rmblam
04-24-2000, 04:52 PM
Ken Lee at Sal-Mar resort near Little Bay de Noc, Michigan(upper) enlightened me to this article in USA today (today). I thought others might be interested. Unfortunately the article is cut off on their web site. You'll get the point of it though.
Shallow waters portend deep trouble
By Debbie Howlett
USA TODAY
CHEBOYGAN, Mich.
By this time in any other year, the 95-foot ferry Kristen D would be plying
the waters of the Straits of Mackinac, the channel that joins Lake Huron
and Lake Michigan.
But this year, even in the Great Lakes, there's not enough water.
Several years of warm, dry weather -- caused primarily by La Niņa, a
phenomenon in which cool Pacific waters push the jet stream north -- have
taken a toll on America's largest waterways. Precipitation, particularly
winter snow, has decreased. Evaporation, heightened by shallower,
warmer lakes, has increased.
As a result, all five lakes have lost up to 3 1/2 feet of water in three years.
By summer's end, they are expected to be at their lowest levels in the 120
years that records have been kept.
The drying of the Great Lakes poses a serious threat for nearly everyone
working or playing in the waters between New York and Minnesota. It
affects shipping, charter fishing, tourism, recreation and the environment.
Not to mention Ray Plaunt's family ferry business. For 68 years, April has
marked the opening of Plaunt Transportation's 5-mile run to rustic Bois
Blanc Island, which has 35 year-round residents and 500 summer homes.
But lately, the water is barely knee-deep 200 feet from the shore -- hardly
enough to handle a ski boat, let alone a 95-foot ferry.
''We've had low water before, but not like this,'' says Plaunt, who was 12
when his father bought the family's first ferry in 1932. ''It's the ****edest
thing.''
Plaunt's plight isn't unusual this year. For the first time, the National
Weather Service last month issued a drought forecast for the nation, rather
than its usual spring flood advisory.
For the Great Lakes, the problem is less water in, more water out.
Runoff from melting snow on the Canadian Plains can boost water levels in
the lakes by a foot or more during May and June. But the past two winters
have been the warmest and driest in the 105 years records have been
kept. Fourteen northern states had their longest snow-free periods in
history; their first snowfalls came later than ever.
As a result, satellite images taken by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration in late March showed virtually no snow cover
anywhere in the Great Lakes basin. Even above-average spring rainfall,
experts say, would do little to elevate water levels.
The greatest loss of water, though, has been from evaporation. After the
summer sun warms the lake water, cold autumn air settles on the surface
and vaporizes as much as an inch of water a day. With shallower lakes,
the water is warmer, and therefore the evaporation is greater.
This cycle of precipitation and evaporation normally causes lake water
levels to fluctuate 12 to 18 inches a year. But the past three years have
seen water levels drop steadily. The average water level in Lake Michigan
plummeted from a near-record high of 582 feet in 1997 to a near-record
low of 577 feet earlier this year. The total loss from all five lakes
represents enough water to cover the continental USA about 9 inches
deep.
''We are quickly getting to the crisis point,'' says Dave Schweiger of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit. ''It's easy with high water to see
the impact. Homes are flooded, and it takes out structures. This is so
different. It creeps up on you.''
The unprecedented drop in water levels comes just three years after
near-historic highs -- one of the most remarkable twists of nature the
Midwest has ever seen. In 1997, there was so much water that lakes
Huron and Michigan were swallowing up beachfront homes and provoking
a panic over erosion.
Today, those hurt by the floods are helped by the drought. Receding water
has left miles of wide, sandy beaches all along the shore.
That's fine for people like David Boone, who spent $50,000 during the
mid-1980s building a seawall to keep Lake Michigan from swallowing his
6,000-square-foot beach home in Park Township. Now his only
complaint is listening to his grandchildren worry that they'll burn their feet
running across 180 feet of hot sand to reach the water this summer.
But Boone's relief is tempered. ''It's too bad that what's good for me is
bad for somebody else,'' he says. ''It's too bad the lake can't find a happy
medium.''
The low water levels are threatening the livelihood of those who depend
on the lakes:
* Eric Stuecher runs a charter fishing boat, Hooked, out of Port Austin on
Lake Huron. May is the start of a four-month season for trout, steelhead
and salmon that will make or break his business this year. But Stuecher,
better known as Captain Eric, can't get his 30-foot cabin cruiser out of dry
dock. ''I'm starting to see my income dry up as fast as the lake,'' he says.
* Harder hit are the 70 megatankers, known as ''lakers,'' that move 180
million tons of cargo each season across the 94,000 square miles of the
Great Lakes, an area nearly the size of Wyoming. The Detroit and St.
Clair rivers, which connect Lake Erie to Lake Huron, are at their lowest
levels in history. The perilously low water has forced the ships to carry
lighter loads so they don't scrape bottom in the shallow rivers.
* The most obvious immediate impact will be felt by summer tourists.
Michigan's coastline, at 3,288 miles, is the longest in the continental USA.
More boats are registered here than in any state in the nation. Tourism is
as serious a business as the auto industry.
Now Robin Abshire, the harbormaster in South Haven, worries that the
water is too shallow for boaters. She has installed 18 ladders on the piers
so boaters can climb up to the marina after docking their boats in the low
water.
''In our little town, the harbor is our bloodline, the major economic force,''
she says. ''We completely depend on it.''
For most lakefront towns, including South Haven, Port Austin and
Cheboygan, the only solution seems to be dredging -- deepening harbors,
channels and marinas by digging into the soft lake bottom.
The state of Michigan this month set aside $14 million for dredging grants
and loans to public and private marinas. But with a record 400 permit
requests pending this year, permission to dredge might come too late for
some.
Dredging also raises concerns from environmentalists. Though ebbing
water levels allow some aquatic plants and wildlife to thrive, dredging up
sediment from the lake bed poses hazards. The low water also could
threaten towns' water-intake pipes, which extend only a few hundred feet
into the lake.
Still, some environmentalists are not alarmed by the situation. ''This is
Mother Nature working at its best,'' says Cameron Davis of the Lake
Michigan Federation, which monitors environmental issues. ''Fluctuating
lake levels are part of the beauty of nature.''
Such a sanguine attitude is a hard sell in Cheboygan.
This is a scrappy little town with a population of 5,000 and an almost
umbilical connection to Lake Huron, via the Cheboygan River.
Past the county marina and the Coast Guard station, beyond the yacht
club and the BP/Amoco holding tanks rests the 95-foot Kristen D. She
bumps gently against the lip of a new hydraulic ramp that can be raised or
lowered to meet fluctuating water levels.
The real trouble for the Kristen D is across the channel. The ferry is the
only way to get necessities to Bois Blanc Island, which has had electricity
only since the mid-1980s. While small planes can carry people and
luggage, anything else has to come by boat. The Plaunts have hauled
virtually everything from furniture to building supplies to garbage trucks.
For nearly seven decades, they've even delivered the mail.
So the town council, which presides over 35 full-time and 1,500 seasonal
residents, has agreed to pay 25% of the $500,000 dredging cost. The
state will pay the rest. But a work backlog at the local dredging company
has delayed the project's completion.
That worries Curt Plaunt, who took over the business from his father, Ray,
20 years ago. Beginning today, every day the ferry doesn't run affects his
bottom line. A month of lost income could ruin three generations of work.
He's not panicking -- yet.
''The low water is not a problem until you can't fix things,'' Plaunt says.
''We could get through another foot drop, maybe.
''After that, well . . . you can't control the lake.''
Continued on
Shallow waters portend deep trouble
By Debbie Howlett
USA TODAY
CHEBOYGAN, Mich.
By this time in any other year, the 95-foot ferry Kristen D would be plying
the waters of the Straits of Mackinac, the channel that joins Lake Huron
and Lake Michigan.
But this year, even in the Great Lakes, there's not enough water.
Several years of warm, dry weather -- caused primarily by La Niņa, a
phenomenon in which cool Pacific waters push the jet stream north -- have
taken a toll on America's largest waterways. Precipitation, particularly
winter snow, has decreased. Evaporation, heightened by shallower,
warmer lakes, has increased.
As a result, all five lakes have lost up to 3 1/2 feet of water in three years.
By summer's end, they are expected to be at their lowest levels in the 120
years that records have been kept.
The drying of the Great Lakes poses a serious threat for nearly everyone
working or playing in the waters between New York and Minnesota. It
affects shipping, charter fishing, tourism, recreation and the environment.
Not to mention Ray Plaunt's family ferry business. For 68 years, April has
marked the opening of Plaunt Transportation's 5-mile run to rustic Bois
Blanc Island, which has 35 year-round residents and 500 summer homes.
But lately, the water is barely knee-deep 200 feet from the shore -- hardly
enough to handle a ski boat, let alone a 95-foot ferry.
''We've had low water before, but not like this,'' says Plaunt, who was 12
when his father bought the family's first ferry in 1932. ''It's the ****edest
thing.''
Plaunt's plight isn't unusual this year. For the first time, the National
Weather Service last month issued a drought forecast for the nation, rather
than its usual spring flood advisory.
For the Great Lakes, the problem is less water in, more water out.
Runoff from melting snow on the Canadian Plains can boost water levels in
the lakes by a foot or more during May and June. But the past two winters
have been the warmest and driest in the 105 years records have been
kept. Fourteen northern states had their longest snow-free periods in
history; their first snowfalls came later than ever.
As a result, satellite images taken by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration in late March showed virtually no snow cover
anywhere in the Great Lakes basin. Even above-average spring rainfall,
experts say, would do little to elevate water levels.
The greatest loss of water, though, has been from evaporation. After the
summer sun warms the lake water, cold autumn air settles on the surface
and vaporizes as much as an inch of water a day. With shallower lakes,
the water is warmer, and therefore the evaporation is greater.
This cycle of precipitation and evaporation normally causes lake water
levels to fluctuate 12 to 18 inches a year. But the past three years have
seen water levels drop steadily. The average water level in Lake Michigan
plummeted from a near-record high of 582 feet in 1997 to a near-record
low of 577 feet earlier this year. The total loss from all five lakes
represents enough water to cover the continental USA about 9 inches
deep.
''We are quickly getting to the crisis point,'' says Dave Schweiger of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Detroit. ''It's easy with high water to see
the impact. Homes are flooded, and it takes out structures. This is so
different. It creeps up on you.''
The unprecedented drop in water levels comes just three years after
near-historic highs -- one of the most remarkable twists of nature the
Midwest has ever seen. In 1997, there was so much water that lakes
Huron and Michigan were swallowing up beachfront homes and provoking
a panic over erosion.
Today, those hurt by the floods are helped by the drought. Receding water
has left miles of wide, sandy beaches all along the shore.
That's fine for people like David Boone, who spent $50,000 during the
mid-1980s building a seawall to keep Lake Michigan from swallowing his
6,000-square-foot beach home in Park Township. Now his only
complaint is listening to his grandchildren worry that they'll burn their feet
running across 180 feet of hot sand to reach the water this summer.
But Boone's relief is tempered. ''It's too bad that what's good for me is
bad for somebody else,'' he says. ''It's too bad the lake can't find a happy
medium.''
The low water levels are threatening the livelihood of those who depend
on the lakes:
* Eric Stuecher runs a charter fishing boat, Hooked, out of Port Austin on
Lake Huron. May is the start of a four-month season for trout, steelhead
and salmon that will make or break his business this year. But Stuecher,
better known as Captain Eric, can't get his 30-foot cabin cruiser out of dry
dock. ''I'm starting to see my income dry up as fast as the lake,'' he says.
* Harder hit are the 70 megatankers, known as ''lakers,'' that move 180
million tons of cargo each season across the 94,000 square miles of the
Great Lakes, an area nearly the size of Wyoming. The Detroit and St.
Clair rivers, which connect Lake Erie to Lake Huron, are at their lowest
levels in history. The perilously low water has forced the ships to carry
lighter loads so they don't scrape bottom in the shallow rivers.
* The most obvious immediate impact will be felt by summer tourists.
Michigan's coastline, at 3,288 miles, is the longest in the continental USA.
More boats are registered here than in any state in the nation. Tourism is
as serious a business as the auto industry.
Now Robin Abshire, the harbormaster in South Haven, worries that the
water is too shallow for boaters. She has installed 18 ladders on the piers
so boaters can climb up to the marina after docking their boats in the low
water.
''In our little town, the harbor is our bloodline, the major economic force,''
she says. ''We completely depend on it.''
For most lakefront towns, including South Haven, Port Austin and
Cheboygan, the only solution seems to be dredging -- deepening harbors,
channels and marinas by digging into the soft lake bottom.
The state of Michigan this month set aside $14 million for dredging grants
and loans to public and private marinas. But with a record 400 permit
requests pending this year, permission to dredge might come too late for
some.
Dredging also raises concerns from environmentalists. Though ebbing
water levels allow some aquatic plants and wildlife to thrive, dredging up
sediment from the lake bed poses hazards. The low water also could
threaten towns' water-intake pipes, which extend only a few hundred feet
into the lake.
Still, some environmentalists are not alarmed by the situation. ''This is
Mother Nature working at its best,'' says Cameron Davis of the Lake
Michigan Federation, which monitors environmental issues. ''Fluctuating
lake levels are part of the beauty of nature.''
Such a sanguine attitude is a hard sell in Cheboygan.
This is a scrappy little town with a population of 5,000 and an almost
umbilical connection to Lake Huron, via the Cheboygan River.
Past the county marina and the Coast Guard station, beyond the yacht
club and the BP/Amoco holding tanks rests the 95-foot Kristen D. She
bumps gently against the lip of a new hydraulic ramp that can be raised or
lowered to meet fluctuating water levels.
The real trouble for the Kristen D is across the channel. The ferry is the
only way to get necessities to Bois Blanc Island, which has had electricity
only since the mid-1980s. While small planes can carry people and
luggage, anything else has to come by boat. The Plaunts have hauled
virtually everything from furniture to building supplies to garbage trucks.
For nearly seven decades, they've even delivered the mail.
So the town council, which presides over 35 full-time and 1,500 seasonal
residents, has agreed to pay 25% of the $500,000 dredging cost. The
state will pay the rest. But a work backlog at the local dredging company
has delayed the project's completion.
That worries Curt Plaunt, who took over the business from his father, Ray,
20 years ago. Beginning today, every day the ferry doesn't run affects his
bottom line. A month of lost income could ruin three generations of work.
He's not panicking -- yet.
''The low water is not a problem until you can't fix things,'' Plaunt says.
''We could get through another foot drop, maybe.
''After that, well . . . you can't control the lake.''
Continued on