No simple solution for Great Lakes

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No simple solution for Great Lakes

Ottawa Citizen – Tue, 14 Jun, 2011

Two new studies have thrown everything we thought we knew about the missing

water of the Great Lakes into question, again.

As often happens in big environmental conundrums, ordinary citizens are left

wondering helplessly which computer model to believe.

And any measure that helps one part of the lakes is pretty much guaranteed to do

harm to others up or downstream.

The lakes hold one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water. In the late 1990s,

water levels fell sharply in Lakes Huron and Michigan, which are joined at the

north end. Docks and harbours were suddenly high and dry, and plants invaded

former sand beaches.

Residents blamed dredging in the St. Clair River, which drains Lake Huron to the

south. Too much dredging to let the big freighters through sucks out water, they

claimed, like a bathtub with too big a drain.

A $17-million Canada-U.S. analysis eventually concluded the river is not

over-dredged. But in recent days, two new complications came up: ??On Thursday,

the Sierra Club released an engineering study that says the official report

underestimates the real drainage from the lakes by 200 tonnes of water every

second. If so, it says, there's far more water escaping from the central Great

Lakes than Canada and U.S. governments are admitting.

On Friday, the International Joint ? ? Commission, the Canada-U.S. body advising

both countries on the state of the lakes, reported on how to raise water levels

in the two big lakes.

It doesn't recommend either for or against the move, but notes that doing

anything - or nothing - will have a chain reaction up and down the lakes and St.

Lawrence River.

More water for one lake means less for another, it notes. For instance, the Port

of Montreal is chronically short of water, and holding back water upstream would

mean less water in the St. Lawrence.

" It is important to note that the impact of the unprecedented 13 years of

sustained low water levels on Lakes Michigan and Huron is significant and

includes dried up wetlands and shallow, load-reducing shipping channels, " the

Sierra Club says. " Wetland loss is negatively impacting aquatic life and

allowing encroachment of the aggressive exotic phragmites reed causing further

loss of habitat. "

, a program director of the binational citizens group Great Lakes

United, admits he can't untangle the duelling expert opinions on water flow.

" I'm not a technical expert on these. I think the IJC and the experts from both

sides have to sit down and look at what are the differences here (between

engineering studies) and why, " he said.