Shallows and Miseries
Communities Across Lake Michigan and Lake Huron Come Together to Restore Lake Levels
Published: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 7:00 am
By: Douglas Heuck
For 51 straight summers, I have travelled to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to sail, fish, swim and enjoy the beautiful waters of the Les Cheneaux Islands. There have been high water years, when we built catwalks above our docks, and low water years when our docks towered above the boats tied to them. Now, however, we face something we’ve never seen – shockingly low water that leaves us unable to reach those docks at all. Increasingly large sections of area are simply drying up, and we fear for the future of communities like ours across Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Georgian Bay.
It used to be that the scientifically inclined among us would explain that the water levels followed general cycles. But whatever patterns existed for the 10,000 years since glaciers created the Great Lakes began to change in 1910 when the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers began dredging a deeper commercial shipping channel at Port Huron. The Corps. dredged again in 1933, deepening the channel to 22 feet, and in 1962 the Corps. dredged a third time, cutting through the natural sand and gravel bar at the sound end of Lake Huron that acted as a natural barrier restricting outflow from the lake.
The 1962 dredging deepened the channel flowing out of Lake Huron and into the St. Clair River to 27 feet. Unfortunately, however, it also set off a disastrous process that has essentially pulled the plug on Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The dredging disturbed the bottom so much that the passage has eroded beyond anyone’s expectations. It is now up to 70 feet deep, and estimates indicate that an extra 10 billion gallons of fresh water leak from Lake Huron every day.
These unintended effects have resulted in a broad array of crises and irreversible damage across the “middle” Great Lakes, which are more than 30 inches below historic averages and deteriorating rapidly. Since July alone, water levels in the Les Cheneaux Islands have dropped 18 inches to the lowest levels ever recorded.
So what?
Taken together, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron represent the largest recreational asset in the Midwest, and perhaps in America. While there is no figure on the dollar amount that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron tourism brings to the federal government and to the four states – Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan – that surround the two lakes, it is difficult to overestimate the economic importance of the lakes to the region and the nation.
In a magazine article, it’s impossible to describe the aggregate impact of this building environmental and economic disaster on the 15 million people who live in the cities and communities along the 5,467 miles of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron shoreline. However, we can get a glimpse by looking at the tiny community I visit each summer. Home to about 2,200 year-round residents, population roughly triples in the summer, as visitors come from across the nation to enjoy the 36 islands and the protected bays and channels. The waters and islands of Les Cheneaux provide the economic foundation for the little towns of Cedarville and Hessel in Clark Township, Michigan.
That foundation, however, is crumbling. Historically low water and the resulting unprecedented penetration of sunlight have led to a proliferation of invasive weeds. The combination is choking the area’s bays and channels and threatening all water-related recreation. Island residents can no longer reach their docks; cruising boats must bypass the islands; and vast areas of our bays and channels can no longer be navigated for any purpose.
If current conditions persist and trends continue, an inexorable logic of economic collapse will accelerate: Property values will plummet; tax bases will evaporate; jobs will disappear; and high percentages of local residents and summer residents alike will leave the area.
Lake levels are overseen by The International Joint Commission; its Upper Great Lakes Study Board has recommended “doing nothing.” The IJC Commissioners have yet to decide whether to accept this recommendation, but large numbers of citizens spoke at their summer hearings, imploring the Commissioners to “Restore Our Water.”
The thousands of people organizing across the nation and in Canada believe that that the costs of the “do nothing” approach prove that it is untenable. Those costs are already in the billions of dollars, as ships carry loads that are 25 percent less. Marinas, harbors and communities across the lakes face huge dredging costs. And the likelihood is great that financial institutions will simply cease to lend for dredging -- a strategy that has no successful end in sight.
What can be done?
The Corps of Engineers recognized the inherent dangers of its dredging and in the early 1960s designed a series of sills (compensating structures) that could reduce the flow of water from the lakes.The 1970s, however, brought a period of cold winters with heavy snow and increased lake ice. Lake levels rose and before the erosion began, the project to construct the sills was abandoned. Those compensating sills were part of a bi-national agreement and a condition of the 1962 dredging; and that agreement has not been withdrawn – only the funding for the sills.
When lake levels began to dramatically drop in the late 1990s, the Georgian Bay Association in Ontario, began an extensive study of the cause. Their work has continued, unabated and as a result many other groups have joined the effort. These groups commissioned two extensive and well-respected engineering studies, which confirm that the dredging and subsequent erosion has caused the levels of Lakes Huron and Michigan to drop significantly. The studies further conclude that building compensating structures, such as the sills, would gradually increase water levels in Lakes Huron and Michigan by at least 10 inches with minimal and temporary downstream impact of two-three inches. Another major benefit of this would be stabilization of the St Clair Riverbed.
In the past five months, new reports about the shrinking lakes are appearing with increasing regularity, as recognition of this environmental and economic crisis spreads.
The Canadian groups -- now along with rapidly growing numbers of Americans – are presenting information to the International Joint Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers in an effort to persuade them of the wisdom in re-authorizing sill construction. The Canadian groups also are enlisting the support of their Federal and Provincial Governments. We need to do the same with Congress and our State governments.
Whether you live on or visit the Great Lakes, whether you have a business that depends on the lakes, or whether you are simply aware of the increasing value of fresh water to our nation, I encourage you to become part of the growing effort to preserve one of our planet’s most unique and precious resources – the Great Lakes.
(If you are interested in getting involved, please visit www.restoreourwater.com)
Douglas Heuck, of Pittsburgh, Pa., is a summer resident of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
