River, lake water levels high as cats’ backs

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
The Leelanau County rain gods were generous last month, bestowing gifts on the Glen Lakes and the Crystal River for all to enjoy. As a result, for the first time in years canoers and kayakers were actually able to shoot through the culverts under the county roads on the Crystal River’s path to Lake Michigan when this issue of the Glen Arbor Sun went to press.
“We’re certainly happy about the high water levels this spring,” says Matt Wiesen, who now owns the Crystal River Outfitters, located next to Riverfront Pizza in Glen Arbor. “None of our customers have dragged bottom like they have in past years.” Wiesen confirms that current water levels are high enough to carry boats through the narrow pipes under the roads, yet his outfitter business doesn’t allow it because of the potential dangers involved.

According to figures supplied by Stephen Blumer, Chief of Network Operations for the Department of the Interior’s United States Geological Survey based in Lansing, the water level of the Glen Lakes rose from 0.58 to 0.97 feet above the survey’s fixed gage level between May 10 and 24, thus reaching its highest level in May since 2001.
The high water levels are especially good news for the Dam Committee, which regulates how much water will flow through the new hi-tech dam near the corner of 675 and Dunn’s Farm Road, from the fragile Glen Lakes into the Crystal River — an unenviable task during a drought.
“I wouldn’t say we’re high, I’d say the water levels are just right,” says Mike Sutherland one of four members of the Dam Committee, which is divided evenly between residents who live on the Glen Lakes and residents on the river. “We have the perfect amount of water for going into the high summer season.”
Sutherland raves about the new dam: a set of iron gates on a cement spillway that are controlled by a cable and can tweak the amount of water flowing through them by as little as a quarter of an inch. The Dam Committee used to rely on a series of 4×4-foot boards that it would insert or remove to control water flow into the Crystal River.
Two years ago when the rain gods hardly shed a tear all summer, the Committee had to survive a high-wire balancing act, trying to please, or appease, hundreds of boat owners and sunbathers living on the Glen Lakes as well as those who enjoy the river. The Pandora’s Box led to bad blood in our little town, and prompted a court order ensuring that the surface of the lakes remain 596.75 feet above sea level
But, as Sutherland says, the court order has never spoken to the river, and only seeks to maintain the height of the Glen Lakes. “If we keep the lakes at a certain level and it doesn’t rain for a week, the river will suffer,” he says.
On the other hand, too much water could spell disaster. “If we take the lakes up to our comfort level and it rains another inch of water that night, people could lose their yards,” Sutherland added. Ditto for the river. “Too much water in the Crystal for two days would have the larval fish population just barely hanging on along the shoreline or washing into Lake Michigan. You try to avoid those big changes so things don’t get washed away.”
Luckily, these problems haven’t arisen, thus far, in 2004.
“With this new dam we’re able to manage things. But the long and short of it is that Mother Nature controls the lake level. If doesn’t rain for a week, everything will be low and both the lakes and the river will have to suffer.”