Great Lakes water levels to rise in 2020, threatening Michigan's state parks

LANSING — Water is rising along Michigan's prized Great Lakes shoreline, shrinking beaches, eroding dunes, flooding campgrounds, costing millions. 

2019 was bad and 2020 is expected to be worse.

That means dunes are crumbling into the water, boat launches are submerged, trails are flooded, campgrounds are closed, buildings need to be moved. 

Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park among sites seeing erosion and flooding 

The impact high water has on Michigan's state parks is not a simple distillation of costs, closures and weather patterns for Ron Olson, chief of the Department of Natural Resources Parks and Recreation Division. 

High water affects how millions of visitors use beaches, trails and campgrounds at dozens of lakeside parks across Michigan. Olson is so involved in the department's response at each of the state's slices of coastline, every one of his examples flows into the next.

Start up north, where Lake Superior threatens to overtake the entrance to Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, a remote and treasured corner of the western Upper Peninsula. Without County Road 107, say goodbye to the park's largest campground and access to the popular Lake of the Clouds.

Speaking of flooding, Olson might recall the department closing the Harrisville State Park campground on Lake Huron, or canceling advance reservations at Muskegon State Park's Channel Campground on Lake Michigan, which likely will remain waterlogged next year.

About closures — Olson estimates it will take millions of dollars to repair the trail system in Houghton County, which flooded during a storm in 2018 and still is not fully reopen.

Millions, he said, like the amount it could cost to protect the dunes at Orchard Beach State Park on Lake Michigan from eroding into the water, depending on what distance they decide to protect.

"It's a lot of pieces and parts that we have to deal with," Olson said. "We can only do so much."

The swollen Great Lakes have shrunk beaches and closed campgrounds, boat launches and trails, limiting options for state park visitors and threatening to reduce revenue from entrance and camping fees.

The cost of protecting parks from the rising water ticks near or above the DNR's annual budget for capital repairs.

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And the Great Lakes are projected to keep rising in spring 2020. It's unclear what to expect after that.

"The violent storms and the rainfalls and all of that has really combined together to create this situation where it looks like we’re sailing into uncharted territory with the highs and perhaps lows," Olson said.

Repairs could cost up to $30 million

State park workers have seen costs rise along with water levels.

They spent nearly $2 million tearing down and rebuilding the Muskallonge State Park headquarters because a dune underneath the original one was eroding into Lake Superior.

They spent about $4.1 million moving a sewer line and rebuilding flooded campground facilities at McLain State Park as the rising water crept 18 feet inland. There's more than $1 million of work left to do.

And there was the $900,000 spent on a shoreline erosion study for Orchard Beach, which concluded the DNR would have to spend between $1 million and $4 million protecting the park and its Civilian Conservation Corps-built pavilion from Lake Michigan's rising waters.

Parks officials estimate it would cost from $10 million to over $30 million to fully respond to the damage wrought by high water, at least as of early December. Olson cautioned the number will evolve as new damage reports roll in, like those from Holland State Park, which experienced storm surges over Thanksgiving weekend. 

"We don't have time to waste screwing around," Olson said. "We're going to have to maneuver our revenues around. We may have to delay some other projects that are of lesser importance to make room for these, depending on how critical they are."

The high estimate of $30-plus million in repairs represents 1.5 years of the Michigan state parks system's normal $20 million capital budget, funded by recreation pass sales and the state park endowment.

In 2013, when water levels were extremely low and harbors rendered unusable, the DNR received a roughly $11 million emergency appropriation from the state's general fund to pay for dredging.

Olson said the department hasn't asked the legislature for a similar influx of emergency cash, although officials have "made it known that these emergencies are coming up."

A bipartisan group of legislators delivered a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Dec. 5, asking her to declare a state of emergency along the state's shoreline because of high water levels and erosion.

They said the damage "is truly heartbreaking," and could be reduced with the additional resources available through an emergency declaration.

"Homes have literally fallen into the lake, tremendous damage has been done at some state parks, roads have been closed because they are unsafe to drive on and businesses have had to close or have been severely affected by wind-driven water," they wrote.

Great Lakes water levels could reach new record highs as early as February 

The Great Lakes surged to record-high water levels in 2019, the result of consistently wet weather adding water to the basin and repeated years of "polar vortex" arctic air swooping in to freeze the lakes and limit evaporation.

They are likely to get even higher in 2020, according to the lake level forecast published Dec. 6 by the Army Corps of Engineers' Detroit District office.

It's too early to say what will happen next summer, the season lake levels typically peak, but the winter forecast is in: Lakes Michigan and Huron will start 2020 many inches higher than they started 2019.

"We were already high to start last year," said Keith Kompoltowicz, Detroit District chief of watershed hydrology. "Starting 2020 higher than we started 2019 does bring record-highs into play in the winter. It looks like record highs are possible for the months of February and March."

Winter weather in the Great Lakes region will affect summer lake levels, said Drew Gronewold, hydrologist and associate professor at the University of Michigan.

Water levels are determined by an atmospheric game of tug-of-war, he explained. Precipitation is in one corner, evaporation in the other.

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Limited precipitation and warm weather would mean lower levels, as little water would flow in and a lot would evaporate. Lots of snow and extreme cold — the kind that freezes lakes and halts evaporation — would push levels higher.

That is what happened since 2014, when the Great Lakes surged after reaching extreme lows.

"Precipitation won the tug-of-war for several years, and that's where we are right now," Gronewold said.

Climate change fuels fluctuating water levels

Changing climate is disrupting weather patterns and fueling both sides of the precipitation-evaporation game.

That means both sides are getting stronger, Gronewold said.

And it means the future of Great Lakes levels is unclear.

Gronewold pointed to the lakes' fluctuations since 1998, when they started a dramatic decline that ended with record-low levels in 2013. Some lakeside residents lobbied for permanent structures to slow water flowing from Lake Huron to Lake Erie. 

Six years later, the lakes hit record highs.

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"That 20-year transition... is something we really haven't seen before in the historical record," Gronewold said. "I think it reflects the way precipitation and evaporation are changing across the whole Great Lakes system."

 A warmer climate allows the atmosphere to store more water, which means more can be sucked into the air and more can drop to the ground.

Weather patterns indicate the shift has started. Annual precipitation has increased in the Great Lakes region by 13.6% since 1951, according to climate research from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.

More of it is falling during severe storms — precipitation released during the most severe 1% of storms increased by 35% between 1951 and 2017.

Communities should start preparing for a future with more fluctuation as they react to high water levels creeping toward houses and roads, Gronewold said. 

"There's an opportunity to learn and take the understanding of why water levels go up and down and try to incorporate that into good coastal planning decisions," he said. "How can we take what we're seeing and make good or better long-term planning decisions regarding how we interact with the shoreline?"

Namely, what is a safe distance to build homes, roads and other structures from the Great Lakes shores?

Flooding from a Belle Isle storm nearly closed its island park

Consider Belle Isle.

"Hellacious" storms battered the popular island park in Detroit for weeks last summer, Olson said, nearly flooding its electrical and sewer systems and threatening to shutter it altogether. Crews put sandbags around the junction station that sends power through the park to protect it.

The department is looking for preventative ways to avoid a flood in 2020.

"It came real close last summer," Olson said. "We're going to have to build berms around that [electrical] junction area, build it up somehow."

He doesn't know what it will cost, but he knows it has to be done now.

More:Record-shattering Great Lakes water levels could be even higher in 2020

As the climate changes and severe storms become more normal, infrastructure designed to old standards could be overtaken by increased flooding, winds and waves, Olson said. The impacts of high water coupled with severe storms could bring unprecedented storm surges, flooding, heavy rain and snow. 

"Part of this problem is a lot of stuff was designed on those kinds of [outdated] metrics," he said. "When you have the water start to exceed that, that creates a lot of other problems."

Facing tough decisions, 'we want to do this right'

Olson's gestures convey the impact high water levels have had on Michigan's public parks as much as his words.

Right hand swoops up — that's the cost of moving campgrounds, protecting shorelines, rebuilding trails.

Left drops — the bluffside headquarters at Muskallonge State Park that would have fallen into Lake Superior had crews not torn it down.

Fingers brace above creased forehead — which projects will the DNR table to pay for emergency responses to rising waters?

Decisions about how to react to high water will cost millions and forever change the state's shoreline.

Literally, at least at the Porcupine Mountains, where the department and Ontonagon County Road Commission spent $782,000, with about $300,000 from the department and $482,000 from the commission, placing boulders along Lake Superior to prevent water from overtaking County Road 107.

Now, there are three options:

Officials could spend $4 million armoring the shoreline with more permanent rocks and risk destroying its natural look. They could spend $12 million moving the road away from the water and allowing the water to move inland. Or, they could wait and see if the temporary barrier holds until Lake Superior recedes.

It's one tough choice of many. 

"We want to do this right," Olson said. "We don't want to end up having stuff that looks bad. Because someday the water will recede."

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Contact Carol Thompson at (517) 377-1018 or ckthompson@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @thompsoncarolk.