Chicago Tribune: May 25, 2013
by Jennifer Delgado
Usually by this time of the year, Mary Avellone’s light blue sailboat is floating beside a couple dozen other vessels at the Jackson Park Outer Harbor on the city’s South Side.
But Avellone sees only a handful of boats in the water these days. Low lake levels combined with a pileup of sand forced a few of her neighbors to dock at other marinas. Others are waiting out the problems and haven’t dropped their boats in at all, she said.
“We’re very upset about it,” said Avellone, 65, a boater since she was 7 years old. “People do spend quite a bit of money to have the pleasure of having their boat there.”
With boating and beach season kicking into gear this holiday weekend, harbors and beaches along Lake Michigan are still reeling from the effects of last year’s drought, which sent lake levels dipping to a historical low in January.
Recent spring storms lifted levels but also pushed more sand near the water’s edge.
The combination of drifting sand and receding water has created conditions good and bad along the shoreline, from expanded beaches with more room for sunbathing to low water depths that pose dangers for boats.
“Hopefully the situation will get better, but who knows,” said Scott Baumgartner, commodore of the Chicago Yachting Association, who can’t remember the water standing so low. “The whole thing hinges on our hope that the water levels don’t continue to drop.”
Water levels in Lakes Michigan and Huron have been below average for 14 years, a result of milder winters, drier springs and a spike in evaporation.
Even though levels are slowly climbing, the lake is 22 inches below the long-term average, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
That has helped the sandy beaches in Wilmette expand by roughly 5 feet over the last several years.
To manage the larger beach, the park district has tripled the size of its patrol staff to monitor the growing southern end, making sure people follow policies that prohibit tents, alcohol and swimming in areas without a lifeguard, said Kathy Bingham, the district’s recreation superintendent.
“It’s just the nature of having a beautiful park and a lakefront. … It’s going to attract a lot of people,” Bingham said. “That’s what we deal with in the summer.”
Nearby beaches in Winnetka and Evanston have also grown since the 1990s as sand from farther north lands on the lakefront.
Winnetka will test water levels for the next few weeks to gauge any effects on recreation. Heavy April rains boosted the water level there by nearly 2 feet in less than a month, making it possible to open a popular boat launch in time for Memorial Day festivities.
Beaches have also grown along the Indiana Dunes, where officials estimate 2 feet of sand have been added to the western end of the popular destination over the past year.
Waukegan has seen so much sand accumulate on its beaches that it wants to give some to sand-starved beaches in Lake Bluff and North Chicago.
But paying $17,000 for a state-mandated environmental test of the sand may be cost-prohibitive, said Jon Shabica of Shabica & Associates, which is working with six lakefront communities on shore protection and coastal restoration.
Meanwhile in Chicago, retreating water is affecting boaters and beachgoers.
While beaches have swelled over the years, a dozen or so boats have moved because of shallow water to deeper spots like 31st Street Harbor, which opened last spring. A few boat launch ramps and slips are unusable and being renovated because of low lake levels.
Southern marinas along the Chicago lakefront have been affected the most by the receding water. Some larger boats trying to get into harbors at 59th Street and Jackson Park Outer struggle to make it through.
To remove the sand and natural silt at Jackson Park Outer, workers dredged the area for two weeks this month, an almost annual ritual, said Scott Stevenson, executive vice president of Westrec Marinas, the company that manages the Chicago Park District’s 10 harbors.
Low lake levels exacerbate the harbor’s existing issues with sand that comes from the north and south and accumulates in the entrance.
“We’re exploring options for long-term solutions, like building a breakwater out into the lake that would prevent sand from coming into the harbor and make it unnecessary to dredge every year,” Stevenson said.
Typically, lake levels follow a seasonal pattern, rising in the spring months from melted snow and rain until they reach a peak in middle to late summer and then begin falling as water evaporates.
But how much the lake rises and falls changes from year to year, said Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Detroit District.
A shift to dry conditions in the late 1990s produced a 1999-2000 winter that yielded very little snow in the Great Lakes basin, leaving a small amount of water to run off into the lakes, he said.
The levels haven’t rebounded. Adding to the problem was an abnormally warm winter at the end of 2011 across the Great Lakes region followed by a dry spring last year. Then a hot, arid summer led to above-average evaporation that continued into last fall.
This past January, Lake Michigan levels reached 576.02 feet, the lowest recorded for that month since the agency started keeping records in 1918. The level has risen 13 inches so far and is projected to climb up by 5 more inches by early August.
“We are in a different regime of weather because of climate,” said Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest program. “There are a range of things being affected by this.”Lower lake levels mean that the potential for dangers and damage to boats lurks in unseen places.
Concrete blocks and other large objects sitting at the bottom of the lake are closer to the bottoms of boats. And vessels navigating near walls along the shore are finding the area doesn’t have enough depth.
“The problem hasn’t resolved itself by any stretch,” said the Chicago Yachting Association’s Baumgartner. “Yes, indeed, there has been a very slight rise in the levels — but it’s not enough to remedy the problem in full. It’s going to take several years of normal weather to get us back to where we should be.”
For Avellone, who believes maintenance is to blame for her harbor’s problems, the lake levels and silt are more than just an irritation. They may be reason for her frustrated neighbors with larger boats to sail to other marinas.
“Harbors are like neighborhoods,” she said. “It really disturbs the sense of community in the harbors that have been neglected for so many years while they spent all this money building 31st (Street Harbor.)”