Our Greatest Resource Is Fresh Water
To the Editor:

It seems that, maybe as a result of some recent reports from the Canadians (the Georgian Bay Association, among others), Michiganders are becoming more cognizant and rightfully concerned about the dramatically receded water levels in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The Michigan newspapers have recently been running articles pointing out the severe effects that the near-record lows have had on the environment and trying to explain the causes for this 30-year catastrophic occurrence.

Those of us in the Straits area are well aware of how extremely low the water is in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The level in front of our house on the Straits is down a good five to six feet since the mid 80s, and we are seeing a different shoreline. Just since Labor Day, we're seeing new rocks that indicate the level is down another six inches. And who hasn't seen the high-water mark on the porch of the Boat House Restaurant in Cheboygan, indicating a drop of more than 5.5 feet since the high of 1987?

Now, if you listen to the Corps of Engineers, they will talk about the cyclical changes in the lake levels since 1860, about precipitation and evaporation, cloud cover, snowfall, run off, ice cover, man-made changes in the shorelines, population increases with urban sprawl and water consumption, and everything except their dredging of the Lake St. Clair River drain hole. The fact is that it is estimated that 2.5 billion gallons of water each and every day flow through the Lake St. Clair River, three times greater than originally estimated!

Yes, the forces of nature are the predominate factors that effect water level, but we don't have any control over the rainfall, snowfall, and cloudy days! Maybe the water level in the Great Lakes has run in 20-, 30-, or 50- year cycles, but that was without the drain hole. The Corps of Engineers created it, and they need to face up to it and correct it. Old timers remember those years before the dredging of the drain hole, ice jams that clogged up the St. Clair River and caused the water level in Lake Huron to rise substantially in the spring. Control over the water flow through the St. Clair River can be done! They don't need to make another five-year study with new technology, while Lake Michigan and Lake Huron continue to recede. There's been enough studies and research to determine what and how to fix it. Just do it!

Our nation is on the verge of a water crisis, as fresh water supplies are drying up. The city of Atlanta already has a serious water shortage. The population surrounding the Great Lakes needs our fresh water more than ever. Why, why do we continue sending 2.5 billion gallons of fresh water a day into the ocean? We're smarter than that. Don't let the bureaucracy win this one. Contact your State of Michigan and U.S. Representatives and Senators and get them all on the bandwagon to save our surrounding Great Lakes now!

W. James Chamberlain

Cheboygan