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Source: International Lake Superior Board of Control

The International Lake Superior Board of Control, under authority granted to it by the International Joint Commission, has set the Lake Superior outflow to 2,050 cubic metres per second (m3/s) (72.4thousand cubic feet per second (tcfs)) for the month of October. Read the rest of this entry »

CATHY DOBSON | Source: Sarnia Observer

[The] underwater videography is now complete and its suggests the riverbed near the bridge hasn’t changed, says John Nevin, communications advisor for the International Upper Great Lakes Study.

That flies in the face of assertions made by Georgian Bay homeowners, who claimed in 2005 that ongoing erosion in the riverbed is causing low lake levels. According to the bathtub theory the riverbed is eroding as a result of past dredging, making the channel deeper. With a larger drain-hole at Sarnia, lakes Michigan and Huron are falling.

… Instead, the study has found that the St. Clair’s riverbed south of the Black River appears to have “significantly” changed in size.

“It might be a result of maintenance dredging or perhaps it’s prop wash from propellers. It’s really too early to say,” said Nevin.

Read the full story at the Sarnia Observer >>

Source: Lake Carriers Association

With higher water levels allowing Great Lakes freighters to carry bigger cargoes, the iron ore trade on the Great Lakes totaled 6.8 million net tons in August, an increase of 8.6 percent compared to a year ago.

The increase in water levels did allow one U.S.-Flag Laker to twice carry more than 68,000 tons in a single trip. However, if dredging of the Great Lakes Navigation System was sufficient to allow for a full load, the 1,000-foot-long vessel would have carried more than 71,000 tons each trip.

For the year, the Great Lakes iron ore trade stands at 39 million tons, an increase of 10 percent compared to a year ago. Shipments also are ahead of the 5-year average for the January-August timeframe by a like margin.

Steve Orr | Source: Democrat and Chronicle

After holding public hearings, the commissioners failed to adopt Plan B+ or anything else. Instead, another plan was developed behind closed doors. That regimen, called Plan 2007 and released early this year, was cast as protecting shoreline properties while aiding the environment somewhat.

More public hearings, including one in Greece, were held. Many shoreline residents said they could live with Plan 2007 or with the current rules. Environmentalists continued to lobby for B+ and panned Plan 2007.

But now that plan, too, is being scrapped by the IJC. In its letter, the commissioners said the hearings revealed “serious divisions” and “little support” for Plan 2007.

Instead, they want help in crafting yet another plan, one that would, according to the IJC letter, “move toward more natural flows to benefit the environment, while respecting other interests.”

For the first time, though, the IJC is asking the government agencies to put together specific plans to deal with the impact of the higher and lower water levels that might result from a pro-environment regimen.

Very lengthy article, quotes from many affected and possible consequences at the Democrat and Chronicle >>

By MICHAEL HILL | Source: Newsday

A number of studies predict Great Lakes water levels will drop over the century as average temperatures creep higher. If that happens, it would affect the amount of water flowing through the Niagara Power Project and the St. Lawrence-FDR Project, two state-run hydro facilities that account for about 12 percent of all the electricity generated in New York.

The [New York Power Authority] allocates much of the inexpensive power from the plants to dozens of companies from Delphi Thermal & Interior near Buffalo to Alcoa in northern New York. The bargain-rate power is a linchpin of New York’s strategy to hold on to manufacturing jobs. The power also goes to municipalities like Massena and Jamestown.

Very interesting story at Newsday >>

Source: Lake Carriers Association

The U.S.-Flag Great Lakes fleet moved 12 million net tons of cargo on the Great Lakes in July, a virtual tie with a year ago. The July float also was roughly 170,000 tons above the month’s 5-year average.

Rising water levels again boosted vessels’ payloads, but nothing can restore the tonnage that has been lost to the dredging crisis this year.

For example, a 1,000-foot-long U.S.-Flag Laker saw its top cargo climb to 67,474 tons of iron ore in July. However, had the vessel been able to carry this much cargo on each trip this year, its year-to-date total would be 1,416,000 tons instead of 1,331,000 tons. The dredging crisis has cost just this one vessel 85,000 tons of iron ore.

Furthermore, that 67,474-ton cargo still does not represent the vessel’s maximum carrying capacity. The vessel is designed to carry more than 71,000 tons per trip. An adequately dredged navigation system would have allowed the vessel to deliver nearly 1.5 million tons through July.

The same is true in the coal trade. Another 1,000-foot-long vessel was able to carry 65,443 tons in a single trip at month’s end. If that was how much the ship had loaded on each of its 26 trips this year, it would have delivered 1.7 million tons of low-sulfur coal to utilities in the U.S. and Canada. Instead, the vessel has moved 1,625,000 tons through July. And again, even that 65,443-ton cargo is roughly 4,000 tons below the vessel’s rated capacity.

For the year, U.S.-Flag carriage stands at 51.1 million tons, a slight decrease from both a year ago and the 5-year average for the January-July timeframe.

Sharon Hill | Source: The Windsor Star

Lakes St. Clair, Huron and Superior are at their highest levels in the last four years.

“They’re all up,” Ralph Moulton, manager of the water level information office at Environment Canada, said Tuesday.

Lake Superior, which affects the levels of the other Great Lakes and had dropped to record lows a year ago, is 41 cm higher than it was last year at this time, Moulton said.

Lake Huron is 23 cm higher and Lake Ontario is 31 cm higher than a year ago.

… David Cree, president of the Windsor Port Authority, said he’s hoping lake levels will keep rising.

“The higher water levels this year are good news for everybody in the industry,” Cree said. “If the trend of the last four to five years had continued … it would have been a real issue this year and next year. We’re hoping now that’s bottomed out and we’re on an upward trend in lake levels.”

The same amount of cargo goes through the Windsor port but during times of low lake levels it takes more ships to move goods on the lakes because the ships have to carry less.

Read the full story, with more stats & quotes at the Windsor Star >>

Brian Mulherin | Source: Ludington Daily News

Lake Michigan, which normally comes up 2 inches in June, is up 5 inches through 22 days.

Lake Michigan is by no means at or even near its long-term average, but it’s getting closer every month. Right now, the lake is about 14 inches below the average June level from 1918-2007. The lake’s current elevation, 578.1 feet above sea level, is 4 inches above last year’s water height.

Higher lake levels mean Great Lakes shippers can carry more freight and might mean easier recreational boating for many.

More details, quotes from USACE at the Ludington Daily News >>

Andy Riga | Source: Canwest News Service

MONTREAL - For the past 50 years, a massive power dam about 100 kilometres southwest of Montreal has used the force of the St. Lawrence River to produce electricity for Ontario and New York. The length of 10 football fields, it produces enough power to supply more than one million homes.

The dam has also been used to regulate how much water from Lake Ontario reaches the St. Lawrence, the source of drinking water for more than half of Quebecers.

Now, for the first time, the International Joint Commission, an independent Canada-U.S. agency, wants to change how it regulates water flow at the Moses-Saunders dam, which straddles the border in Cornwall, Ont., and Massena, N.Y.

Nature Quebec, a coalition representing 100 environmental groups, says proposed changes could have disastrous effects - including flooding, extreme droughts and more pollution - in Montreal and other parts of Quebec.

At a public hearing in Montreal Tuesday tonight, Nature Quebec will tell the IJC that it should not alter how the St. Lawrence is fed because there is too much uncertainty about the effects of climate change.

The IJC’s proposal - known as Plan 2007 - will “allow water to go a little higher and a little lower” than the current system. The proposal will promote the establishment of more diverse flora and fauna, the IJC says.

Read the full story at canada.com >>

Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette

The International Upper Great Lakes Study will hold a public meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 19, at Collins Learning Center at the Crossroads at Big Creek in Sturgeon Bay.

Residents who are interested in and concerned about Great Lakes water levels are urged to attend and to share with scientists personal examples of the impact of changing water levels.

Read the full story at the Green Bay Press Gazette >>

BY STEPHEN KLOOSTERMAN | Source: Grand Haven Tribune

HOLLAND — Recent rains are only a drop in the bucket as far as raising Lake Michigan’s water level, area officials say.

In fact, recent storms could make some waterways even less navigable by commercial and recreational vessels due to shoaling.

Tom O’Bryan, a civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Grand Haven Office, said he was worried that mud and silt would be washed into the Lake Macatawa channel so that it would have to be dredged.

Read the full story, observations at the Grand Haven Tribune >>

John Myers | Source: Duluth News Tribune

The group will explain its mission, offer the latest water-level information and take public questions and input Monday night at the Depot in Duluth, one of several public sessions this month across the Great Lakes region.

John Nevin, policy adviser with the International Joint Commission, said the commission wants to know whether changing the rules on how dams and gates are operated might help buffer against broad water-level changes over the long haul.

That might help waterfront landowners on Georgian Bay who have been left far from the water’s edge, or Great Lakes freighters that have been forced to reduce loads to account for shallower harbors and slips.

Read the full story at the Duluth News Tribune >>

Eric McGuinness | Source: Hamilton Spectator

The International Joint Commission (IJC) was told last night that its proposed new plan for regulating the level of Lake Ontario jeopardizes the cleanup of Hamilton Harbour and efforts to remove it from the list of Great Lakes pollution hot spots by 2015.

John Hall, co-ordinator of the harbour Remedial Action Plan, Jim Hudson, executive director of the Bay Area Restoration Council, and Tys Theysmeyer, aquatic ecologist for the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), presented a united front against the IJC’s favoured Plan 2007, which they said would result in high water at the wrong time for plants and animals.

“Timing is everything in plant and animal life,” Theysmeyer said.

They were joined by Laurel Thompson, who presented a petition signed by 350 people opposed to the plan.

All the Hamilton-Burlington speakers called on the six commissioners to adopt Plan B+…

Read the full story at the Hamilton Spectator >>

By Bill Wolcott | Source: Niagara Gazette

JUNE 9 — Shoreline property owners on Lake Ontario are preparing to buck an environmental plan on a new strategy to regulate the levels of Lake Ontario. They’ll make their case at a public hearing today [June 9] at 7 p.m. at the Olcott Fire Hall.

Two members of the International Joint Commission will conduct the meeting to discuss a $20 million study that was conducted over the past five years. Its purpose was to see if a better plan could be developed. Three plans have been proposed to replace the current Plan 1958.

Tony McKenna, a member of the plan’s Public Interest Advisory Committee, said environmentalists are pushing for Plan B-plus, which would to stretch the current range of water levels. That is, the deepest Great Lake would get higher highs and lower lows.

… Property owners say they are paying taxes on land that is now under water.

Read the full story at the Niagara Gazette >>

See Also: Full Healing Our Waters Press Release - CommonDreams.org News Center

Deb Price | Source: The Detroit News

WASHINGTON — A report released Wednesday by an environmental group warns that unless Congress acts to curb global warming, Great Lakes water levels will drop up to 3 feet; beaches will close more often because of urban and farm pollutants dragged in by fierce storms; and fish and animal populations will decline, damaging tourism and hunting.

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition highlighted its concerns in advance of next week’s expected debate in the U.S. Senate on global warming.

“Delay in confronting global warming and the protection of the Great Lakes will only make the problems worse and the solutions more costly,” concluded the report’s authors, which include environmental scientist Don Scavia of the University of Michigan.

Read the full story, study’s predictions at the Detroit News >>

By Jeff Alexander | Source: WBAY.com

The signing of the Great Lakes Compact comes as water levels in Lake Michigan are on the rise.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lake is up four inches from this time last month, and more than a foot since December when Lake Michigan was only four inches off its all-time record low set back in 1964.

And the good news for boaters, the shipping industry, and property owners along the lake is that the water will keep rising.

The Corps of Engineers says thanks to a record snowfall this winter, water levels are expected to rise another three inches in June.

By August, Lake Michigan could be within about a foot of its long-term normal average — something we haven’t seen in eight years.

Full story, video at WBAY >>

Source: International Lake Superior Board of Control

The International Lake Superior Board of Control invites you to participate in a public meeting/teleconference on Thursday evening, June 12, 2008.

The purpose of the meeting is to provide information on the operations of the board, current and forecasted water levels, and to receive public input about local concerns related to water levels and flows of Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron.

You may participate by calling toll-free 1-866-551-3680 between 6:45 and 6:55 p.m. Read the rest of this entry »

by Jeff Alexander | Source: Kalamazoo Gazette

MUSKEGON — Tread lightly when tinkering with Great Lakes water levels.

That was the overriding message delivered to government officials who visited Muskegon Saturday to gather public input on a massive Great Lakes water levels study.

“I’ve lived on Lake Michigan for a long time, and I’ve seen lake levels go up and go down,” said Bob Wygant of North Muskegon. “If you want my advice, leave things alone and let nature take care of it.”

Many more quotes, statistics at the Kalamazoo Gazette >>

By BOB GROSS | Source: Port Huron Times Herald

HARSENS ISLAND — Larry Havens has a homemade chart documenting the ups and downs of Lake St. Clair since 1935, spread out on an old metal bench at Delta Hardware on Harsens Island.

He traces the lake’s swings with a finger work-roughened from a lifetime of driving sheet piling and building docks and seawalls.

“They used to say there was a seven-year cycle, but that’s not true at all,” said Havens, a longtime Harsens Island resident and a retired marine contractor.

“Bottom line is precipitation.”

The story of 70-plus years of water level changes at the Port Huron Times Herald >>

by Jeff Kart | The Bay City Times

Eugene Stakhiv, U.S. co-chairman of the study, said previous water level studies, in 1976 and 1993, have concluded that no economically feasible amount of structural changes in the lakes can bring about dramatic changes in levels, reducing highs and raising lows.

“We can’t control the extremes that Mother Nature imposes on the system,” Stakhiv said.

The five-year study, to cost about $14.5 million, will look at whether a 1960s dredging project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the St. Clair River has caused erosion and a permanent drop in water levels in Lake Huron.

It also will examine whether that increased conveyance can be reduced by physical barriers.

The results of that portion are due in June 2009.

The study also will examine whether changes to existing control structures in Lake Superior, which release water into Lake Huron, can help lessen the negative effects of low water levels here. That portion is due in 2012.

But Stakhiv said he believes there is little the IJC can do to change lake levels during extreme periods of highs and lows.

He added that the effects of climate change may make regulating lake levels even more difficult.

“It may be that there are no useful solutions,” he said.

Slides from Monday’s presentation will be posted online at www.iugls.org, said John Nevin, an IJC spokesman.

Much, much more to the story at the Bay City Times >>