Great Lakes Record Lows

  • Lower water levels on the Great Lakes make some channels such as the Muskegon River too shallow for big freighters to enter fully loaded. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The Great Lakes are hitting new record low water levels. The water is so low that
big 1000-foot cargo ships are running aground. There’s debate about
whether this is just part of the historic ups and downs of the Great Lakes, or if it’s the
effects of global warming. Lester Graham reports from Lake Michigan’s Muskegon
River, a trouble spot for some of the big ships:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are hitting new record low water levels. The water is so low that
big 1000-foot cargo ships are running aground. There’s debate about
whether this is just part of the historic ups and downs of the Great Lakes, or if it’s the
effects of global warming. Lester Graham reports from Lake Michigan’s Muskegon
River, a trouble spot for some of the big ships:


Here at the end of the pier next to the lighthouse, it’s cold, it’s icy and it’s windy. And
it’s hard to imagine a ship navigating its way into this channel, but ships do on a
regular basis to bring coal to a power plant. This year, however, some of the ships
have ended up aground here simply because of lower lake levels and more sediment
in the channel:


“There’s been three this summer here in Muskegon. They go hard up on the sand.”


Dennis Donahue is the marine superintendent for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Lake Michigan field station at Muskegon, Michigan. He
says this year’s groundings of cargo ships just hasn’t happened that often in the
past:


“Well, we haven’t had a grounding here, certainly in the last 15 years due to water
levels.”


Lester Graham: “So what’s happening here? What’s going on?”


Donahue: “Well, there’s a couple of things, we’ve got the water levels dropping and
then we’ve got some weather patterns that are carrying sediment to the mouth of the
Muskegon River. So, those two compound and create shoal areas.”


So lower water and a rising bottom mean channels are more shallow. That means
ships have to carry less cargo, and that costs the shippers reportedly a million
dollars per ship per year.


Scientists have been monitoring the dropping lake levels for close to a decade now.
At NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, Deputy Director Cynthia
Sellinger says she’s been seeing a trend in the weather that’s causing the problem:


“We’re having a lot less precipitation and a lot more evaporation. And that’s
impacting the water levels on the lake.”


Less snow pack and rain mean less water filling the lakes, and with warmer winters
Sellinger says there’s less ice cover to protect the lakes from massive evaporation.
Historically, about 50% of the lakes’ surfaces have been covered by ice. These
days, it’s more like ten to 20%. Cold air hits the warmer water and
carries it away. For Lake Superior alone, a one-inch drop is more than 500 billion
gallons. During the past decade, Superior has lost nearly 13 trillion gallons.


“The upper lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, are very close to their record low.
So, it’s approaching an extreme. Superior reached its record low in 1926 and just
this year it broke the record low for September. So, 2007 now is a new record low
for Lake Superior. Lakes Michigan and Huron are approaching their record low.”


Sellinger and her colleagues are not ready to say global warming is causing the
lower lake levels. It might just be a part of a long cycle of ups and downs of the lakes.
But the lower water levels do fit some of the computer model predictions about
global warming.


Lower lake levels causing problems for big cargo ships and marinas catering to
recreational boaters are problems enough. But, some environmentalists say if lower
water levels are caused by global warming, the pressures on the water in the Great
Lakes likely are going to get a lot worse. Andy Buchsbaum heads up the National
Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office:


“The hidden threat of global warming is that not only does it affect Great Lakes water
levels simply because of increased evaporation or increased temperatures changes
precipitation, but the threat it makes to Great Lakes water levels is even greater.
Because global warming, global climate change, is having massive effects already
and is likely to have even greater effects on water supplies in the Southwest, the
Southeast and all over the country. And as those pressures increase, the pressure
to divert Great Lakes water will increase exponentially.”


We don’t know whether new diversions to dry areas of the country could cause as
much of a problem as less precipitation and more evaporation of the Great Lakes
already do. But, it would certainly aggravate the problem. The effects of water
levels dropping further mean more economic hardship for shipping and tourism. And
environmentalists say ecological damage to coastal habitat that fish and other
wildlife need to survive could be on a scale that’s not been seen on the Great Lakes
in recorded history.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Great Lakes Lower Levels

Scientific data indicate lower Great Lakes water levels might be because of global
warming. But, Lester Graham reports many people believe the lower levels are
because of water withdrawals:

Transcript

Scientific data indicate lower Great Lakes water levels might be because of global
warming. But, Lester Graham reports many people believe the lower levels are
because of water withdrawals:


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental
Research Lab has been investigating the lower water levels on the Great Lakes for
several years now. They’ve recorded less snow pack to replenish the lakes, and
less ice cover to prevent evaporation during the winter. That’s corresponded with the
lower lake levels.


The inference is climate change – or global warming – is causing the Great Lakes to
lose water. But many residents in the Great Lakes region are convinced the water is
being piped away, either by industry or diverted to Western states.


Most of the water diversions in the Lakes have been around for a century and are
well-monitored. But, some politicians play on fears that the lower lake levels are part
of a grand conspiracy to steal Great Lakes water for more politically powerful states
in drier regions.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST RIVER (Part 1)

  • Wing dams along the Missouri River force the flow of water to the center, scouring the bottom of the river. Environmentalists say the Missouri has been turned into little more than a big ditch for barges. They support management plans that restore habitat for wildlife. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Rivers have been the life-blood of commerce in the United States since the
nation’s beginning. In 200 years, the machines of trade have evolved from flat-
bottomed wooden boats to today’s steel-hulled river barges. The rivers link
America’s natural resources with the industrial cities that propel its economy.
Decades of damming and dredging have turned the big rivers into shipping
channels. But in recent years, competing interests have argued in defense of
other uses of the rivers. In the first of three reports, Kevin Lavery looks at how
those groups seek to balance the economy and ecology:

Transcript

Rivers have been the life-blood of commerce in the United States since the
nation’s beginning. In 200 years, the machines of trade have evolved from flat-
bottomed wooden boats to today’s steel-hulled barges. The rivers link
America’s natural resources with the industrial cities that propel its economy.
Decades of damming and dredging have turned the big rivers into shipping
channels. But in recent years, competing interests have argued in defense of
other uses of the rivers. In the first of three reports, Kevin Lavery looks at how
those groups seek to balance the economy and ecology:


Long before interstates and over the road trucking, America moved its goods on
the water. River barges carry just about any kind of commodity. They emit less
pollution than trucks and trains… and the river route is cheaper than both the road
and the rail.


The nation’s farms, coal mines and quarries depend on rivers like the Mississippi,
Ohio and Missouri to keep their products moving. Business is healthy on the
Mississippi and the Ohio. But on the Missouri, barges carry just a third of the
cargo they did 30 years ago. Many shippers say drought and overregulated dam
releases make the water levels too unreliable to plan the big hauls that bring in
the most profit.


Paul Davis runs Interstate Marine Terminals, 200 miles upstream from where the
Missouri River meets the Mississippi, near St. Louis. He ships and stores
fertilizer from his dock. But Davis says when the river runs low, barges are not
his best option:


“The real adjustment that I’ve made is going from river to rail.”


Logistically, the adjustment is easy. The Union Pacific railroad line runs just a
few feet from Davis’ dock. But it costs him about 15 dollars more per ton to move
goods by rail. Davis says river barges might be profitable again if old feuds over
water management would end:


“There’s business out there. It could come back if people quit fighting and start agreeing
and confidence would return to shipping on the Missouri River. But I can’t afford to wait
and see… I’ve got to make adjustments.”


The fighting puts business against the environment. Shippers want enough
water to move freight. But environmentalists want the river to rise and recede
like it did before the Army Corps of Engineers started changing it.


The conflict goes back to the 1930’s. Congress ordered the Corps to make the
river safe for barges. That meant clearing snags and sandbars from a 735-mile
stretch from Sioux City, Iowa to St. Louis, Missouri. The Corps also confined the
river with earthen levees. Opponents say it turned the Missouri into a
characterless ditch.


The Corps spends 7 million dollars a year to maintain the channel. Spokesman
Paul Johnston says despite the dwindling volume of river traffic, the Corps is
mandated to keep the river open:


“The Corps of Engineers, like any federal agency, does not have the option to pick and
choose which laws it’s going to obey and not obey.”


But critics say wildlife has paid for the Corps’ mandate. Over the years, dams
and channels eliminated a half a million acres of wetland habitat. Birds lost their
sandbar nesting grounds, and fish no longer found shallow backwaters to lay their
eggs.


Among the hardest hit animals is the pallid sturgeon. It’s a long, flat-nosed fish
that dates back to the T-Rex. It’s been around 70 million years, and for the last
17, it’s been on the endangered species list.


Chad Smith directs the Nebraska field office of the environmental group
American Rivers. He says the pallid sturgeon’s fate shows the whole river is in
jeopardy:


“When it starts to decline, you know, that kind of creature that’s so in tune with the
Missouri as it was, is an indicator that maybe something’s not right, and it’s going to be
the first thing to fall.”


So Congress told the Corps to take on a recovery mission. The agency spends
more than 50 million dollars a year to rebuild shallow water habitat for fish and
birds. The Corps hopes a water resources bill pending in Congress will increase
its habitat restoration budget to 80 million dollars.


In 2006, the Corps launched its most controversial restoration program to date. It
released extra water from a South Dakota reservoir to mimic the natural flood
pulse that occurs on the Missouri River every spring. That triggers the sturgeon
to spawn.


Conservationists herald last year’s man-made spring rise as a long overdue sign
of progress. But barge companies on the lower Missouri are upset. They say
the spring rise brings a drop in the river’s depth in the summer… which means
less cargo they’re carrying and less money they’re making.


For The Environment Report, I’m Kevin Lavery.


ANCHOR TAG: Tomorrow, Kevin reports on the commercial barge
industry’s concerns over the Army Corps of Engineers’ control of the big
rivers.

Related Links

Great Lake Level Way Down

Near record low water levels on Lake Superior are causing some headaches for
boaters. Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

Near record low water levels on Lake Superior are causing some headaches for
boaters. Mike Simonson reports:


Great Lakes water levels have been low. It’s partially due to evaporation from
lack of ice cover in the winter. Two years of drought around Lake Superior hasn’t
helped. That lake is a foot and a half below its long-term average, and the lowest
since 1926. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Superintendent Bob Krumenaker
says they’ve got problems:


“Our docks are generally high out of the water. Some of them
are hard to reach from a small boat. Some of them have spaces underneath that
none of us have ever seen before that are really not friendly places for small
boats.”


Except for taking the unusual step of dredging, Krumenaker says there’s not a lot
they can do:


“We’re all getting a good education this year that the old phrase “the Lake is the
boss” is indeed true.


Boaters can find the shallow water spots on the National Park Service Apostle
Islands website.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mike Simonson.

Related Links

St. Clair Erosion Lowering Lake Levels?

  • A report finds the erosion in Lake St. Clair is causing Lake Michigan and Lake Huron water levels to drop. (photo by Jere Kibler)

A new study says erosion in the St. Clair River has caused water levels to drop on Lakes Michigan and Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:

Transcript

A new study says erosion in the St. Clair River has caused water levels to drop on Lakes Michigan and Huron. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:


W.F. Baird and Associates is a coastal engineering firm. They recently conducted a study that found that water levels dropped on the two Great Lakes by eight to thirteen inches over the last forty years. Rob Nairn is the study’s lead author. He says that’s about twice as much as authorities thought.


“The outlet to Lake Michigan/Huron, which is the St. Clair river, is in fact expanding. The analogy would be if you had a drain hole in a bathtub, that drain hole is getting bigger, and more water is going out. And as more water goes out, the lake level drops.”


Nairn says the erosion may be caused by dredging, sand mining, or shoreline protection measures that prevented new sediment from getting into the water.


Several environmental groups say the lower water levels could hurt shipping and boating, and damage natural habitats. They’re calling for the U.S. and Canadian governments to stop the reported water loss.


The International Joint Commission says it can’t confirm the report, but it plans to take a closer look at the study’s findings.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lynette Kalsnes.

Related Links

Scientists to Issue Opinion on Missouri River

  • A day marker for barge traffic on the Missouri River. Environmentalists say there's not enough barge traffic on the Missouri to warrant the millions spent on maintaining the lock and dam system. Barge operators disagree. (photo courtesy of USGS)

A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:

Transcript

A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final
touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri
River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army
Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best
protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious
battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:


The new Biological Opinion will be the second such document in three years.
The 2000 Bi Op – as it’s often called – advocated high water releases on the
Missouri each spring to cue the spawning season of the pallid sturgeon.
Reducing the flows in the summer, the Bi Op explained, would expose sandbars
to provide nesting grounds for two endangered birds, the interior least tern
and the piping plover.


That philosophy had been the view of many in the Fish and Wildlife Service,
who have studied the Missouri for more than a decade. But in early
November, the Department of the Interior announced it was replacing the
original scientific team to expedite the process of crafting a new outlook
for the river.


The decision unsettles environmentalist Chad Smith with the group American
Rivers. He feels the switch was an attempt by the Bush Administration to
silence those who offered a politically unpopular opinion.


“It seems to us like there’s an effort being made to try to find
someone to give the administration the answer that they want; that they don’t want to make flow
changes even though the science is crystal clear.”


The Fish and Wildlife Service team leaders deny that politics played a role
in rebuilding the scientific staff. The 15-member team in fact includes
seven who either worked on the 2000 Bi Op or have specific research
experience on the Missouri.


Commercial shippers that do business on the river are hopeful that new
thinking may lead to more growth for their industry. Navigation on the
Missouri has always been negligible, but industry officials say the past
summer was nothing short of devastating. A series of court decisions and
overturns led to a three-day drop in flow levels in August that ground barge
traffic to a halt.


Chris Brescia is President of the Midwest Area River Coalition 2000, which
represents barge operators. He says that incident punctuated their position
that unpredictable flow levels make the Missouri an unreliable
transportation mode:


“The conflicting court orders literally brought everything to a
standstill because it was unsafe for operators to quote freight rates and to
presume that they could navigate on the river when they didn’t know at what
point in time the court was going to reverse a decision to support
navigation.”


Central to the debate over how to manage the Missouri is the issue of
whether the economic value of river commerce is worth the cost of keeping
the river navigable. For the past decade, the Corps of Engineers has spent
just three million dollars a year on navigation. The Corps’ own data
indicates that navigation is worth about three times that amount each year.


One fully loaded 15-barge tow can carry more than 22-thousand tons, about as
much as 870 large semi trucks. Barge operators say having the river as a
viable transportation route keeps the cost of other shipping modes down.
But American Rivers argues that the two million tons of fertilizer, grain
and similar products barges carry each year on the Missouri fall far short
of what the Corps projected decades ago would be carried on the river.


For its part, the Corps of Engineers says whatever the cost-benefit ratio,
navigation is a congressionally mandated purpose it’s obliged to continue
paying for.


The draft of the Corps’ 2004 operating plan does not include the flow
changes environmentalists have demanded. Corps spokesman Paul Johnston says
his agency recognizes that those measures will not provide the biological
conditions the listed species need to survive. Instead, Johnston says the
Corps plans to spend more than 40-million dollars next year to accelerate
its habitat creation program:


“We’ll be looking for opportunities to acquire appropriate land
from willing sellers, and we’ll be looking at building tern and plover
habitat as well. So I’m really convinced we will reach a point where we can
have a much richer river than we have now and still enjoy the economic
benefits.”


The scientific team has until December 15 to complete its Biological
Opinion. The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to have its final operating plan
for the Missouri in place by March 1.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Kevin Lavery.

Related Links

Army Corps and Enviros Spar Over River Levels

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end… levels went down… but not for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports… this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:

Transcript

Court battles over the Missouri River have subsided… for now. The debate has focused on
whether the Corps of Engineers should drop water levels to protect endangered species… or keep
a normal flow to ensure barges would be able to ship cargo. In the end, levels went down, but not
for nearly as long as courts had ordered. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber
reports, this summer’s fight might just be the first battle in a war over the river’s management:


On paper, the Corps of Engineers lowered the Missouri River this summer because of three
things: The piping plover and the least turn, two birds hat nest on sandbars, and the pallid
sturgeon, a fish that lays eggs in the shallow water.


Lawsuits by environmental groups like Chad Smith’s argued having too much water flowing in
the summertime disrupts and essentially washes away those nesting areas.


But Smith, who’s with the group, American Rivers, says the issue is much larger than two birds
and a fish…


“What we’re trying to do is to restore some semblance of the river’s natural flow, along with a lot
of habitat and try to make the Missouri River look and act more like a river. Right now it’s
managed like a ditch and it looks like a ditch.”


Smith says years of management by the Corps of Engineers – building dams and levees and
controlling river flows – have made river depths fairly consistent. But he says, really, that’s just
not how rivers work.


“You would have snow melt and rain coming into the river in the springtime, increasing the
flows, and then throughout the rest of the year, particularly during the hot summer months, the
levels would be very much lower, and that’s the kind of natural dynamic that fish and wildlife
adapted to.”


And so when a federal judge in Minnesota told the Corps of Engineers to lower water levels on
the Missouri, it was an attempt to get the river back to its natural ebb and flow. The court order
was for a four-week drop in levels, but the Corps only lowered the water for three days towards
the end of the endangered species’ nesting periods.


But even those three days upset business interests along the river, particularly the barge industry.
Towboats can be seen pushing barges up and down the Missouri River between Sioux City Iowa
and St. Louis. A group of politicians and business leaders, in fact, recently met at the Gateway
Arch in St. Louis to criticize the judge’s order. It’s actually the Mississippi River that passes in
front of the Arch, but because the Missouri spills into the Mississippi just north of St. Louis, the
group noted that lowering one would lower the other. And Missouri Senator Jim
Talent says that has a negative effect on jobs and the local economy.


“When that river goes down the barges can’t move. We’re inhibiting barge traffic already and if
this continues it’s going to stop. And we really need to step back from the brink of an action that’s
really just unreasonable and being forced on us by an extreme interpretation of the law by the
courts.”


Congresswoman JoAnn Emerson, whose district borders the Mississippi, wonders why the
Endangered Species Act that essentially won the lawsuit to lower levels is of higher importance
than people’s livelihoods.


“My mandate in Congress is from the people up and down the Mississippi River, people from my
Congressional district. My mandate isn’t from the piping plover or the least tern or the pallid
sturgeon.”


The debate over the Missouri River might have been moot if not for one other factor: A drought
has plagued parts of the Midwest for more than a year and made the rivers even lower.


A few days after the group met at the Arch, the Mississippi River got too shallow for any barge
traffic and closed for a weekend. Having cargo just sitting there, not getting to market, cost the
economy a million dollars a day by some estimates.


Barge groups blamed the lowering of the Missouri; environmental groups blamed the drought.
Barge traffic is moving again and the nesting season is over for the endangered species named in
the lawsuit. But the fight is far from over as both sides appear ready for another round. Once
again, Chad Smith with American Rivers.


“We’re prepared to stay in court for as long as it takes if the Corps is going to continue to be
obstinate about this. The Corps is now on notice through the court actions this summer that these
things are serious and they can’t hide from them.”


For its part, the Corps has said it will work with other government agencies, namely the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, to come up with a plan for managing the river for both wildlife and the
barges in time for next year. But it has said that before, and the two sides seem just as
far apart as they’ve ever been.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

Lake Levels Low Despite Rain

Even though it’s been a rainy summer, the shipping industry, boaters and beachgoers are still dealing with low water levels on the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Even though it’s been a rainy summer, the shipping industry, boaters and beachgoers
are still
dealing with low water levels on the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams reports:


All the rain this season has raised hope for an end to low water levels. But Lakes
Michigan,
Huron and Superior continue to be much lower than average for the fourth year in a row.


Frank Quinn is a hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. He
says rain is not the only factor affecting lake levels. Temperatures and
evaporation also affect
them. Quinn says the recent rain has helped, but more rain is needed.


“We’ve averaged for the last year about 90% of our normal precipitation…we still
haven’t had
enough continuing rainfall to bring the levels back up to what their long-term
averages would
be.”


Rain has helped raise the lower lakes, Ontario and Erie, but NOAA’s 6-month outlook
shows low
levels continuing on the upper lakes through early spring.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Army Corps to Lower River Levels

The Corps of Engineers will soon lower water on the Missouri River… a month after it was first ordered by a judge to do so. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:

Transcript

The Corps of Engineers will soon lower water on the Missouri River… a
month after it was first ordered by a judge to do so. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tom Weber reports:


The Corps is only going to keep the river levels down for three days. A
federal judge in Washington had ordered the reduction to protect nesting
endangered species… but the Corps said that would conflict with another
ruling from Nebraska that said water must be high enough for barges.


Those lawsuits were all combined and sent to a court in Minnesota… where
judge Paul Magnuson ruled the two orders were not in conflict. He says that
means the order to lower levels still applies.


Barge companies were told to secure vessels because the river will likely be
too shallow for navigation during the three days. The corps had risked
being fined a half-million dollars a day for being in contempt of the
ruling… but Judge Magnuson says he won’t enforce those fines at this time.


Environmental groups say it might be too late for the species… but it’s
better than nothing.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.

Related Links

U.S. Army Corps Seeks Neighbor’s Support

  • A freighter navigates the American Narrows in the St. Lawrence River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to embark on a $20 million study to look at expanding the St. Lawrence Seaway's locks and channels, but they first need Canada's support. Photo by David Sommerstein.

The St. Lawrence Seaway is a major economic engine for the communities of the Great Lakes. Shippers and ports say a deeper channel for bigger freighters will add billions of dollars in trade and create new jobs. Environmentalists say replumbing the Seaway would devastate the region’s ecology. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to move ahead on a 20 million dollar study of Seaway expansion. But it’s waiting for support and money from Canada. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

The St. Lawrence Seaway is a major economic engine for the communities of the Great Lakes.
Shippers and ports say a deeper channel for bigger freighters will add billions of dollars in trade and
create new jobs. Environmentalists say replumbing the Seaway would devastate the region’s
ecology. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to move ahead on a 20 million dollar study of
Seaway expansion. But it’s waiting for support and money from Canada. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


The Army Corps of Engineers’ study will set the Seaway’s agenda for years to come. That’s why
ports on both sides of the border say it’s important to update a system that’s almost fifty years old.
Keith Robson is president and CEO of the port of Hamilton, Ontario.


“You know, when it was first built, it was probably the right size and now the world has moved
on, so we need to take a look at what we need to do for the future.”


The world of shipping has moved on to so-called “Panamax” size. That’s the term used for huge
freighters that carry cargo containers to coastal ports and through the Panama Canal. A preliminary
study says if those Panamax ships could squeeze into the Seaway, a billion and a half dollars more a
year could float into ports such as Hamilton, Duluth, Toledo, Chicago, and Detroit.


But while bigger may be better in the Corps’ projections, shippers first want to make sure the old
locks keep working as is. Reg Lanteigne of the Canadian Shipowners Association says Canadian
shippers rely on the Seaway to handle 70 million tons of cargo a year.


“None of our economy could sustain a catastrophic failure of that waterway. The only issue here
is not how deep, how wide, how long the ditch should be, but the most important issue is how
long the current ditch can last.”


For the 20 million dollar study to proceed at all, Canada must fund half of it. Canada owns 13 of
the Seaway’s 15 locks. And the shipping channel is partially in Canadian waters. But even though
a decision was expected months ago, Canada has yet to sign on. Critics believe that’s because
Canada sees problems in the Corps’ approach.


Dozens of environmental groups across the Great Lakes have slammed the study. They say it’s
cooked in the shipping industry’s favor. They say it’s predestined to support expansion with dire
environmental consequences.


Expansion foes gathered recently at a meeting organized by the New York-based group ‘Save The
River.’ Their ears perked up when Mary Muter took the floor. She’s vice-president of the
Georgian Bay Association, an Ontario-based environmental group. She says Canada is wary of
expansion. The first time the Seaway was dug, water levels dropped more than a foot. With even
lower levels today, Muter says places like Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay can’t afford to lose more
water.


“Wetlands have literally dried up, converted into grass meadows in some locations. Another
concern is access for shoreline property owners to get to their cottages that are on islands.”


There are also concerns of invasive species depleting fisheries and channel dredging stirring up toxic
sediment.


But Muter says Canada is also wary of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has developed a
reputation of skewing studies to justify more work. Muter says Canada’s Transport Minister has
assured her one thing. He’s not interested in an expansion study that leaves environmental issues as
an afterthought.


“If the U.S. transport department wants to involve the Army Corps, that’s fine. But Canada is not
giving money directly to the U.S. Army Corps to replumb the Great Lakes.”


Both transportation departments have remained tight-lipped through months of negotiations, leaving
interest groups on both sides of the debate to speculate.


Stephanie Weiss directs Save The River. She says Canada’s delay may mean a chance to broaden
the scope of the study beyond shipping.


“Y’know, is this an opportunity to change the shape of the study into something that more interest
groups and more citizens around the Great Lakes can buy into?”


Reg Lanteigne of the Canadian Shipowners Association says the delay is just a bureaucratic one.


“The mandate has been agreed, the scope and governance has all been agreed. All we’re looking
for now is a suitable location and time and date to sign this off.”


On the U.S. side of the border, Congress has allocated 1.5 million dollars for the first year of the
study. That’s less than the Corps had asked for. And the legislation includes a special warning. It
directs the Corps to pay more attention to the environmental and recreational impacts of building a
bigger Seaway channel.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.