The Storm Hill Homeowners Association, whose properties are located on the high ground between Empire’s public beach and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Empire Bluff, applied in June to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to armor the base of their bluff near the shoreline with a 740-foot-long steel seawall along 6 properties—that’s the length equivalent of 2.5 football fields.
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.
Community ecologist Reuben Keller has made a career out of studying aquatic invasive species in freshwater systems like the Great Lakes, and measuring their ecological and economic costs. Now a lecturer with the University of Chicago’s Environmental Studies program, Dr. Keller outlined the threat posed by invaders like Asian carp in a presentation to attendees of an Alliance for the Great Lakes webcast in mid-November.