Even in autumn, the cold, silent expanse of Lake Michigan defines this town, where pleasure boats glide into harbor, fishermen wait patiently for salmon and tourists peer up at the lighthouse.
But the United States Coast Guard has a new mission for the waters off of these quiet shores. For the first time, Coast Guard officials want to mount machine guns routinely on their cutters and small boats here and around all five of the Great Lakes as part of a program addressing the threats of terrorism after Sept. 11.
And, for the first time in memory, Coast Guard members plan to use a stretch of water at least five miles off this Michigan shore � and 33 other offshore spots near cities like Cleveland; Rochester; Milwaukee; Duluth, Minn.; and Gary, Ind. � as permanent, live fire shooting zones for training on their new 7.62 mm weapons, which can blast as many as 650 rounds a minute and send fire more than 4,000 yards.
The notion is so unusual that it prompted United States diplomats to negotiate with Canadian authorities in order to agree that it would not violate a 189-year-old treaty, signed after the War of 1812, limiting arms on the Great Lakes.
Many here in Grand Haven, a town whose history is so lovingly intertwined with the Coast Guard that it holds an annual festival celebrating the service branch, say they think of Coast Guard members mainly as the rugged sailors who race off to search for and save troubled boaters. But even here, in a town that calls itself �Coast Guard City U.S.A.,� some say the thought of members firing machine guns anywhere near these waters strikes them as dangerous to ordinary boaters, potentially damaging to the Great Lakes� ecosystem and, frankly, a somewhat surprising place to be bracing for terrorists.
�You know exactly what�s going to happen with this,� said Bob Foster, 58, who said he spends every chance he gets on the waters here. �Some boater is going to inadvertently drive through the live fire zone and get blown out of the water.�
Carole Loftis, the owner of Snug Harbor, a popular restaurant with windows on the water, said that although she certainly carried concerns, like most Americans, about terrorism, drunken boating seemed a more frequent threat around here. �This seems a little like overkill,� Ms. Loftis said of the shooting plans.
Despite complaints from some charter boat captains, environmental groups and city leaders around the Great Lakes, the Coast Guard defended the need to mount M-240B machine guns on its boats and to test fire them two or three times a year in �safety zones,� about 70 square miles each.
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