High water levels in lake suit commercial interests

Editor: The article by Richard B. Green on Lake Michigan water levels was at best a onesided presentation of the facts about the record high water marks throughout the Great Lakes Basin. Green's sources indicate that water levels are going up due to greater precipitation and new insights into centuries old patterns. They do not mention that Great Lakes water levels have been regulated since the last century — mainly to create high water levels to protect shipping and hydroelectric generation.

Consider the following:

— Construction of hydroelectric plants in Canada north of Lake Superior in 1940 resulted in the diversion into Lake Superior of two rivers that normally flow into Hudson Bay. That means an additional 5,600 cfs (cubic feet per second) into the Great Lakes.

— Outflow through the Chicago River was reduced from 10,000 cfs to 3,200 — partly on the argument by shipline owners that the increased outflow would drop Lake Michigan levels by six inches.

— We are told that nothing can be done to counter high water levels, yet the 1985 International Joint Commission (JJR) report, "Great Lakes Diversions and Consumption Uses," says flow rates could be altered by at least seven inches. The report says this is not justifiable because of "significant losses" it would cause to navigation and power generation. The IJC said about the same thing in 1983 and recently confirmed its stand.

Beaches, parks, wooded shore retreats are gone. Infrastructures of lakeshore municipalities are threatened. Green says in the article that water levels can be changed in inches but the problem is in feet. We got to where we are by inches, and we must get back down the same way. A six inch drop per year for six years is three feet. That is significant: Current levels are about three feet above the 85-year average.

The IJC and the Army Corps of Engineers are not giving needed balance to this controversy. The Corps is now more a political than a professional organization. It wants the millions currently flowing its way in "shoreline protection" projects to support its level of spending as other major public works are completed or phased out.

T. G. Getz
Moline Forge
Moline

8/February 1987/Illinois Issues