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Sturgeon Bay, Muskegon are far from big cities, critics say By Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 6, 2010 The level of Lakes Michigan and Huron has plunged some two feet since humans first dredged the massive river that flows from them, and a warming globe could lower the lakes further in coming decades, jeopardizing shipping channels, marinas and city drinking water intakes. But to attend a series of upcoming public hearings on the shrunken lakes - and what to do about it - the more than 10 million people who live in southeastern Wisconsin and Chicagoland must brave a day on March roads to travel to little Sturgeon Bay in Door County or to Muskegon, Mich. The hearings hosted by the U.S. and Canadian governments will focus on a controversial report that concludes the government should take no action to reverse unexpected water losses due to riverbed erosion after a 1960s Army Corps of Engineers' dredging project on the St. Clair River, the main outflow for Michigan-Huron. The report determined that the water loss is in the range of 3 to 5 inches, and the riverbed has since stabilized, so erosion is no longer draining the lakes. That 3 to 5 inches is in addition to 16 inches lost from St. Clair dredging projects prior to the 1960s, but the report doesn't recommend exploring a riverbed fix to throttle the outflow and restore the lakes to more natural levels Critics of the study say the water loss tied to the post-1960s erosion is likely much greater than 3 to 5 inches - perhaps double that amount - and they are dubious that the riverbed has somehow stabilized. They want the Army Corps to immediately begin exploring the pros, cons and costs of putting a structure on the river bottom. It is an issue that could have a profound impact for everyone who lives in a region geographically, culturally and economically defined by its Great Lakes shoreline. But authorities say they weren't aiming to dampen attendance - and potential criticism - when they sited the hearings nowhere near the two biggest population centers on Lake Michigan. They said they just didn't think enough people in the big lakeside cities would care about what's going on hundreds of miles away at the bottom of the St. Clair River. And that itself is drawing yet more criticism. "If they think people won't show up, that means the study board failed in its educational role of making sure the people in Chicago and Milwaukee realize that what happens on the St. Clair River directly affects them," says John Jackson of the conservation group Great Lakes United. A spokesman for the International Joint Commission explained that more people attended an earlier hearing on a draft of the study that was held last July near Sturgeon Bay than similar hearings held in Mequon and Evanston, Ill. Of course, Door County in July is bursting with tourists and cottage owners, many of whom are from Milwaukee and Chicago. It's a comparative ghost town in March. The two biggest cities where the upcoming hearings will be held - Toledo and Toronto - are on Lakes Erie and Ontario, respectively. Lakes Erie and Ontario aren't losing water through the St. Clair. Two other hearings have been scheduled for Midland and Sarnia, Ontario. Says Mary Muter, a member of the study's citizen advisory board and a harsh critic of the study board and its conclusions: "Maybe they don't want the people of Chicago to know that the amount of water lost down the St. Clair River due to (recent erosion) is more than double what's being lost down the Chicago River." The reversal of the Chicago River sucks 2.1 billion gallons a day away from Lake Michigan, much to the consternation of just about everyone outside of Chicago. Its permanent impact on lake levels: about 2 inches. A study in controversy The controversy started in 2004, when a Lake Huron property owners' group released a $200,000 engineering study that alleged the Army Corps' 1960s dredging scraped away the St. Clair's rocky river bottom in a manner that helped unleash a large - and ongoing - water loss from Michigan-Huron. The International Joint Commission, which oversees U.S. and Canadian boundary waters issues, responded by creating a binational study board - co-chaired by an Army Corps employee - to explore the issue. Last spring, that study board released its draft findings that said a massive ice jam on the St. Clair River in 1984 was the most plausible explanation for scouring the river bottom and triggering enough erosion to cause a 3- to 5-inch water loss. "We have no other explanation," study team co-chair and Army Corps career employee Eugene Stakhiv said at the time. Muter's group and some conservation organizations were instantly skeptical of the ice jam theory. They were also critical of the fact that the study team reached conclusions before it publicly released - and in some cases even completed - the scientific studies that presumably drove them. The study team spokesman responded to the criticism by saying it was coming from a group of self-interested residents trying to capitalize on the lakes' natural low-water cycle to win public support for a river restoration project that would benefit them. "Ultimately, the crisis mongers will look foolish when the lakes return to normal levels, albeit at somewhat different relative levels than in the past," study spokesman John Nevin said last spring. "That's why they want action now before Mother Nature proves them wrong." But by December it was the study board that was proved wrong on its ice jam hypothesis, concluding in its own final report that the 1984 ice jam "was not the key contributing factor" to the riverbed erosion. The final study offers no definitive cause for the erosion. The list of grumbles since the first draft was released include: • Last spring, study team leader Stakhiv dismissed any questions of the appropriateness of putting an Army Corps employee in charge of investigating an alleged Army Corps problem. He replied that any questions of a conflict of interest were unfounded because the entire study had been independently peer reviewed. The Journal Sentinel subsequently learned that was not true. It also learned later that the Joint Commission had agreed to pay a total of $250,000 for an "independent" peer review of the St. Clair study, and its second phase looking at water levels of Lake Superior. • Study leaders also said at the time they could not recommend a fix in the river because they had determined the erosion was likely caused by a natural event - an ice jam - and that the Joint Commission had told them no fix could be explored unless the study determined the loss was human-caused. Nobody at the Joint Commission could provide documentation of that directive, and by December the study team said it was actually told the opposite by the Joint Commission - that the cause of the erosion should not factor into any decision whether to explore building some type of structure in the river. Even so, the study team leaders deemed a 3- to 5-inch loss not significant enough to warrant exploring a fix, though they could not say what amount would trigger such a decision. • The study team commissioned and received a separate report last spring that contradicted its findings that erosion had caused an additional drop of 3 to 5 inches. The separate report said the amount was closer to 9 inches. That report was not released to the public for nearly three months and when it was finally released, the study leaders dismissed the findings even as an outside expert contacted by the Journal Sentinel did not. While the science behind the research that went into the study is exceedingly complicated and difficult for the general public to grasp, conservation groups that had their own experts review data say they are left with doubts. "The way this study was conducted makes us think that the results were pre-determined," says the National Wildlife Federation's Melinda Koslow. A flood of questions The study board said some type of fix could still be explored, depending on what's learned during the second phase of the study, which will look at Lake Superior water levels and the effects climate change is likely to have on lake levels in coming decades. Study team leaders have warned, however, that choking the flows from Michigan-Huron could cause unexpected problems, noting that if a dam-like structure were to raise the lakes two feet, that could lead to floods if high water cycles return. They point to the mid-1980s when Lake Michigan was lapping at Chicago's Lake Shore Drive and ask what would happen if the lake had been two feet higher at the time. Nobody disputes that could be a problem, but conservationists say record lows could also cause havoc, and now is the time to start at least looking at how to restore the damage done to the St. Clair. Many conservationists prefer the idea of only restoring the eroded river bottom, though some have advocated for a dam-like structure that could manipulate levels based on precipitation trends. The idea of damming the last two free-flowing lakes remains a highly controversial concept for many who worry that ecosystem concerns will then take a backseat to commercial interests. These debates won't occur if the study board's recommendations hold. That worries the National Wildlife Federation's Koslow, who said it could be a decade or more before the U.S. and Canadian governments focus again so intensely on lake levels. "By then Michigan and Huron could look significantly different," she said |