleterious effects for the larger recreational groups during the full summer.”

It was a controversial decision, prosecutors said in court papers, because in the Platte River’s natural, non-dredged state, the river mouth became too shallow for boats to pass.

“If you had a boat, it sucked,” said Brian Seiferlein, a chartered fishing boat guide. “You would need two, three guys to push your boat about three-fourths of a mile in ankle-deep water.”

Prosecutors said that Mr. Howard, 63, dug a channel through the sandbar, though it was unclear how long that took or how much sand was moved.

Federal officials said he built a dam by stacking large rocks, diverting the river’s natural water flow toward the channel and into Lake Michigan.

“I would have to be Superman,” Mr. Howard said, suggesting instead that a group of men and more than a dozen teenagers built the channel.

“The Park Service had no idea who dug the trench in the river, and I was the only person on the scene with the shovel,” he said.

A Park Service ranger found Mr. Howard on Aug. 15, 2022, hunched over the sandbar with a shovel, according to a still photo from body-cam footage.

When confronted, Mr. Howard said that he was “trying to get a better access” after struggling to navigate his boat through the narrow river mouth, according to court papers.

Prosecutors said that under federal tampering and vandalism provisions, it was immaterial whether “other uncharged individuals also acted illegally to dredge the river.”

Within days, the natural power of the river opened the channel 200 feet wide, drawing an influx of fishermen.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said the diversion helped the river’s flow of sediment and relieved oversaturated marshlands, MLive.com reported.

The Park Service viewed it differently and issued a plea for help with its investigation.

Prosecutors said the conditions created by the dredging remained through the summer and fall of 2022, damaging wetlands and wildlife, according to court papers.

“The guy did it, and boom! The river mouth started flowing again,” Mr. Seiferlein said.

With direct access to the salmon run restored, Mr. Seiferlein booked about 25 percent fewer chartered trips because small boats could launch at the newly dredged river mouth.

“If you’ve got a little boat, you’re happy that he did it,” Mr. Seiferlein said. “If you’re a bigger charter captain, I don’t like it.”

Mr. Howard faces a sentence that could include six months in prison, a five-year ban from entering a national park, a $5,000 fine and a minimum of $26,000 in restitution for environmental damage and payment of the government’s legal fees.