We have been checking out landscaping firms, including companies that install seawalls.
Our present seawall requires a little attention from me each spring because of the ice pressure moving individual blocks in the wall. The wall gets a little wavy as you can see below.
We are considering a vinyl, corrugated wall similar to our neighbors, so we've contacted a few companies about estimates and the permit process. Ho, boy!
Seems Michigan has allowed one of its agencies ... Department of Environmental Quality ... to throw giant monkey wrenches into the lake shore maintenance process. The new regulations require that you return the lake to nature as defined by the DEQ. Nature in this case would be a bunch of boulders and marsh grasses. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/lwm-pcu-ez-seawall_224053_7.pdf Of course, the permit process for this undesired approached is several months.
The owner of one seawall company was so dismayed that he suggested just letting him come in on a weekend and put the wall in and ignore the regulations. We won't do that, of course. What we may do is something that the State of Michigan might want to consider as part of the "law of unintended consequences."
We will keep the old seawall... it's grandfathered. We may change the pavers behind it, but the old seawall is just going to sit there and look ugly. The Michigan company who would have made some taxable income from replacing it will not make that money and the state will not collect taxes from the owner of that company from the job he did not do.
Besides, the governor is looking to raise my taxes so maybe I can't afford to spend the money anyway.
Tax and regulate more, Michigan. You'll get more people reacting the same way I am.
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