The politics of water levels:

[Spiel]

The politics of water levels:

Georgian Bay Ass'n suspicious of IJC report exonerating St. Clair River in water level woes

 

 

May 27, 2009

Michael Erskine / www.manitoulin.ca

 

 

LITTLE CURRENT - Members of the Georgian Bay Association (GBA) and their allies expressed dissatisfaction with both the timing and the conclusions contained within a draft report of the first phase of the International Upper Great Lakes Study (IUGLS) commissioned by the International Joint Commission.

 

The study's status quo remedial recommendations on the St. Clair River, along with the report appearing before an outside peer review process was completed-and without inclusion or release of reports offering countervailing assessments-has done little to ameliorate that dissatisfaction.

 

This phase of study, which examined the impact of water flowing out of the Great Lakes through the St. Clair river system, was in itself largely a reaction to pressure from the GBA. The GBA has posited in its own study-known to all and sundry as the Baird Report-that increased water flow caused by continued navigation dredging on the St. Clair River was a large contributing factor to the low water levels experienced on Lake Huron over the last few years.

 

In response to GBA concerns expressed last year, the study group agreed to split the study into two phases. The first, looking at the immediate concerns posed by the St. Clair flow, was to be completed first, while the second ongoing phase is to examine a wider range of factors impacting water levels on the Great Lakes.

 

While it would be easy to dismiss the concerns of the GBA as anti-all-things-government-paranoia, the actions in the timing release of the draft report by the IUGLS board have certainly fed those concerns. First, the timing of the input sessions so early in the season all but ensured a poor showing at the public input session (there were only three non-media attendees at the Little Current session). While the rising water levels in Lake Huron (up by over a foot this year) could be cited as a reason for the poor turnout, the more likely reason this session did not attract the significant numbers as last year's session did is that the seasonal residents, those most impacted by lake water levels, have not yet arrived here from their winter refuges.

 

The emcee of the event, Dr. Eugene Stakhiv, delivered a largely concise and well-informed presentation, which was as free of technical jargon as one could reasonably expect of such a technical study. The presentation took place through the use of an Internet connection which patched together public consultations in Manitoulin; Cleveland, Ohio; Evanston, Illinois; and Thunder Bay, Ontario.

 

Thanks to the technical expertise of support personnel like Tribly MacDonald of Ann Arbor Michigan, along with board member Jon Gee and Public Interest Advisory Group member Doug Cuddy, the presentation was largely technical-glitch-free.

 

Dr. Stakhiv was comfortable, projected an open and engaging persona that comes from substantial public engagement and experience.

 

But it is highly unfortunate that Dr. Stakhiv's 37-year career with US Army Corps of Engineers-the people (rightly or wrongly) suspect of being the culprits behind the lower water levels and diversions into the US-serves to offset his considerable and justly-earned credibility as an advisor on difficult water management and engineering issues in the minds of those suspicious of the study.

 

Dr. Stakhiv's clearly backed up assertion that the study is an amalgam of the work of hundreds of "disinterested" scientific researchers and that the report has been heavily peer-reviewed through an internal process fell on less-than-fertile ground.

 

The report found that the human impact on the flow through the St. Clair River system has been largely static since the early 1960s, the earlier boundary of its study mandate, and that the increased flow through the system has come about through a natural impact-namely a 1980s ice jam of Herculean proportions which, the study postulates, brought about the deeper scouring of the river bed and a corresponding drop in water levels.

 

This argument was given considerable weight through the use of colour charts, which superimposed water level data from a corresponding period of time before a similar event in the 1920s. The two data sets overlapped with compelling coincidence. The increased flow through the St. Clair accounts for a 23-centimetre (9-inch) portion of the drop in water levels since the last major dredging took place in 1962. According to the study's findings, the ice jam factor accounts for 10 to 12 cm (3.9 to 4.7 inches) of that drop.

 

Climate, a second major factor accounts for between 9 and 27 cm (3.5 to 10.6 inches) of water level fluctuations. This factor is becoming increasingly important according to the report, accounting for a whopping 75 percent of the decline between 1996 and 2005.

 

The third, less influential but even more relentless, factor is the geological impact of the springing back of land compressed by the passage of the glaciers 10,000 years ago. While that decompression only accounts for 4 cm (1.6 inches) of the change in water depth (as opposed to level), and the degree of its impact varies wildly from region to region depending on soil composition, it cannot be stopped.

 

As the term "remedial" suggests, remedial efforts are used to offset human interference. The danger of the remediation of Mother Nature's activities is that of discovering unintended consequences, explained Dr. Stakhiv. That being said, the study group left open the option of countervailing action following the findings of the second phase of the project.

 

Previously recommended interference in the water levels could have had disastrous impact, he suggested, pointing out that a 1973 plan could have raised the lake levels another six inches during the dramatic rise in water levels-causing more flood damage and wreaking billions of dollars in added damages.

 

This assertion was challenged by a Cleveland attendee, who pointed out that the proposed intervention was to build an adjustable control system, not a static one.

 

The second phase will be looking at environmental impacts of global warming and a host of other factors, including outflow through Niagara and the St. Lawrence, and Dr. Stakhiv noted that there may be compelling evidence that human intervention is called for in many areas, including the St. Clair. In this case, time may well be of the essence.

 

"If we are going to need a major project in place in two decades, and it will take 20 years to build, then we would need to get to work on the project soon to get it into place," he said.

 

Ann McGregor, of the McGregor Bay Cottagers Association, was on hand for the presentation and took part in the question-and-answer period following the presentation. She questioned the timing of the input session prior to the completion of reviews of all of the reports included in the study.

 

Dr. Stakhiv replied that 42 of 43 studies were in and assessed and that hundreds of scientists had taken part in the internal peer review and assessments. He also pointed out that a 30-day extension of the time period for peer reviews was being considered. He explained that the external peer review was being handled by the International Joint Commission.

 

The main concerns of the GBA, backed up by the $130,000 study in 2004 of shoreline alterations and gravel and sand mining by Baird & Associates, whom the GBA refers to as "a respected coastal consulting engineering firm," are manifold.

 

First, that although the study found a 5-percent increase in conveyance through the St. Clair River, or 6 billion gallons a day from Michigan, the Baird Report found that number to be 12 billion gallons a day and increasing.

 

The IUGLS report findings are that the flow through has stabilized. Dr. Stakhiv counters that the Baird Report was a $130,000 study completed by one firm. The IUGLS study cost upwards of $20 million and involved literally hundreds of groups.

 

The GBA also questions the decision to not release the Baird & Associates verification of the water flow out of Lake Huron and a study on remediation requirements by Ralph Pentland, former director of water planning and management at Environment Canada.

 

Ann McGregor noted that the maintenance dredging of the St. Clair is ongoing and that studies of that impact will not be released until after the public consultation is complete.

 

"Millions of taxpayers' dollars have been spent on this study to understand what is causing this huge loss of water through the St. Clair River, but the study board has published a premature report based on incomplete findings," said Mary Muter, the GBA lead on the water level issue and a GBA board member, in a release on the issue. "We need a serious, consensus-based, scientifically sound solution to protect this important ecological and economic resource."

 

Dr. Stakhiv noted that the IUGLS group is only in place to study the factors impacting on Great Lakes water levels on behalf of the International Joint Commission and that the group has no regulatory or coercive powers of their own. At the end of the day, those decisions are to be made by the representatives of the two countries involved in managing the Great Lakes water system.

 

While it would perhaps have been more productive for the draft report to have been more complete before its release and public input consultations conducted-particularly in light of the controversy surrounding the ignored data and studies-and while the public input sessions could hardly have been better timed to limit public participation (not to mention that the reasons given for the decision to hold them now was somewhat lacking), the entire study is still in early days yet, and the recent rise in Lake Huron water levels suggests that those water levels really are more cyclical in nature than was earlier feared the case.

 

Time will certainly tell who is right, but the dire economic and ecological implication of being wrong makes a correct prognostication the vital question to be answered for the next seven generations.

[fishboy]

water levels...those of us in the Haliburton & Minden area know the woes of the politics of water levels...