Bruce County asked to take up low water cause

[Spiel]

Bruce County asked to take up low water cause

 

 

By DON CROSBY

Owen Sound Sun Times

 

 

South Bruce Peninsula is calling on Bruce County to support a petition it sent to the federal government calling on it to do something about declining water levels in the Great Lakes.

 

The request, initiated and approved by South Bruce Peninsula council last September, and an accompanying petition signed by municipal residents, is expected to come before the county's agriculture, tourism and planning committee Jan. 17.

 

The petition calls for measures to stop the loss of water from Lake Huron through the St. Clair River.

 

The request is supported by a study done in 2005 by the Georgian Bay Association, a coalition of landowner groups in the Georgian Bay area that has taken a lead role in concerns about low water levels in the upper Great Lakes.

 

According to the group, 2.5 billion gallons of water - the equivalent of 10 million tonnes or a block one square mile and 12 feet high - is escaping Lake Huron via the St. Clair River every day and that's why water levels in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay are so low.

 

"Once it's gone, that water is gone forever. We don't get it back," Mary Muter, vice-president of the GBA, said in an interview Friday. She said only one per cent of the water in the Great Lakes comes from rainfall; the rest was left from melting glaciers millions of years ago.

 

Muter said from her home in Toronto that Lake Huron is 34 centimetres below normal and while Lake Superior water levels, which had been at an 80-year low, began to rebound in 2007, the same can't be said for Lake Huron.

 

Muter said instead of spending $200 million on dredging at U.S. ports on Lake Michigan, a system to reduce the St. Clair River flow could be built for about $10 million.

 

She said years of dredging the St. Clair River, the mining of protective sand bars, the realignment of the main shipping approach through Lake Huron and years of erosion has changed the profile of the river. It's now 60 feet deep, double what is required for shipping and is the cause of the increased flow of water out of the upper Great Lakes.

 

"Put some kind of control measures in the St. Clair River to bring water back up to average levels so this kind of costly dredging doesn't have to happen on an annual basis," Muter said.

 

South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Gwen Gilbert said water levels near Oliphant are worrying cottagers, who are unable to get to their cottages by boat and, in some cases, by land. She noted a cottage burned on Frog Island last year because low water levels prevented firefighters from getting to the island quickly to fight the blaze. "We'd like to know some action is being taken with the water levels being so low and getting lower," said Gilbert. "It's a great concern to people along Colpoys Bay, who are digging their water lines and putting them deeper because they are losing the ability to get water."

 

She said if water levels continue to drop, the municipality will have to extend the water intake pipe for Wiarton, which gets its water from Georgian Bay.

 

Level changes are concerning many

 

Huron-Kinloss will spend about $200,000 this year combating the environmental effects of low water and protecting its beaches along Lake Huron. A growing number of algae blooms have floated ashore in recent years, stinking up swimming areas and leading public health officials to close some beaches last year.

 

"The effect is to turn the near-shore water dark and murky. Just to walk out into the water is like you're stepping in slime," said Huron-Kinloss Mayor Mitch Twolan.

 

The invasion in recent years of Phragmites grass, a tough common reed, is creating havoc for cottage owners along some of the same beaches. Twolan blames both problems on declining water levels.

 

The grass has been gradually spreading for the past four or five years and is competing with native species.

 

"It has been around before, up and down the shore, but not to the extent that it is now," Twolan said.

 

Northern Bruce Peninsula Mayor Milt McIver said recently that in the past, fluctuations in lake water levels have been cyclical and always bounced back. Now there are concerns climate change has disrupted that pattern.

 

"It's changed the shore property all along Georgian Bay and Lake Huron," adversely affecting boating and reducing access to cottages. "Where is the water going? . . . that's the main concern of a lot of people . . . we should be stopping it or trying to put a stop to it," said McIver, who wants Bruce County to be involved.

 

"We want to be at the table where people are discussing and making decisions about what action should be taken about what happens to the Great Lakes," he said.

 

South Bruce Peninsula has also forwarded the petition to MP Larry Miller, MPP Bill Murdoch, the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.

 

The GSCA, for one, will not support the petition, said chair Dick Hibma. Hibma, a member of the International Joint Commission's International Upper Great Lake Study Public Interest Advisory Group, said there's already an ongoing study to deal with concerns over the St. Clair River and it's an oversimplification to say its dredging is the cause of low lake levels.

 

The International Joint Commissions Great Lake Study is a five-year, $17-million study to determine whether the regulation of Lake Superior outflows can be improved to address the evolving needs of users on Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan and Erie.

 

Physical changes to the St. Clair River, which forms part of the connecting channel between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, will be investigated as one factor that might be affecting water levels and flows. The commission was established by the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to prevent and resolve disputes over the use of waters shared by the United States and Canada.

 

Depending on the nature and extent of the physical changes and their potential impact on water levels and flows, the study may also explore potential remediation options.

 

Hibma said the Great Lakes system from Thunder Bay to Cornwall is self-regulating and there are a number of factors involved including climate change, water taking, evaporation and changing landscapes.

 

"There are so many things that we don't understand yet, it would be premature and misguided to react to this petition," Hibma said.