A west Michigan man, 63-year-old Andrew Howard of Sparta, has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars in restitution for illegally dredging the Platte River inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Howard has been ordered to pay more than $22,000 in restitution and nearly $4,000 in court costs. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan says Howard also faces 60 months of probation and has been banned from being on National Parks Service property.
The office says in 2022 Howard dug out sediment and rocks from the river basin to divert the Platte River’s flow into Lake Michigan, allowing bigger boats to illegally enter the Platte Bay and it washed away some land.
