The walkway was repaired with insurance money that year, but was damaged again in late 2019, prompting the 500-foot section below the wall to be removed. Due to high Lake Michigan water levels and erosion, the Evanston Dog Beach has washed away.
"For lack of a better term, we're just kind of babysitting that one," he said. It’s expected to rise another 4 inches in the next month. Still, before a shovel hits the shoreline, Tietz said the projects must first be reviewed and approved by multiple agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the county and the municipality. Indeed, lakes Michigan and Huron were at their record lows less than a decade ago, in 2013.
Storm-driven waves on a near-record-high Lake Michigan have eaten away at the shore, leaving some homes a few feet from plunging over a cliff.
While many of the projects Tietz’s oversees are meant to enhance a property’s aesthetics and ensure homeowners can enjoy recreational lakeshore activities, some residents are faced with more dire consequences of shoreline erosion. “From the earliest days, there has always been a need for us to go to the shoreline, which is like a last frontier, on the edge of the unknown,” Shabica said.
"We know the water levels will go down, and we don't want to destroy the natural shorelines right now, when five or six years from now, we might be looking at restoring for low water. “Everyone is building these rock walls and revetments, and each of those impact and adjust the shoreline. The chart below shows that lake levels have fluctuated markedly over the past 130 years, on the order of 1 … "These projects can be very complicated, and unfortunately, they can be very expensive for the residents.
Dreams are literally being swept away as erosion causes destruction along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Looking back on the past 100 years, Lake Michigan water level records show a roughly 30-year cycle of highs and lows, with a record high reached in 1986, followed by a steady decline through most of the 1990s and 2000s before reaching a record low in 2013, said Ethan J. Theuerkauf, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University “I think what’s been so alarming to residents is that the water levels shot up in 2014, and they’ve been rising ever since, so shoreline erosion has been turned back on,” Theuerkauf said While Lake Michigan was about a foot higher during the summer of 2019 from the same period in 2018, Theuerkauf said, it only rose a quarter about a quarter of a foot through 2020. But whether lake levels remain high or return to a cyclical trend where lower waters are coming, is uncertain. It's been happening since the Great Lakes existed," he said.Hard-armoring shorelines can halt that input of sand needed for the natural process of beach creation, Sanders said.
"Historically, they have. (Bridge photo by John Russell) July 17, 2020 Kelly House Michigan Environment Watch. All rights reserved ( Lake Michigan Shoreline Erosion: Rising Water Levels Wreaking Havoc “Once there is very little protective beach, erosion is almost certain any time you have any kind of storm.” But Ritholz said he would have preferred not to need a shield along the natural shore.
Deconstruction - to avoid the wall tumbling into the water - was expected to begin Monday, March 30, but the wall collapsed on Saturday.The wall, near the intersection of First and Cherry streets in Manistee, was built into a hill to secure a parking area overlooking the channel and harbor that flow out into Lake Michigan.As of March 27, Lake Michigan’s water level was up 14 inches compared to the same date a year ago. The city plans to apply for a state Shoreline Grant and issue a capital improvement bond to pay for the work.
One neighbor was forced to demolish his home; the other to demolish a portion of their house, as they began tumbling into the Great Lake. A new pump station was constructed near a creek in a low-lying part of town. "They approved stupid plats. While beaches and dunes can be restored and reclaimed when the lake water recedes, bluffs see more lasting effects.
This combined with a lack of winter ice resulted in major impacts when a strong storm came through in early January,” Theuerkauf said. ""What we're trying to do is balance the fact that people need to be able to protect their homes, their cottage or whatever critical infrastructure — a road, a utility line — but to do it in the least impactful way that is possible. WHAT CAUSES EROSION?
Since 1951, total annual precipitation has increased by 13.6% in the Great Lakes region, with the amount falling in heavy storms increasing 35% in that time period, according to Great Lakes Integrated Sciences + Assessments, or GLISA, an Ann Arbor-based partnership between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University serving as a climate change-related regional center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The increases in temperature and precipitation are linked, researchers say.
"Those temporary layoff days are obviously impacting and limiting our staff, who had been working overtime 32 hours a week" to expedite shoreline permits, he said.Adding seawalls, boulders, rip-rap rocks and sandbags can provide a reprieve from an immediate erosion threat. "Longer-term fixes could be about $100 million," he said. For more information regarding Lake Michigan shoreline protection, contact