Building into Lake Erie

Decades upon decades ago, Cedar Point used to have a few rides that were out in Lake Erie, such as a chairswing and a slide that you boarded on the beach that dropped you into the lake.

Obviously in the modern era, Cedar Point has done next to nothing with Lake Erie from a ride-standpoint, although the beach is still fairly packed during the prime months of the summer and the marina is usually at full capacity whenever I go there.

My question is, does anybody think that Cedar Point is going to utilize Lake Erie down the road for future construction?

When I was a little kid, I always thought about a roller coaster that skimmed across about five feet above the water, and then used tunnel systems to actually go underwater. As I've gotten a little older, I've realized that really isn't very practical, but it'd still be cool to see.

Thoughts about future Lake Erie construction?

Nope. Not gonna happen.

They had the ferry ride back in 04 and there are jet ski rentals, and that's about I ever seeing happen.

I agree that it would be really cool, but I don't see it happening.

Not really a point to it. Everything can be built on land with much less maintenance costs.

The red tape of building in Lake Erie is probably horrible. It would be too much to attract any attention from the Cedar Point bigwigs.

It would be cool, but think of Ohio weather....

Complicating any thought that something like this would ever happen is the fact that Cedar Point only owns the beach. Once you are in the water, you are in waters of the state.

Not the state, the Federal government, and that's a whole lot of headaches you don't want.

Not to get technical, but it is the state of Ohio that "owns" the portion of Lake Erie within the boundaries of the state. To put it correctly, the state holds Lake Erie in a trust for the public. The same thing would apply to PA, MI, and NY as well as Ontario for their portions of the lake.

http://blog.nwf.org/2011/02/who-owns-lake-erie/

The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources is the state agency in charge of monitoring and enforcing state regulations with regards to activity on the lake. The federal government really doesn't have any authority regarding the use of the Lake Erie or any of the other great lakes. Of course, this doesn't lessen the headaches involved. Ask anyone who has tried to build a dock in the last ten years. I can't even imagine if CP asked the state for permission to build a permanent structure past the high water line.

I honestly didn't realize that, as the Great Lakes are patroled by the U. S. Coast Guard I assumed that they were under the domain of the Federal Government and not the individual states. I could see the states claiming jurisdiction "x" number of feet from the shoreline but the rest of it seems like the making of a cluster@#$!