EAGER TO HEAD BACK TO THE LAKEFRONT?
A rising Lake Michigan — near the historic high water mark — awaits.
Nicole Gradford, bare feet in the sand at the 63rd Street Beach, gazed at the turquoise waters of Lake Michigan as waves rolled toward the shore, kissing the land and crashing into the stone embankment shielding the Lakefront Trail. The water, she noticed, has been creeping higher for months. The beach is smaller. A shoreline path south of the beach house near Jackson Park and South Lake Shore Drive is often flooded and impassable. “With all of the rain we’ve had and the water levels so high, it’s taken its toll,” said Gradford, who frequently walks from her nearby home to the lakefront for reflection and relaxation.
Scientific data confirms what Gradford and other Chicagoans have been experiencing firsthand since before the coronavirus restrictions officially shut down the lakefront this spring: Water levels are about as high as they have been in a lifetime.
The lake is nearly 3 feet higher than usual for early summer and approaching the historical high, set in October 1986, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the official records for all of the Great Lakes.
As Chicagoans return to the lakefront and the 18-mile Lakefront Trail, which officially reopens in most areas Monday, they will notice waves lapping onto flooded pathways, disappearing beaches, submerged breakwaters and stone revetments unable to hold back the pulsating water.
“If people haven’t been back to the beach or their favorite spot in a while, it may be very different with erosion or a lot less beach,” said John Allis, the Army Corps’ chief of the Great Lakes hydraulics and hydrology office, based out of the Detroit District. “Conditions can be very different on the coastline than people may be used to in the past.”
The water level on Lake Michigan, which is measured with Lake Huron since the two connect at the Straits of Mackinac,
has set a monthly high mean record each month this year, with the June record nearly assured to fall in a few weeks. The lake, at midmonth, is 5 inches higher than its highest monthly average of record for June.
Scientists are projecting the level to fall just short of the all-time record, unless the final weeks of June and July turn particularly wet. The Lake Michigan water level is forecast to peak for the year in mid-July, Allis said, about 1 inch below the 1986 high water mark.
Shoreline investments
Two miles north of where Gradford enjoyed a few moments of solitude, construction contractors with steamrollers, a backhoe and a giant crane installed armor stone and precast concrete blocks to protect the shoreline from erosion near Morgan Shoal. Work at the site began this month and may continue into July if additional funding from the city of Chicago is approved, the Army Corps said.
The Chicago Shoreline Storm Damage Protection projects are joint endeavors between the Army Corps, the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Department of Transportation.
Near the fenced-off construction zone close to 48th Street, waves crashed into the rocky shore, sending sprays of water into the air. Behind the broken concrete and boulders lining the water, waves have pushed underneath the rocks and slammed over them, leaving behind an assortment of tangled roots and tree stumps, dirt and debris.
Mike Vandersteen, mayor of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and the new chairman of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a coalition of U.S. and Canadian mayors that focuses on Great Lakes issues, is pushing for funding for more such projects up and down the lakeshore.
Vandersteen, who began his role this month, said the federal government should be considering stimulus funding for water infrastructure and coastal restoration projects in the Great Lakes region. Those projects would include shoreline stabilization, flood prevention measures and upgraded sewer and freshwater systems affected by rising lakes and surging storms. Such projects, Vandersteen said, take on added importance because of the economic ramifications of the coronavirus shutdowns.
“We need to make our shorelines more resilient and able to withstand high water and erosion, and also help people get back to work,” Vandersteen said.
The Great Lakes mayors group estimates coastal flooding and record high water levels caused more than $500 million in damages to cities in the region within the last year. Local governments are spending $800 million on projects, but $365 million is needed for the future, the group says.
‘It’s underwater’
The high water levels can be seen up and down Chicago’s shoreline. Near Belmont Harbor, the path for walkers and joggers that skirts the inner part of the harbor was partially covered with water on Monday. Runners dodged water or splashed gingerly on their way. Nearby, a section of the trail was blocked with barricades and a bright yellow warning sign: “Caution Undermining Erosion.”
The Belmont Harbor Dog Beach was almost entirely submerged, with only a small spit of sand available for dogs and their owners. “It’s gone,” one woman mentioned to her companion as they walked past, “It’s underwater.”
On the peninsula at the southern edge of the harbor, seagulls danced with the waves on the lowest level of the concrete revetment lining the lakefront. Teens tempted fate at the water’s edge and groups of bicyclists watched as the lake spilled onto the tiered steps.
Karina Freer dipped her bare feet into the cool pools of water, laughing with a friend.
“I think Mother Nature has a way of doing things,” said Freer, 41, who lives near Diversey Parkway and Racine Avenue. “If she wants it to be high, she’s got a reason for it. It all just balances out.”
Freer, who called the water “my happy place — and to say that is a total understatement, it’s a love of mine,” was among the many people who visited the lakefront even though it will not officially open until next week. Police officers monitored the shoreline, barriers and cones blocked sections of the trail and traffic officers prevented vehicles from accessing some parking lots, but the waterfront was accessible to those who ventured out.
“I love it,” said Freer, a swimmer and triathlete. “Just to feel the water again.”
A quick bicycle ride to the south of the reconstruction work near Morgan Shoal, Adale Taylor, 18, and his cousin, Shaniqunika Taylor, 27, took pictures with their cellphones at Promontory
Point as the water pushed its way over the bottom step of the tiered wall that protects the peninsula.
Adale Taylor, who lives near 69th Street, often visits the lakefront to relax and contemplate. He said he has never seen the water level so high. Shaniqunika Taylor recently moved to Chicago from Flint, Michigan, and the Promontory Point excursion was her first time visiting the lakefront.
“The water sound is relaxing,” she said, “just to get away for a while.”
Milder winters, more rain
Scientists say a confluence of factors has contributed to the high water: recent record precipitation complete with drenching downpours, milder winters and warming overall temperatures throughout the Midwest.
Heavy rains in the spring and summer of 2019 raised lake levels, setting the table for the record highs of 2020.
Warmer temperatures mean fewer blasts of cold air, less ice cover and lessthan-normal evaporation since cool surface water is a driver of evaporation, said Lauren Fry, a physical scientist with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research
Laboratory.
“Climate factors,” Fry said, “are the primary drivers of water levels.”
Human activity is changing the planet’s climate faster than at any time in modern civilization, heralding costly and, in some cases, lifethreatening consequences, scientists concluded in a comprehensive 2018 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For every 1 degree of warming, the atmosphere can hold 4% more water vapor that can turn into precipitation. As the planet warms and additional moisture sticks in the air, we could see more frequent and stronger storms.
The high water also comes only seven years after the lake was at its lowest level in January 2013, showing how conditions have been swinging from one extreme to the other in as little as three years.
The five-year period between June 2015 and this summer has been the wettest in the Great Lakes basin since 1895, according to statistics compiled by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
Runoff from four states and one Canadian province also add to the water levels of the Lake Michigan-Lake Huron basin.
The huge volume of water that flows through the basin into the lake means the fluctuation of levels takes time, Fry said, and is not necessarily captured by seasonal forecasts or monthly changes, happening instead over multiple years.
Changed landscapes
The rising water is more than just an inconvenience to Chicago-area serenity seekers looking for fresh air and open space during a pandemic. Shoreline flooding and erosion have caused millions of dollars of damage up and down the coast. Beaches have vanished, lakeside ecosystems have been altered and the very nature of the lake itself has changed.
Churning waves have clawed at the shoreline all around Lake Michigan, from the beaches and marshland at Illinois Beach State Park, near the Wisconsin border, to the dunes and sandy bluffs along the west Michigan coast. Docks and piers are underwater, roads have been washed out and shoreline homes and businesses are at risk of being washed away or falling into the lake.
The Coast Guard warned boaters of high water’s effect on clearances at the lake’s harbors and marinas, especially underpasses below bridges.
“Where you may have been able to fit even a month ago, now they may clip the top of their vessel,” said Lt. Phillip Gurtler, with Sector Lake Michigan based in Milwaukee.
The high water also means rocks closer to shore, normally visible, may be underwater, and piers and breakwaters may be damaged or hard to spot, Gurtler said.
The recent high water level also is contributing to sustained habitat loss in coastal areas such as dunes, dune grasslands and nearby wetlands beyond beaches, said Ethan Theuerkauf, a coastal geomorphologist and assistant professor in the geography, environment and spatial sciences department at Michigan State University who has extensively studied the Lake Michigan shore.
“In addition to the beaches we’re also losing a lot of ecology, habitat and ecosystems,” Theuerkauf said.
At Illinois Beach in Lake County, where Theuerkauf continues research work, high lake levels combined with recent storms have changed the landscape of the undulating coastal wetlands, marshes and grasslands. Essentially, storms buried portions of the wetlands beyond the dune ridges.
“The waves were just a bulldozer moving the sand that was on the beach backward,” Theuerkauf said.
In addition to sustained erosion of the land near the water, higher lake levels are contributing to the changing nature of the lake bed near the shore. Sand is pulsed out of the beaches and bluffs, creating new shoals and sandbars farther out into the lake, he said.
And when bluffs erode, Theuerkauf said, “they’re gone.”
“It’s a one-way street with bluffs and their associated habitats,” he said.
Habitat destruction, he emphasized, is more than just the loss of homes to geologically significant wetlands, but to land that stores carbon that helps combat climate change, provides breeding ground and homes to turtles, waterfowl and birds such as the piping plover.
While the lake is not projected to break the alltime high record this summer, autumn storms may again push the lake even higher and threaten coastlines anew, scientists said. Even when the lake cycles back to near-normal levels, many of the ramifications to the natural landscape will be permanent.
“The coastal setting will never be exactly the same when the water goes back down to as it was before these highs,” Theuerkauf said. “Every high that we experience changes the nature of the coast. It’s an evolution through time.”