This summer, Echo ran a five-part series on a controversial study of a possibly human-driven drop in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The $3.6 million, International Joint Commission-funded study started in 2004 and a final report of the results  came in Dec., 2009.
The study looked at erosion in the St. Clair River, which runs between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. The researchers found that the “head difference” between the two lakes – that’s a measure of how high the Lake Huron surface is above the Lake Erie surface – has …

(MI) Detroit Free Press - The so-called hole in the St. Clair River, which carries water from Lake Huron down into Lake St. Clair, is definitely big enough to merit filling, although the fix would surely be more technologically sophisticated than that. Nonetheless, the recommendation of a study group — that their findings be incorporated into a much larger study of the lakes — is probably sound.

(ON) CBC - Navigational dredging along the St. Clair River in southwestern Ontario has contributed to a drop in water levels in the upper Great Lakes basin, but it’s not an ongoing problem and doesn’t require immediate action, a panel of U.S. and Canadian experts has found.

(MI) Detroit Free Press - In blunt terms, members of an international study panel said the idea that a widened St. Clair River is losing billions of gallons of water each day, causing the levels of Michigan and Huron lakes to drop, is bunk.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Bloomington city officials and residents who live around Lower Penn Lake are again tussling over how to improve the water quality and appearance of the 32-acre lake.

(MI) The Associated Press – A team studying upper Great Lakes levels has postponed a report on whether they have lost excessive amounts of water through an enlarged river channel so the group can have more time for research, officials said Wednesday.

The International Joint Commission spent $3.6 million to study water levels of lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie. A five-part series on the controversial results.

By Jeff Gillies, jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
June 8, 2009
Even today the Great Lakes landscape is bouncing back from the glaciers that retreated 10,000 years ago.
A key question researchers recently sought to answer is whether that has anything to do with fluctuating lake levels.
Here’s how it might work: The massive ice sheets pushed down the earth’s crust like a person pressing on a basketball, said Grahame Larson, professor of geology at Michigan State University.

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 5, 2009
Some shoreline cottage owners blame dredging and other human-caused activities for eroding the St. Clair River and lowering Lake Huron.
But experts with the International Joint Commission cite variations in climate as the main cause for dropping lake levels in recent years.
Although erosion from both human and natural causes contributed to the declining water levels in lakes Michigan and Huron, it has only played a small part in recent years, said Frank Quinn, a participant in the IJC study.

By Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 4, 2009
An ice jam that stalled the St. Clair River for nearly a month in 1984 may have caused Lake Huron to drain faster in subsequent years.
Lake Huron water levels have been dropping the past 40 to 50 years. That prompted a Canadian group of Georgian Bay cottage associations, upset that the low water threatened wetlands and diminished waterfronts, to search out the cause. Consultants for the Georgian Bay Association in 2004 identified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dredging of the …