The others, like the Rotters, depend on the Michigan Department of Natural Resources boat launch sites. That policy aim is belied by recent history. Local governments operate 445 of the sites, while the DNR directly runs 738 ramps, Herek said. But in the last 11 years, only seven sites have been built, according to Herek and DNR parks and recreation planner Paul Yauk. The fall-off in building new sites is due partly to the cost of lakefront property, estimated to rise by 10 percent to 25 percent per year, said Yauk.
Different sources fund the acquisition division and the amounts vary and are unpredictable.
Then there's the price of maintaining, modernizing and expanding hundreds of existing boat ramps, Boik said. The biggest brake on new ramps is opposition from lakeside home owners, said Van Snyder, executive director of the Michigan Boating Industries Association. They have organized themselves and have been very vocal in terms of the political process. Only Iron County, with 2,175, has more. Yet the DNR's Yauk can't recall when the agency built the last boat ramp in Oakland County.