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Residents, Fennville brewery join campaign to improve Pier Cove Park

The Holland Sentinel - 5/30/2021

May 29—GANGES TWP. — Pier Cove Park spans just 66 feet of Lake Michigan beach, slightly longer than a bowling lane.

But to Fennville-area residents, those 66 feet are precious. They have stepped up to care for the park, donating labor, funds and expertise to keep it open despite the threat of erosion from the destructive waves of the last few years.

A group called Friends of Pier Cove, led by Dana Burd, is raising money to make temporary fixes to the park permanent and make other changes to improve the aesthetics and access to Ganges Township's small slice of lakefront.

"I was driving by the park probably a year or so ago, and I noticed the park was closed, and a chain link fence was up and it was locked," said Burd, an engineer who played at Pier Cove as a child. "I talked to the township and they said the stairs had washed out."

Pier Cove Park is owned and operated by Ganges Township, which has no full-time staff. The township's cemetery sexton is tasked with monitoring the township's two public parks, which have a combined annual budget of $6,000.

Burd asked if the township could reopen the park if he and his friends fixed the stairs, and a partnership was formed.

"The township has struggled to maintain the stairs due to the high water and erosion in the area. We've rebuilt the stairs a few times in the last few years," said Ganges Township Supervisor John Hebert.

"A couple years ago, when the water was so high we had to close the gate and lock it ..., Dana [Burd] approached the township and said he was willing to raise funds to get the park back open."

His involvement with the park started with simply wanting to keep the beach open, Burd said, but turned into developing long-term plans.

Those plans were submitted to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources this spring in a grant application for $266,000 from the DNR Trust Fund.

Burd and Friends of Pier Cove Park are raising money for the township's matching portion of the grant through a GoFundMe page and partnerships with local businesses.

This weekend, Waypost Brewing Co. will release the Pier Cove Pale Ale to raise money and awareness for the Pier Cove project.

Chuck Steinhardt, Waypost co-owner, said he wanted to "shine a spotlight" on what Friends of Pier Cove Park are trying to do to improve the park and return it to its historic roots.

Local artist Tyler Voorhees designed the artwork for the beer, which is available only at Waypost Brewing Co.'s taproom. Voorhees will also sell prints of the Pier Cove-inspired design during a Pier Cove Pale Ale release event at the taproom Saturday, May 29.

"We are very excited to be a part of this local initiative and past efforts toward the protection of Lake Michigan public beaches," Steinhardt said.

Last fall, Burd and Friends of Pier Cove organized the installation of a 30-foot sheet pile wall to support the dune embankment and prevent further erosion of the dune where the entrance to the park lies.

The plans, if Ganges Township is awarded the DNR grant, include shoring up the dune behind the sheet pile wall with terraced wood-retaining walls and planting vegetation to stabilize the dune that holds the entrance.

Burd also wants to see improvements that bring it closer to its past. Pier Cove was once a busy port on Lake Michigan, complete with a post office, tavern, three hotels and a mill. It was an important lumber distribution port in the mid-1800s and later for fruit exports, before commercial activity at Pier Cove ceased in the early 1900s. Pier Cove is listed on the state registry of historic places.

The design for the park, developed with the help of Robert Grese, a professor emeritus of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan, calls for aesthetic improvements, such as a wood enclosure for the port-a-john and trash bins, a gathering area at the top of the steps, the addition of native plants and wildflowers to the landscape and replacing the chainlink fence and metal guardrail with something more rustic.

"Whatever we do, we want it to have that more historic feel," Burd said. "We have a vision for the park that it could feel a little more like it did 100 years ago."

Additionally, Hebert said residents have long had safety concerns about the parking for Pier Cove, which is directly off Lakeshore Drive with no buffer between the road and parking.

The plans would reorganize the parking spaces so they are diagonal to the road and would create space for a walkway so visitors no longer have to walk in the road from the parking to the entrance.

"It's a tremendous help," Hebert said of Burd's efforts. "Ganges Township does not have any full-time staff and no office staff apart from the township board, so having individuals like Dana come to the township and offer to help with their experience and expertise is just amazing."

Pier Cove was, at times, one of the few public Lake Michigan beaches open in Allegan County last year as high waters damaged stairs and cut off public access, closing other parks such as West Side County Park and Douglas Beach.

"At the same time as you have lots of people wanting to get outside, you have these access difficulties keeping people from getting outside," Burd noted.

Burd said COVID-19 taught many residents to appreciate the value of their local public parks and beaches and he's seen the project gather momentum over the past year.

"It's really exciting to see the community get behind it," Burd said.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.

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