Former engineer rallies bay users
WASAGA BEACH – Water levels in Georgian Bay are low, “so, the question arises: what do we do about it?”
About 200 people attended a Restore Our Water International presentation hosted by Sierra Club Ontario at the Wasaga Beach RecPlex, to get the answer to that question. Roger Gauthier, the chair of ROWI and a retired US Army Corps of Engineers senior hydrologist from Detroit, posed the question, Thursday, to the crowd.
Gauthier discussed the causes of declining water levels in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay and he proposed possible solutions.
“Every day the lake levels are lower, we are incurring economic and environmental damages across the region,” Gauthier told the E-B by phone before Thursday’s event.
Gauthier says the levels have been lower for the past 14 years as a result of a “double whammy” of factors, which are climate change and a failure to take measures to mitigate the impact of dredging in the St. Claire River.
Dredging in the St. Clair from the 1930s through the 1960s has resulted in about a 50-centimetre decrease in the water levels and a lack of water balance.
He said this has also been impacted by sand and gravel mining in the river.
“It has been consistently recognized that the St. Clair River has become larger because of man-made impacts,” he said.
Gauthier says in the 1960s the USACE had a designed a structure to compensate, but it was never put in place because the water levels went from record lows in 1964 and 1965 to record highs in 1973.
“But, the game has changed,” he said.
He said a solution is needed, but when and how much it is going to cost is still up for debate.
“You can’t determine today what is the best solution because engineering hasn’t been done yet,” he said.
His recommendation, based on studies conducted by the USACE, is twofold: underwater sills and a gated structure in the St. Clair River.
He said the underwater sills, which are like very large speed bumps, would help address about 15 to 20 cm of water level in Michigan and Huron. The structures would be about two or three metres tall and 80 to 100 metres long.
Gauthier says the work could be done for about $30 million, and it would take about three to four years to get the sills in place.
He said they would not interfere with boating as they would sit on the riverbed.
USACE created designs for sills back in the 1960s, but they were fixed structures, Gauthier says it would be ideal if they could be moved or removed, though he says this would increase the project’s cost and length of time.
The other suggestion, to address the other approximately 30 cm lost, is a gate to be placed near Stag Island — between Corunna, Ontario and Marysville, Michigan — in the St. Clair River on a non-navigable portion of the water.
The structure would be adaptable to be able to regulate the flow of water depending on if conditions are dry or wet.
He said the gate option will cost about $150 million-to-$200 million and would take about five years to get in place.
He proposed a third solution during his presentation, which is armouring the bottom of the St. Clair River with a layer of rocks. He said when dredging was done, rocks were removed and revealed a layer of clay that is causing erosion to occur at a faster rate. He said this would be the quickest and cheapest solution.
Gauthier says ROWI is adamantly against permanent regulation, such as a dam.
He said Lake Ontario has negatively affected by the installation of the Moses-Saunders Dam in the Saint Lawrence River in the late 1950s because the lake can no longer have highs and lows, which is important to create biodiversity.
Gauthier said there are hundreds or even thousands of ways a solution could go wrong, but if done correctly there could be many positive outcomes.
He said there are ways to engineer improvements, such as creating spawning grounds for Lake Sturgeons or harvesting the water to create energy.
“There are ample opportunities for a win-win strategy,” he said.
Gauthier stressed the importance of the need for more education and resources geared towards the issue.
Mary Muter, chair of the Sierra Club Great Lakes Section, said the organizations trying to get government attention to address the declining water issue will need funding and assistance.
For more information on the Sierra Club visit www.sierraclub.ca/en or on ROWI visit www.restoreourwater.com.
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