Lake levels

Echo

Lake levels report weighs Great Lakes basin’s glacial legacy

By Jeff Gillies | June 8, 2009

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. And when the ice is gone, the relatively pliable layer under the Earth’s rocky crust rebounds, though more slowly than the surface of a basketball. “When you stop pushing on the basketball, the basketball surface pops right back up,” Larson said.

Echo

Climate variation main cause in Huron and Michigan’s dropping levels, report says

By Allison Bush | June 3, 2009

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. “The change in (the lake levels) was maybe 50 centimeters from the 1990s to the present, and my finding was that between five and seven centimeters was due to erosion,” said Quinn, a former senior research hydrologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Echo

In a jam: Report points to ’84 ice pileup for St. Clair River scouring

By Sarah Coefield | June 2, 2009

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 St.

Echo

Officials say natural causes dropped Lake Huron and Michigan levels; homeowners don’t buy it

By Allison Bush | June 2, 2009

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 3, 2009

When the Great Lakes are high, shoreline houses risk erosion that could tumble them into the water. When they are low, more structures are exposed to wind damage, boaters can’t pull up to docks and ships can’t transport as much cargo. And lately, both things have happened at the same time, puzzling scientists and frustrating property owners. Since the late 1990s, the average water levels of lakes Michigan and Huron have dropped, said Frank Quinn, a former research hydrologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. At the same time the average water level of Lake Erie has risen.

“The lake levels normally oscillate together,” Quinn said.

Echo

Regulation of Great Lakes’ water levels possible, experts debate effects

By Allison Bush | June 1, 2009

By Allison Bush, bushalli@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
June 9, 2009

Imagine turbines at the bottom of the St. Clair River that can control the height of the water on Lake Huron. What’s more, they can generate electricity. Sound farfetched? They’re not, according to Craig Stow, a physical research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.