IMPORTANT NEWS!! Due in no small part to our grass-roots efforts, on Monday, December 18, 2006, the U.S. Coast Guard dropped their plans to use the Great Lakes for target practice with machine guns affixed to their boats within the Lakes. Click here for a thank you from the founding organizers of Citizens for Lakes Safety.

Coast Guard Plan

The United States Coast Guard has announced plans to turn the Great Lakes, the world’s largest body of fresh water, into the world’s largest freshwater shooting range. Since 1817, a treaty between the U.S. and Canada prohibited this kind of activity on the Great Lakes. But when President Bush made the Coast Guard part of the Department of Homeland Security in 2004, he reinterpreted the agreement with Canada.

The Coast Guard has installed machine guns, capable of firing 600 rounds per minute, on its Great Lakes vessels and has begun target practice on the lakes. Now the Coast Guard wants to designate 34 areas in the lakes as permanent target ranges for practice with live ammunition. The areas they have mapped out come within five miles of the shore and can be seen with the naked eye from the water’s edge. They are strung around the perimeter of all five Great Lakes (Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron). In keeping with the Bush administration’s practice of giving misleading names to its initiatives, the Coast Guard is calling the target ranges “safety zones.”

Environmentalists are dubious of the Coast Guard’s claims that dumping an estimated 43,000 lead bullets into the lakes each year will have no adverse environmental impact on fish, birds, mammals, plants, or humans. Consistent with the military’s view that they should be exempt from environmental regulations, the Coast Guard has not prepared a complete environmental impact statement. Their own internal study says that if the environmental risk reached a rank of 1.00 on their scale, the program would need further study. However, the Coast Guard says the program’s risk is 0.96, so they are not concerned. The Coast Guard’s risk assumptions only assume the shooting will take place for a period of five years, although the Coast Guard has announced no such limit on their plans for shooting in the lakes.

Our lakes are an international treasure, enjoyed by nature-lovers, boaters, fishers, and swimmers, and a critical resource for commercial fisheries, transportation, and shipping. The lakes are also the source of drinking water for millions of people. They should not be turned into a target range, endangering anyone who ventures out onto the lakes. They should not be unnecessarily polluted by lead and other toxins. There are alternatives to the Coast Guard’s plan. There must be some limit to the militarization of our society, and this is an important and symbolic place for those of us who work for peace and who value the environment to stand our ground.

During our active resistance to the Coast Guard Plan, we were not alone.

  • For further information about us or to find out how you can become involved please Contact Us.

    Congressman Dennis Kucinich's office also put up a website with additional information.
    www.OurLakes.org