The other 2020 crisis—record-high water levels wash away beaches
By Joe VanderMeulen
Sun contributor
A version of this story appeared on NatureChange.org, an online magazine covering environmental conservation and climate change in northern Michigan.
Social distancing of 6 feet or more during the coronavirus pandemic is even more difficult this spring and summer because record-high Great Lakes water levels have eaten away beaches where we otherwise could walk at our leisure.
The beaches all along Michigan’s west coast have all but disappeared under the rising water levels of Lake Michigan. In fact, current lake levels are the highest ever recorded by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The water levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron (considered the same body of water because the Straits of Mackinac connect them) on May 15 were 3 inches higher than their previous May record, which was set in 1986. Water levels are 7 inches higher than they were at this time in 2019. According to Army Corps of Engineers, they are expected to rise another 2 inches by June 15 and typically don’t peak until July.
If you love taking long walks along the lake shore, the high water and waves might just push you inland and onto private property. What can you do? Does the public still have a right to walk the Great Lakes shoreline?
“You have the right to still walk the beach, but you’re going to have to have your toe in the water or walk in the wet sand to be [legally] safe,” said Jim Olson, a highly-respected environmental attorney and founder of the Traverse City-based nonprofit FLOW (For Love of Water). As Olson describes, the land under the waters of Lake Michigan (and the water itself) along Michigan’s coast is held in public trust by the State of Michigan. For a very long time, the public has had the right to walk along the beach below the Ordinary Natural High Water Mark—an obvious physical line of topography and vegetation created over many years by wave action. However, the rapid change in water levels and coastal erosion has overwhelmed the Ordinary Natural High Water Mark. So, where can we walk now?
“We don’t know where that new natural ordinary high is,” said Olson. “But we certainly know that if you’re within the wet sand, you’re certainly within the wave action and have a right under the public trust doctrine to access and walk along the beaches and shoreline of the Great Lakes.”
Water levels in Lake Michigan are predicted to continue breaking records for many months, causing even more coastal erosion, said Mark Breederland, a Michigan Sea Grant educator. In many places, high shore land bluffs and fallen trees can present real hazards to beach walkers. And if beach walkers need help to get out of a difficult situation, the first responders will be put at risk, too.
“I think our beach walking is going to have to be adjusted, for sure, for 2020,” said Breederland.
Linda Dewey, a shoreline property owner in Glen Arbor, and frequent contributor to the Glen Arbor Sun, reminds us that walking the shoreline of Lake Michigan is a delightful, shared activity—with limits. When in front of private property, walkers are not permitted to stop, sit, and settle in. That has always been true, but now there are new hazards. Where there are fallen trees, private docks or other structures blocking the shoreline, beach walkers are not allowed to walk inland on private property.
If you encounter an obstruction and can’t go around it in the water, “You’re going to have to turn around,” said Dewey.
Read more coverage of Lake Michigan’s record-high water levels and what it means for recreation in future editions of the Glen Arbor Sun. Full disclosure, Sun editor Jacob Wheeler is the part-time communications manager at FLOW, which was founded by Jim Olson.
