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Are the Gales of November drying up our lake?

One of the factors contributing to lower levels on Lake Superior is evaporation, Syed Moin, Canadian co-manager of the International Upper Great Lakes Study, told a meeting last night at Alexander Henry High School.
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One of the factors contributing to lower levels on Lake Superior is evaporation, Syed Moin, Canadian co-manager of the International Upper Great Lakes Study, told a meeting last night at Alexander Henry High School.

Moin says the greatest volumes of water usually evaporate between September and December, with a peak in November.

That, he said, is largely due to the windy storms that pass over the lake, picking up large amounts of water and sometimes dumping it far away as precipitation.

Moin was one of the guest speakers at a Great Lakes water level forum hosted by Sault MP Tony Martin in the Alexander Henry gymnasium.

Also speaking at the forum last night was Joe Comartin [shown], MP for Windsor-Tecumseh and NDP deputy critic for the environment for the Great Lakes.

Comartin argued that the Canadian government needs to have an overall water management policy to protect against bulk water removal and water diversions.

"The North American Free Trade Agreement concerns me greatly," he said. "I thought we were protected but it leaves the provinces open to litigation by companies seeking to export bulk water from the basin and we must ensure that this legal loophole is closed."

Comartin said that one company did launch a suit against the government of British Columbia but went bankrupt before the case could come to court.

"We were genuinely worried that the case could have gone against the province and set a dangerous precedent because of NAFTA," said Comartin.

He also joined the other presenters in urging Canadians to be more conservative with water.

Syed Moin, meanwhile, brought an update on and early findings of the International Joint Commission's (IJC) International Upper Great Lakes Study.

He was cautious about the issue of dropping lake levels, saying it's a complex issue that requires much more study before people can say with any certainty that the cause is human intervention, a natural cycle or some combination of those two broad categories of possible influences.

IJC scientists are tracking the amount of water that goes into, is in, and leaves each of the upper lakes to try to find determine whether dropping levels are something that can be expected to continue.

Or, will the lakes recover on their own.

In any case, the researchers are interested in learning how to best manage water levels.

Moin said scientists don't have a lot of hard data to measure lake surface evaporation.

But they do have a clearer picture of the amount of precipitation and runoff feeding the lakes, as well as the amount of water flowing overland and out of the lakes.

So they can make a reasonable projection of how much water is being lost to evaporation.

It isn't a comforting number, especially since it seems to be changing in some - so far unpredictable - ways, said Moin.

Most evaporation occurs when the air is cooler than the water.

The process is exacerbated when there's a wind blowing evaporated water off the surface of the lake, leaving room for more water to evaporate, he said.

When the air and water are roughly the same temperature or when the water is covered by ice, evaporation should slow down or stop.

"What we are finding is that it is happening for longer periods of time, in greater quantities and earlier than expected," said Moin. "We would expect evaporation to decline in summer months, allowing the lake to build up to its seasonal peak by late July and into August but we are finding more evaporation through these months in recent years."

Moin said wind is again the culprit.

"Even with water and air temperatures roughly the same, there is some evaporation," he said. "When there is more wind for longer periods in the summer, it continues to blow off this surface evaporation and increase the overall amount of evaporation."

The lakes are also not freezing over as much or as long as they used to, he said, leaving them open for longer, stronger periods of evaporation.

But this doesn't account for all of the water loss, Moin said.

Other factors that may contribute are lack of precipitation, which he said the upper Great Lakes have been experiencing for about three or more years.

"The net inflow of water hasn't been enough to compensate for the net outflow," he said.

Right now, the planned five-year study is focused on the St. Clair River and the outflow at Chicago.

"We can expect to see data out of that very soon," said John Nevin, a Washington-based IJC strategic policy advisor.

Nevin said the focus will then shift toward lakes Huron and Michigan, followed by Superior.

"We are looking for input from people who use or have an interest in the lakes," he said. "We are asking them to sign up for newsletters so we can keep them informed and to send us their stories of what the lakes mean to them."

IJC's primary function is as an advisory body to Canadian and American federal governments and to guide those governments on policies that affect the two countries.

Its mandate covers many areas, not the least of which is management of the Great Lakes.

Under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, the IJC is bound to protect the waters of the Great Lakes for three primary uses:

- Domestic and sanitary purposes.

- Navigation, including the service of canals for the purposes of navigation.

- Power and irrigation purposes.

Nevin said that the treaty does not give priority to protection of wildlife habitat, fish and wildlife species, the fostering of recreational or sport fishing and boating, or the protection of property along coastlines.

Among its many tasks, the IJC is expected to advise governments on ways to balance the needs of stakeholders and interested parties on the lakes, while maintaining its three treaty-bound priorities.

"We need to know what is most important to people," he said.

"Canadians use more water per capita than most other countries in the world," said Moins. "We must consider what we are doing and be more careful."

Joe Comartin also said that municipalities must be more conservative in their water use because that is where a lot of the water from the lakes goes, into the taps and toilets of communities around the lakes.

Communities like Sault Ste. Marie.

"Many municipalities have very inefficient water systems that lose as much as 20 percent or more of the water they draw from the lakes," said Comartin. "We all have to think carefully about what we are doing with our water."

For more information about the IJC and its Upper Great Lakes Study, visit the IJC website.


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