St Clair Detroit River Sturgeon for Tomorrow mentioned in the Times Herald article! Corps to study possibility of limiting flow of St. Clair River 3/20 - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is going to spend about $50,000 to figure out if it’s possible to slow the flow of water exiting Lake Huron through the St. Clair River. While the corps is just starting its study, which includes a review of previous studies including one done in the 1950s, some ideas being considered are dams, weirs, turbines or flow restriction devices — like speed bumps on the river’s bottom. “It could be anything placed in the river to impede the flow,” said Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the corps’ Detroit district. He and Scott Thieme, deputy Detroit district engineer for project management, said it’s too soon to tell whether any structures would be built in the St. Clair River. Thieme said the agency is authorized to study ways to compensate for a 7-inch permanent decrease in water levels caused by a 25-foot-deep dredging project in the 1930s and a 27-foot-deep dredging project in the 1950s. Dredging and deepening projects in the late-1800s and early-1900s caused a 3- to 9-inch permanent decrease in water levels, but Thieme said the corps currently is authorized to compensate only for the seven inches lost in the 1930s and 1950s dredging projects. He said compensation for the decrease in lake levels would be attained by limiting or regulating the flow through the St. Clair River. Kathy Johnson owns Gregory A.D., a diving and art company, with her husband, Gregory Lashbrook. Johnson is concerned about the possible impact of flow-restricting structures in the river. Johnson and Lashbrook have assisted with sturgeon studies and documentaries for U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Michigan and Wisconsin departments of natural resources, Sturgeons for Tomorrow and U.S. Geological Survey. Johnson said the mouth of the St. Clair River, under the Blue Water Bridge, is the largest sturgeon spawning habitat in the Great Lakes. “There’s no way they can do anything to that river bottom without disrupting that sturgeon spawning area,” Johnson said. Thieme said possible risks to the environment and boating and shipping industries will be part of the corps’ study. He said it’s possible structures placed in the river could double as sturgeon spawning habitat. “It certainly would be one of the things that would be looked at,” Thieme said. The corps will unearth a study from the 1950s to examine how to regulate the increased flow through the St. Clair River. “The starting point is to re-evaluate what had been authorized in the past,” Thieme said. Thieme said staff will have to analyze the 1955 study in light of new data, new practices, and new laws. The $50,000 allocation will fund a preliminary study to scope out the limits of a larger general re-evaluation review, which could cost $3 million over three years to complete, Kompoltowicz said. The process would be done in cooperation with Canada. The 1950s study recommended compensating works — anything that restricts the flow of the river. The compensating works at Lake Superior at the head of the St. Marys River in Sault Ste. Marie is a dam with gates that can be opened and closed to release or hold back water. Preliminary designs for sills, or speed bump-like structures, were completed in the 1970s, but never received approval from the United States or Canada, according to a decision document review plan prepared by the corps in 2013 for the compensating works study. When lake levels jumped in the 1970s and ’80s, the plans for compensating works on the St. Clair River were placed on the back burner. But more than a decade of below-average lake levels in Lakes Superior and Michigan-Huron — Lakes Michigan and Huron often are considered one large lake — have brought the issue to the forefront again. Kompoltowicz said Lake Michigan-Huron reached record lows in December 2012 — 576.15 feet above sea level — and in January 2013 — 576.02 feet above sea level. The January 2013 record low was about 2.36 feet below January average levels. Kompoltowicz said levels in the lower lakes — Lake St. Clair, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, which would presumably benefit from an increased flow through the St. Clair River — have fluctuated through the years, but never for a sustained period like Lakes Superior and Michigan-Huron. “Lakes Superior and Michigan-Huron have been consistently below long-term average for the past 15 years,” Kompoltowicz said. “That’s the longest sustained period of below-average levels for Lakes Superior and Michigan-Huron since 1918.” The corps will address permanent decreases in levels caused by dredging. Kompoltowicz said evaporation and the lack of runoff and precipitation have contributed to lower lake levels over the years. The heavy snow and ice cover this winter has helped to increase levels, he said. This winter’s extreme cold and heavy ice coverage have helped to increase those levels to nearly average levels in Lake Superior. “The current forecast for Lake Superior shows it about an inch above average in March,” Kompoltowicz said. “If that happens, it’d be the first time it’d be above average since April 1998.” The outflow from Lake Superior is regulated, but Kompoltowicz said conditions on Lake Michigan-Huron can influence that outflow. “If Lake Superior is closer to its long-term average than Lakes Michigan-Huron, the outflow will be higher,” Kompoltowicz said. Frank Bevacua, a spokesman for the International Joint Commission, said the commission recommended in 2013 the American and Canadian governments study compensating works in the St. Clair River Bevacua said the recommendation stemmed from the International Upper Great Lakes Study that took place from 2007 to 2012. He said the board that conducted the study advised against multi-lake regulation, such as compensation works in the lower Great Lakes, but did not make a recommendation for or against compensation works in the St. Clair River. Bevacua said the IJC made that recommendation based on the study. “We recommended that the governments undertake an investigation to restore Lakes Michigan-Huron by 5 to 10 inches,” Bevacua said. “The IJC supports any steps towards implementing our recommendation, but we’re waiting for a response from the governments of the United States and Canada to those April 15 recommendations.” Port Huron Times Herald
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:40:15 +0000
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