Great Lakes Water Levels

[Impious1]

I work in one of the Lake Ontario yacht clubs.

Anecdotally, the old-timers all say this is the lowest Ontario has been in their memories. We've had to pull a lot of boats back in their slips... Or play musical-slips as we start haul out.

Today I saw three boats go soft-aground... One was in a main channel.

The full-keel, shallow draft cruisers are still smiling... usually at the First 36.7, and Farr 40 owners... ;-)

Regards...

Imp;-)

[frank_f]

Originally Posted by roverhi

The Great Lakes go up, the Great Lakes go down. My parents had a cottage on Lake Michigan that was nearly 500' from the bluff over the beach when it was built in the '20s. In the '70s lake levels rose dramatically and the bluff was eroded so severely that they had to move the cottage as far back on the property as they could. The cottage ended up with the front porch cantilevered over the bluff before the Lake levels began to drop to their more normal levels.

So rainfall has sucked for a year or two and you had a very warm winter with little snow accumulatiom and the Lake levels are dropping as a result. Get used to it, there is such a thing as climate change and it's been going on for a few billion years. As others have pointed out, if the dredging pulled the plug on the Big Bathtub, then water levels in the Eastern Lakes should be up which they apparently are not. The more normal rains and winters will return and the water levels will increase. Hopefully for the people who bought my parents cottage, the levels won't overshoot and threaten shoreline property.

That's truly amazing. One decade of overheight water did what a "few billion years" couldn't. Actually, it's a few 100 thousand. The lakes are from the last ice age.

I was talking to a marine surveyor a few weeks ago and he told me of a couple that live one concession closer to the lake than he does. All of the properties there have a scrub line of trees between the back of their property and the cliffs of Erie.

This couple couldn't stand having bought property to find that the trees rudely compromised their view of the lake. After all, they paid for this property. So they cut the trees down.

Within a few years without the roots to hold the soil together, the cliff face crumbled a few hundred feet into the sand beside the lake. I was told their property looks like a horseshoe. Funny enough, the people that live beside them who didn't cut down the trees still have their land pretty much the same way it was when they bought it. Apparently the couple are now talking to the government about compensating them for erosion.

Well, you can't hear a story like that and not go out and investigate. We did the 20 minute drive and sure as heaven, there was the horseshoe yard.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be site erosion but the neighbours yards are fairing much better. The problem on their land seems to stem from the horseshoe pit beside them.

Maybe we just don't know as much as we think we do. Maybe we should be a little more careful and think long term instead of what's good for right now. Isn't that why we recycle, conserve water and other such things?

Just sayin' is all.

[S/V Alchemy]

With few exceptions, humans have conclusively demonstrated themselves incapable of long-term planning in any meaningful or widespread sense. Our lives are too brief, our outlooks too local, and our polity too splintered.

Imagine Stonehenge or the Pyramids being built today, communally.

Slashing down the trees holding together the cliff edge is more typical behaviour than you'd think.

[Blue Stocking]

At our house on Lake Lanier, Ga, the COE nail little numbered plates on the trees for the 30 ft up from "full pool" to control shoreline stability.

[Enrique100]

Lake Michigan and Huron water levels are now at all time lows. This season doesn't look like it will be any better for water levels. Only marginal improvement expected in the next few months before the season begins again.

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog : Lake Michigan and Lake Huron hit all-time low water levels | Weather Underground

[frank_f]

Originally Posted by Enrique100

Lake Michigan and Huron water levels are now at all time lows. This season doesn't look like it will be any better for water levels. Only marginal improvement expected in the next few months before the season begins again.

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog : Lake Michigan and Lake Huron hit all-time low water levels | Weather Underground

The issue seems to be that rainfall (snowcover) will be our saviour. It won't. As a very astute friend pointed out to me, "the lakes have to freeze before we see the levels increase". I thought," WTH does that have to do with anything?"

Well, here's what it has to do with anything. If the lakes don't freeze, the winter evaporation increases. This means that every year that the lakes don't freeze, they get a little smaller due to evaporation.

What we need to remember is the Gobi desert was once an inland sea.

<rant>
Do we really need two or three (or more) cars per household? Do we need to drain the lakes so we can have pop and reverse osmosis water or produce steel?

Remember, you make these decisions, not the car or the soft drink companies.

You are the ones that can make the change.

Will this help? Who knows.

Maybe this is one of those cycles that the earth has been doing for a while without our help. All I know is that it can't hurt.

Drink clean water even if you have to filter it yourself without the aid of Pepsi or Coke (Aquafina, Dasanti ). Stop buying it and they will stop producing it.

Walk FCS. We are the most obese generation ever (this isn't MacDonald's fault. You're the one asking for the Big Mac with fries and the supersized beverage. Take responsibility for yourself.). We don't need to drive for two blocks. If you need to do so for safety, you need to rethink about where you live or talk to your congressperson and get some strategic help. This part of the equation is solvable.

I'm pretty sure that it isn't the boaters we need to convince of this but maybe we could help spread the word.

Is this the solution? Probably not. Can it hurt? No. Can we help? Yep. Can we help people get a little healthier? Yes.

Give it a go. The worsted that can happen it the neighbour you hate will stop talking to you (kind of a win/win from what I see)
</rant>

[S/V Alchemy]

Well, if health and fitness aren't good enough, the reason I own and can afford two sailboats (one working and the other refitting) is because I don't own a car. It requires adjustments in lifestyle, and occasionally I have to borrow or rent one if I need to bring in batteries or metal stock, but generally my entire yearly boating costs, YC fees, winter storage, insurance and consumables, save purchases directly related to my refit, are less than the yearly running costs of a three-year-old Honda Accord.

It's something to consider. I bought a house less than a mile from the shore to facilitate access,, but I live on a city road with public transit and I have a bunch of bicycles and a bunch of trailers. It's doable, but you have to choose not to follow the basic tenets of North American life since 1950. The reward is sailing away.