Experts announced Thursday that the unpredictable pattern of the Great Lakes water levels will persist for years. They suggested focusing more on finding ways to adapt and not on engineering projects that will combat natural occurrences.
"Lake levels are varying and they're going to continue to vary," said Donald Scavia, director of the University of Michigan's Graham Sustainability Institute, to Daily Journal. "The question we should be focusing on is, how do you live with the variability instead of where do you put the next dam."
The unpredictable pattern changes in the Great Lakes have been happening for decades now, wherein the levels will go up in spring and summer and will go down during winter and fall. The levels were alsonoted to remain way below the normal level or way above the normal level for extended periods.
One good example was the slump that started in the late 1990s, which took more than a decade before in dried up in January 2013.
To handle such occurrences, many institutions spent time engineering dams, electric power plants, and other infrastructures in regulating the levels of the Great Lakes. Some even thought of building or putting structures in the southern end of Lake Huron to impede the flow of the water to Lake Erie.
"The lakes have been modified by human intervention since European colonization," said, Roger Gauthier, chairman of a group called Restore our Water International, to Daily Journal.
However, experts debated that engineering infrastructures will not be enough to solve the problems. Some said that doing such would cost millions to billions of dollars and might have bad effects in the ecosystem.
Instead of doing such, other experts suggested that people must learn to adapt with the changes. They suggested use of zoning ordinances or financial incentives to discourage imprudent shoreline development.
