LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dredging, Locks Remedy Symptoms, But Don't Fix Problem
To the Editor:

Last month, Congress passed a large water projects bill. I was pleased to see that there are Great Lakes projects included in that legislation. I am, however, very disappointed to read what those projects are:

1. dredging projects, and

2. an additional lock at the Soo.

It seems to me that those projects react to the real problem facing the upper lakes - low water. If the water level in the upper Great Lakes continues to decline, commercial shipping will be further restricted, requiring more and more dredging to a point where it is no longer effective.

Much has been written about the work done by our neighbors in the Georgian Bay Association to find a cause of and solution to the low water problem. Their consultant, Baird & Associates, believes the problem is caused, in large part, by the deepening of the shipping channel leading into Lake St. Clair. This has caused and ever-accelerating flow out of Lake Huron. Baird also believes that by placing structures in the shipping channel, below the dept that will restrict shipping, this outward flow reduced to its natural rate.

The dredging and lock projects may, in the short term, benefit commercial shipping, but they do nothing for the hundreds of thousands of people using the thousands of miles of Michigan shoreline impacted by low water.

Just look at the Les Cheneaux area. Here marinas are in danger of not being able to launch and service boats, our bays are silting up and becoming week clogged, navigation is restricted, and the natural channels between islands are disappearing, reducing the healthy flow of water in and out of Les Cheneaux. Government Island and Big LaSalle Island, once separated by a channel, are now one island. The Lake Huron entrance to Bosley Channel that separates Big LaSalle from Little LaSalle islands is almost closed. The environmental, economic, and public health impacts of these changes are significant. This is only one small area along the thousands of miles of the Lake Michigan and Lake Huron shoreline.

I believe it would cost far less money to implement the Baird recommendations than to fund the projects in the recent Federal water projects legislation, and the result would address the problem, not remedy the symptoms.

Jack Edwards

Cedarville