Great Lakes advocates: Hole draining 9.5 billion litres of water a day

Originally posted by Rhain
Lake Superior continues it's low level trend. The month of August has recorded the lowest ever for the lake.

I love how the green jean crowd always read and quote only the parts they think make their point. You left out this very important part it is not an all time low DUH





[edit on 9/30/2007 by shots]

I live near the St. Clair River in Port Huron and go fishing there all the time. I aslo have a friend that is a certified diver that dives on the river.

Where Lake Huron meets the St Clair River it is the fastest current in the great lakes system the river can reach up to 9 knots at the mouth.

They dredged the center of river so ships could pass through it thus making the river deeper in the middle. The river and current is eroding the shipping lane that they dredged. Making it wider and deeper alowing more water to drain out of the upper lake system faster.

I've been out there in a boat and seen how deep it gets with a sonar unit. My friend that is a diver also has told me about it about it.

The first 50 yard from the shore out in the river is on average 20ft deep then it drops straight of to 80-100 ft. That drop off and deep section of the river is getting wider and deeper alowing more water to move through it.

What I wonder is where is the sedament and river bottom going? is it getting washed into lake st clair? Or is it being halled out on barges by dredging.

Trust me people its not a hole that is sucking water to the center of the earth.

reply to post by shots


If you have read all my entries here you will note that I live in the hub of the Great Lakes, I see the low levels. I am not a green jean as you put it. I am just letting everyone see for themselves what is going on. Goulais Bay's shore line was once deep enough to tie your boat up at shore on your dock. Now we drive our cars out into the middle of the bay where the boat is anchored.

By all means read your charts and reports. I will report what I see.

Originally posted by wantsome
Trust me people its not a hole that is sucking water to the center of the earth.

I agree, its like a pot hole getting deeper and wider. Same as when I was a child and playing in puddles. Creating channels to drain one puddle into another.

We have one huge puddle drainer on our hands.

I've been reading lake levels across the world have been on the decrease. I live close to Erie. There have been cyclical increases and decreases, docks unusable to low levels, marine repair busy repairing props destroyed by boaters going into shallows they have always been able to boat before. A few decades of study will be needed to be conclusive. I just don't like these new algae blooms and reports of brain killing amoebas due to higher lake temps, to me it is a concern.

Originally posted by Rhain
I am just letting everyone see for themselves what is going on.

Sorry but I have not seen that especially when you claimed one lake had reached an all time new low which your own article clearly showed that was exageration on your part, which too me at least indicates you may well be a green jeans player.

Goulais Bay's shore line was once deep enough to tie your boat up at shore on your dock. Now we drive our cars out into the middle of the bay where the boat is anchored.

Well golly molly the very same can be said for parts of the fox river, mother nature acts in strange ways or haven't you noticed?

By all means read your charts and reports. I will report what I see.

Well at least my charts ae backed up with roughly 140 years of data.

How many years of data do you have?





[edit on 10/1/2007 by shots]

reply to post by shots


I am passing on information that is presented to us locally here. When reports such as this one from today stating new record low levels then I pass it on here. This is a headline for today.

The level of Lake Superior remains below its chart datum level.

A new record low monthly mean level was set for September, at 183.02 m. (600.46 feet) - the previous record low September level was 183.12 m (600.79 feet) set in 1926.

You can come to your own conclusions.

Thanks

Source

Originally posted by Rhain

This is a headline for today.

Yeah and right below it it states

"Note that this is not an all-time record low, which is 182.72 m. set in April 1926 (approximately 30 cm or a foot lower than the current level)."

Source

Originally posted by wantsome
They dredged the center of river so ships could pass through it thus making the river deeper in the middle. The river and current is eroding the shipping lane that they dredged. Making it wider and deeper allowing more water to drain out of the upper lake system faster.

When did they start the dredging for the deeper drafts in earnest? Maybe that corresponds to the the phenomena being reported. Seems logical that we could have started a snowball going down a mountain effect by our actions there.

reply to post by pavil


The dredging was done in 1962. See my post on page one of this thread for a link that has some history.

reply to post by shots


I am sorry shots but trying to dispute the fact the water is going down is not going to stop the fact that it is.

Will it recover or continue no one knows. I will continue to post changes here whether you approve or not.

I am still baffled that you choose to argue here, when fact is the water is going down.

Have a great night.

[edit on 4/10/07 by Rhain]

reply to post by Rhain


I was not arguing the fact the water may be at a low level, I was denying your ignorance when you claimed it ws at an all time low which it IS NOT.

Originally posted by Rhain
Lake Superior continues it's low level trend.

The month of August has recorded the lowest ever for the lake.

[edit on 10/5/2007 by shots]

reply to post by shots



I agree with you, shots. The lowest ever is still a record for 1926.

The all-time record low was 182.72 metres above sea level in April 1926; the all-time high was 183.91 metres set in October 1985.

www.canada.com...

Having said that, though, there has been a lack of water supplying the Great Lakes Basin;

Precipitation has tapered off across the upper Great Lakes since the 1970s and is nearly 15 centimetres below normal in the Superior watershed the past year. Water evaporation rates are up sharply because mild winters have shrunk the winter ice cap — just as climate change computer models predict for the next half-century.

www.theglobeandmail.com...

This summer was particularly dry in Ontario, so there is a good chance that the record may be broken if the fall brings a continued dry spell. Add to that a mild winter with a lack of snowfall and we can be sure of a problem with harbours, etc.

We'll know by March.

reply to post by masqua


I agree with everything you said and my point was never to deny this year is dry. What I would really like to see is the figures taken the very first time way back when they started in the 1860s allegedly so we could compare them to this year.

Droughts or periods of them is nothing new and will continue through all ages no matter what man does. Vice versa everyone gets periods of rain where there is more then usual, that just happened here only a few hundred miles south of Duluth flooding many communites that had not seen amounts of rain like that for 75 years.

I was just down at the Moira Canal, (Trent Severn Waterway), the water level is about 2 feet below it's usual marker.

I used someones camera-phone while I was there to take this picture (e-mailed it to myself).




I was standing on the small bridge that connects the break wall segments. You can see the black ring (the original level), and you can see where it is now. The two points are about 2 feet from each other.

There are boat launch ramps that no longer go anywhere near the water...
And an awful lot of dried muscles.

Very happy to report that Lake Superior is getting back its' water levels. The gates at Sault Ste. Marie are being strictly regulated and water from the lower lakes have fed it.

We also had an abundance of rain as well, that has got to help as well.

Please read .