Sometimes I wish I were a conservative, simply for what I perceive to be their clean, clear path. Cut taxes, shrink Government. So simple. So easy to articulate.
But as a progressive I find myself often internally conflicted over jobs, sustainability, improving the middle class, environmental concerns. For example I love the notion that the St. Lawrence Seaway allows International shipping access to the Great Lakes region, making cities like Duluth, Minnesota one of the busiest harbors in America...but I hate, hate, hate, hate that the St. Lawrence Seaway has opened the door to hundreds of invasive species in the Great Lakes.
I want Michigan to manufacture again, and make STUFF and sell STUFF and get families back to work! But I want to reduce consumerism overall, and see people re-using STUFF and being less wasteful and being less dependent on buying STUFF.
It's all so very difficult to work all these threads into a single narrative, and cohesive desire for the future.
One such conflict comes in the form of falling water levels in the Upper Great Lakes. While lake levels are fairly cyclical, we're now in one of the longest known stretches of lake levels falling to historic lows.
The U.S.-Canadian body overseeing Great Lakes issues could take engineering steps to raise the levels of the Lake Michigan/Lake Huron system to offset nearly a decade of water loss. But steps taken to help one area of the Great Lakes would likely impact the others, creating the potential for a tug of war over water resources within the region.
The International Joint Commission has commissioned a study of options to address water problems in Lakes Michigan and Huron, where levels have fluctuated from a few inches to more than a foot below the lakes' historical average since the late-1990s. If implemented, however, those actions would likely have a trickle-down effect on levels in the lower Great Lakes and the St. Clair and Detroit rivers as well. That may not be welcome news in some areas already experiencing problems of their own.
One...ONE cited reason for falling water levels is "changes in climate." But I want to stress it's not the MAIN reason. And I'd like to flesh that out a bit for the sake of clarity...the Great Lakes are above sea level, right? So as climate warms, and there's less ice cover in the winter, there's more evaporation and the water levels in the Great Lakes, according to climate change model, will FALL...not RISE.
But the main reason, as cited in numerous studies, for the latest decline in water levels in the upper Great Lakes has to do with dredging Lake St. Claire, which is basically by Detroit, between Erie and Lake Huron.
Water goes from Lake Superior, to Lake Michigan/Huron, through Lake St. Claire to Lake Erie, down the Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario, and then down the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Atlantic Ocean.
The dredging of Lake St. Claire, as it turns out, created a massive hole where upper Great Lakes water could drain into Lake Erie at a much faster rate...and now wetlands in Lake Huron, and the wildlife that depend on them, are drying up.
This, of course, is all done in the name of commerce.
Money.
Jobs.
Dredging is no small matter.
Seriously. A lack of dredging can mean a loss of thousands of tons of shipping capacity per ship, because the ship has to sit higher in the water.
A few years ago, this was the sight in Muskegon of the second stuck 1000 foot freighter in less than a year...a very rare ocurrance once:
As water levels in the Great Lakes fall, engineers weigh fact and politics to reduce flow from the upper Great Lakes into Lake Erie to restore the Upper Great Lakes habitats...at the expense of sending that water into Lake Erie? A 20 inch increase in the water levels of the upper Great Lakes is said to come at the cost of reducing Lake Erie's water level by an inch. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it comes at the price of some wetlands and bird habitat in Lake Erie.
You know. We tinker in our environment to create jobs. To create a commerce friendly environment. To feed families. To give people a sense of purpose and pride and ownership in the American dream. To help people send their children to college. And the tinkering often has deep environmental consequence and sometimes resurface as aparently intractable problems.