The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Erosion a constant on Lake Erie shore
The battle between water and land plays out every day along the 312 miles of Lake Erie shoreline in Ohio.
As anyone who lives, works or plays on the southern shore of the lake will attest, erosion is the product of that collision of natural forces.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management, created in 2002 and based in Sandusky, deals with this issue through its Lake Erie Shore Erosion Management Plan.
Brenda Culler, public information officer of the ODNR Office of Coastal Management, said the agency collects data about erosion on the shoreline and proves technical assistance on erosion control to property owners, cities, villages, townships, park boards, conservancy districts and businesses located on the shore.
“Erosion is a naturally occurring process and part of the lake environment,” Culler said during a telephone interview.
The Office of Coastal Management publishes the Ohio Coastal Design Manual to keep constant tabs on changes to the shoreline caused by erosion. That manual offers strategies for combating erosion that lean on natural rather than artificial means of reducing the wear and tear on shorelines by waves and currents.
Culler said the agency allows for differences in the way the lake’s waters interact with land along the shore by sectioning the Lake Erie coast into 10 regions.
Those regions, with two-letter designations, are: MP, Marblehead Bay to Lake Erie Islands; SB, Sandusky Bay; CV, Cedar Point to Vermillion River; VC, Vermillion River to Cleveland Harbor; CH, Cleveland Harbor; BG, Bratenahl to Grand River; EL, Grand River to Lake County line; and AC, Ashtabula County.
Each of those regions is broken down according to “reaches,” or lengths of shoreline where conditions lend themselves to similar patterns of erosion.
Lake Erie’s water level is a major contributor to rates of erosion, Culler said. That level now is 573 feet above sea level, up from the average of 571.85 feet measured from 1918 to 2015.
“Periods of high water level create skinnier beaches along the lake shore,” Culler said.
The impact of erosion also varies according to topography. Flatter land abutting the lake in the west basin is less prone to undermining than in the east basin where bluffs ranging from 15 to 45 feet are especially vulnerable.
Whether the bluffs are comprised mainly of clay or rock plays into rates of erosion. It takes longer for the pounding of waves to move and break down rock and cause collapsing of the bluff.
ODNR has accessed data measuring Lake Erie shoreline erosion gathered from as far back at the mid-19th century. Measurements by county between 1877 and 1990 show Lake County losing 160 feet during that span. The Sandusky Bay region of Erie, Sandusky and Ottawa Counties lost 240 feet. Other losses were 82 feet for Ashtabula County, 80 for Lorain County and 60 for Cuyahoga County.
The most common forms of man-made erosion control along the Lake Erie Shoreline are off-shore breakwalls and on-shore aggregations of concrete or stone. Lakefront property owners confronted with steady loss of the land buffer between their homes and the water, sometimes line the bluffs on their property with concrete forms to limit erosion..
Culler cautioned against installing breakwalls or placing concrete forms on bluffs without consulting an expert on erosion control.
“These structures are ineffective unless they’re done with an engineering plan,” she said. “Unless the materials used are the right sizes and shapes in the right places, they can actually increase erosion. There is a science to properly built erosion control.”
Culler said ODNR offers erosion control engineering advice to lakefront property owners free of charge.
To learn more about efforts to combat erosion on Lake Erie, visit coastal. ohiodnr.gov/erosion. The office can be reached at 419-626-7980.