On Friday, Jan. 17, at 1:30 pm, Mark Breederland, Extension Educator for Michigan Sea Grant’s Northwest District, will give a talk about current and projected water levels in the Great Lakes at Leland Township Library. Breederland gave a similar talk in Peninsula Township in November of 2019, which drew an audience of over 100 people.
After a year of high water, seiches, and the Leland river seeping into the old wooden shanties in Fishtown, the historic village is beginning to get the makeover it needs. Before Christmas the Cheese Shanty and Morris Shanty will be lifted off their foundations and temporarily moved to the parking lot to make way for sheet metal pilings and poured foundations.
Northwest Michigan residents know when “that feel is in the air,” a sense that an epic and timeless battle between the north and south winds will soon be taking place here on the Lake Michigan coast—when “the witch of November come stealin’,” as singer Gordon Lightfoot relates in his ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.
Meet Bill Meserve and Cal Killen, two of the people responsible for managing water levels in the Glen Lakes as well as the Crystal River. Under the auspices of the Glen Lake Association (GLA), these volunteers serve on the Water Level Committee appointed to balance the needs and demands of both lake shore and river’s edge owners, as well as the businesses that depend on these stunningly beautiful and fragile water resources.
June swelled Lake Michigan by another 4 inches which is bad news for Megan Grosvenor Munoz, whose family owns and operates Manitou Island Transit. The company ferries passengers on pleasure tours to the Manitou Islands out of Leland. This spring and summer, they’ve had to cancel four or five trips, Munoz says, “because we can’t get people on South [Manitou] safely” due to water splashing over the dock on the island.”
We had a 15-year period of intense evaporation followed by a cold snap (the Polar Vortex) in a sequence that was unprecedented. The weather turned. Quickly. This indicates a change. The range is new and the speed of the swing is new. “If you have events that are not part of your historical record that represent a change in conditions, that’s the definition of climate change,” said scientist Andrew Gronewold.
“Although the water coming from over the (Leland Dam in Fishtown) is forceful, it’s not the real cause of the floods,” Leelanau County drain commissioner Steve Christensen told the Glen Arbor Sun. “When you look at the forces involved, the flooding is from Lake Michigan-Huron.”
Safety issues due to rising waters has forced Leland’s Fishtown Preservation Society (FPS) to cancel its June 21 “Shanty Aid” kickoff fundraiser. Ironically, the event was to be a benefit to save Fishtown from rising water. Meanwhile, the water continues to rise, threatening shanties and docks.