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If you hear machine guns on the Saginaw Bay, the sound may be coming from the U.S. Coast Guard.
The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is proposing to create 26 ''safety zones'' throughout the Great Lakes, including six in Lake Huron.
The closest two to the bay would be east of Tawas City and north of Port Hope in the Thumb.
The zones, at least five miles off shore, would be used for periodic training by Coast Guard personnel, some involving real machine guns and real bullets, officials say.
Coast Guard officials say boaters will be notified of training exercises through transmissions on marine band radio, and marinas and harbor masters also will be advised.
If someone happens to wander into a zone when live rounds are going off, Coast Guard officials will shut down the exercise, said Chief Petty Officer Robert Lanier, with the U.S. Coast Guard in Cleveland.
''We need those training zones to maintain our homeland security posture, to make sure our members are trained on law enforcement, environmental response tactics and to make sure they're qualified with weapons,'' Lanier said.
The ''safety zones'' don't sound too safe to Cindy Jacques, manager at Jerry's Marina in East Tawas.
''You're not kidding about this?'' Jacques asked when told about the proposed gunfire training exercises.
She said it doesn't sound like a good idea.
There's a lot of people out there fishing and sailing,'' she said.
''There's a lot of people that don't have marine radios on board their boat.''
The U.S. Coast Guard Station Saginaw River has four boats capable of being equipped with .308-caliber machine guns, said Michael J. Pollack, senior chief at the station
Pollack said the zones are being established because an international treaty between the United States and Canada had previously restricted live gunfire training, and Coast Guard personnel had to be certified with weapons on waterways outside the lakes.
A diplomatic compromise has since been worked out, he said.
Lanier said the live gunfire training will involve shooting at targets in the water from various distances.
''The main reason we set those zones are to allow people to still enjoy the Great Lakes, but to keep them in a safe distance while we conduct our training,'' Lanier said.
''The main thing is readiness, making sure that our members are ready to respond to anything that may happen on the Great Lakes.''
Pollack said the guns that will be used here are ''crew service weapons'' that Coast Guard boats are equipped with for homeland security patrols.
Pollack said his station is still reviewing the policy and zones, and no training exercises have been scheduled.
The proposal, published recently in the Federal Register, has raised some eyebrows.
Anne Woiwode, state director of the Sierra Club in Lansing, wonders if the live gunfire training will be scheduled around spring and fall migration, when thousands of birds, including sensitive species, visit the Saginaw Bay.
The Coast Guard is proposing to categorically exclude the proposal from an environmental review, which would examine such concerns. The Federal Register notice on the proposed zones doesn't say anything about bird migration.
''There's a huge number of unanswered questions,'' said Woiwode, whose group plans to file public comments on the proposal before an Aug. 31 deadline.
Lanier said he's not sure what potential environmental impacts have been investigated, but ''they've made a preliminary determination that there are no factors'' that would require a more comprehensive environmental review.
- Jeff Kart covers the environment and politics for The Times. He can be reached at 894-9639 or by e-mail at
jkart@bc-times.com.