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COMMENTARY: Leave Levels Alone

Almost 100 people attended the International Joint Commission (IJC) meeting on July 11 at the Door Community Auditorium, where they had the chance to get regional perspectives on a regional issue and voice their concerns.

On a screen in front of the audience, commissioners from four places around the Great Lakes basin were ready to answer questions and give insight to the International Upper Great Lakes Study (IUGLS) done by the IJC.

The study focused on the feasibility of controlling water levels in Lake Michigan-Huron. The IJC – a group that helps the United States and Canadian governments make decisions about the shared Great Lakes resource – is now conducting meetings around the region to hear local concerns about water levels.

Perceived technical difficulties from the other end of the screen cut off cross-basin communication, but for me the night’s theme was set.

We can’t think about this important issue as just Door County residents, or just boaters, shipbuilders, property owners, Lake Michigan lovers or conservationists. Because for every person in Wisconsin fighting for Lake Sturgeon spawning habitat, there’s someone in Ontario worried a wetland devastated by low water.

We’ve got to get out of our local mindset. On the issue of water levels, we’re Great Lakes citizens, not Door County residents, Wisconsinites or Americans.

Water levels affect us all, and I don’t think regulating them is a simple idea – nor a good idea. Water level regulation would have to be done in the St. Clair River – where water from Lake Michigan-Huron flows into Lake Erie. Building speed bumps, dikes or turbines in the river would slow water on its way out and raise Lake Michigan-Huron but alter Lake Erie water levels.

That’s the tricky part. What we do to keep water in Lake Michigan-Huron affects the whole system, meaning the IJC would have to choose the needs of one lake over another.

Although we’ve dealt with low water levels on Lake Michigan-Huron for a long time, they were a foot lower in 1964 than they are today. They bounced back to an all-time high in 1986, when water was over four feet higher than it is now and almost three feet above average.

I’ve been told by IJC members and scientists that water levels will rise like they did in the 1980s. Spending money on building structures in the St. Clair – to the tune of $30 million to $170 million for just installation – doesn’t make sense when we might deal with flooding in 20 years.

Besides, sand has slowly been depositing on the bottom of the St. Clair River since the IJC began monitoring it in 2000, slowing water moving out of Lake Michigan-Huron. The sand was eroded away after years of sand and gravel mining and dredging in the early 1900s, but as IJC public affairs advisor John Nevin told me, the problem might fix itself.

Climate change also comes into play here. There’s no way to know what future climate will bring to the Great Lakes. Our water levels may stay low; they may get lower; they may rise. The only thing most scientists agree on is that weather patterns like precipitation and wind will get more extreme, causing more sudden and drastic changes in water levels.

Rather than focusing on how to keep water levels steady, the scientists involved in the IUGLS recommend studying ways to deal with fluctuations in the lake levels, and I agree that this is more important.

I understand the concerns that Door County residents brought forward at the IJC meeting. People were worried about their sinking property values, their endangered water-based businesses and changes in the Door County shoreline they love. I’ve never had to pay for marina dredging, or spent hours hacking away at phragmites only to see it grow back stronger, so I don’t feel as strongly as many in the audience.

But I also understand that our concerns are not shared across the basin. In the Georgian Bay area of Canada, locals worry about their drying wetlands. On the western shore of Lake Michigan, they remember the high water in the ‘80s that brought homes crashing into the lake. In Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior, residents are too concerned with recent storms and floods to think of water levels.

It’s a shame the regional video-conferencing didn’t work out at last week’s meeting, but even the few moments we shared with Great Lakers around the basin shed light on the big picture.

We’re part of a regional community dealing with a complex, regional issue. Let’s not let technical difficulties get in the way.

Comments Welcome

To submit comments to the International Joint Commission about the International Upper Great Lakes Study, go online to http://www.ijc.org/iuglsreport.

Submit comments by mail to:

International Joint Commission

2000 L Street, NW

Suite 615

Washington, DC 20440

Or fax to:  202.631.2007