Politicians talk about “kitchen table” issues. This one’s a backyard issue.
Hundreds of families from Minnesota to New York have watched as monster waves erode their yards, flood their homes, and in some cases, destroy their infrastructure entirely because the Great Lakes have hit their highest level ever.
In Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, an eight-hour storm on Lake Michigan took out more than 40 feet of Charlotte and Rudolf Brengel’s backyard last month, stopping just 10 feet short of the Brengels’ septic pipes. “If there’s another big storm, we’re going to be finished,” Charlotte Brengel said.
The elevated lake levels are the result of wetter winter months in the Midwest, according to Lauren Fry, a hydrology expert with the Army Corps of Engineers’s Detroit District. Fry predicted that Lakes Michigan and Huron could continue to grow by about 4 to 7 inches each month between now and July.
Already, the water-level records have cost Minnesota and Wisconsin more than $30 million each. Illinois officials similarly estimate that the storms have caused $37 million worth of damage to lakeside trails, boardwalks, and other property.
That doesn’t include the personal cost hundreds of property owners must now face. And they’re receiving little help from state officials, according to Schuyler Suydam, a commercial pilot who lives near Lake Michigan. “The prevailing feeling is we are all a bunch of rich people if we live on the water, and we should all know better,” he said.
So for help, folks are looking at Canada. Canada controls several dams along Lake Superior that release 42,000 gallons of water every second into the lakes. U.S. homeowners hope that by temporarily halting the dams’ hydropower systems, Canada could help prevent further damage from occurring.
This might not do much, according to Lyndsay Miller, spokeswoman for Ontario Power Generation, which operates the dams, because the dams’ discharges are a “relatively small contributor to the water level on the Great Lakes,” she explained.
But every inch counts. “God affects the lakes in a matter of feet. Humans affect them in inches,” explained Roger Gauthier, a retired hydrologist for the Corps. “But when you are dealing with these extremes, inches make a big difference.”
Helpless to battle the Great Lakes, Midwestern property owners are instead turning their attention to the next best arbiter of power: their governments. People are frustrated, said Don Olendorf, who is on the board of the Lake Michigan Shore Association, because they’re watching their homes crumble, and no one seems to care. “We are getting hammered pretty good,” he said. “Those of us who have the resources to protect ourselves can, but those who don’t are screwed.”
