LETTER: ‘Wet foot rule’ is needed to safeguard private shoreline

To Ozaukee Press:

On Dec. 2, Shorewood Municipal Judge Margo Kirchner heard a case challenging Wisconsin’s longstanding Lake Michigan shoreline access regulation known as the “wet foot rule,” which permits anyone to walk along any shoreline as long as their feet are wet. 

All citizens have the right to access Wisconsin’s beautiful and plentiful beaches, waterfronts, parks, forests and lands. However, changing the current definition of the wet foot rule to the ordinary high water mark along shorelines would have a definitive negative environment impact to wildlife, sensitive vegetation and all shoreline flora and fauna.

Private shoreline will no longer exist and instead will be public beaches to any and all. Judge Kirchner, please do not open up Pandora’s box and play a part of destroying Wisconsin’s natural beauty.

Jeff Ellis

Sturgeon Bay

Editor’s note: Wisconsin’s so-called wet foot rule holds that people may only cross private shoreline property if they are walking in public waters. Laws in other Great Lakes states allow public beach access up to the ordinary high water mark. The Shorewood case was the subject of an editorial in the Dec. 18 issue of Ozaukee Press titled, “The lake belongs to everyone and so does a bit of the beach.”