Officials in Hagar Township are working to address erosion along the shore of Lake Michigan at Hagar Park.
Township Supervisor Izzy DiMaggio tells us Hagar Park is the community’s most popular attraction, and yet they’re losing part of it to the lake.
“We’ve got a major erosion problem going on at the south end of the beach,” DiMaggio said. “So we’ve got to address it now. We just had a meeting this Monday with our parks committee and our DDA to hire a consultant to start the process. This is not going to be cheap. Hiring a consultant is $8,000 to $10,000, but that’s to tell us what we need to do for, number one, an immediate fix, and then two, a long-range fix.”
DiMaggio says immediate measures that could be taken might include revetments to reduce the impact of waves hitting the shore.
More long-term measures would be more expensive, he estimates in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, DiMaggio is of the opinion something must be done sooner rather than later. DiMaggio says, for now, the erosion is only affecting the public beach, but if they wait long enough, private properties may also be affected.
The township board will further discuss the matter after hearing input from the parks committee and the DDA.
