To whom are we accountable?

“The only special interest group I hold myself accountable to is the local taxpayers,” said Monroe County NY Executive Maggie Brooks in a December 2014 letter to NYS politicians and residents of the county stating non-support of "Plan 2014" proposed by the International Joint Commission to adjust Lake Ontario water levels in accordance with hydroelectric, shipping, shoreline erosion and other competing interests.   

Great Blue Heron Braddock Bay NY

I see the problem and I am reminded of the spectre of the October 2012 super-storm Sandy which hit New Jersey, NYC and Long Island.  I remember Monroe County NY Emergency Management sending out a robo-call on my street to evacuate -- the fire trucks announcing it at 3 am -- no one left Manitou Beach Rd.  

As a L. Ontario shoreline resident overlooking the shore [not directly on it], if I were involved in the public information regarding this issue, I would educate and not frighten. 

Take a look at L. Ontario levels: http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/now/wlevels/levels.html  
Lake Ontario shorelines are vulnerable, but the likelihood of devastation is minimal. 

The Town of Greece, State and Federal agencies, non-profits, the local environmentalists and others stand to gain if a hyped-up scenario of possible shoreline erosion wins the media battle. There are a lot of $$$ for erosion control and marsh restoration through Homeland Security and GLRI through Army Corps and other private contractors. 

The answer to lake flooding and erosion is to take a step back and consider the entire Great Lakes basin, water levels, precipitation, weather events, etc. over the last century and take a deep breath. From Oswego to Wilson, some homes are knowingly situated on fragile bluffs, cliffs and constantly eroding land, others on more stable shoreline. In days gone by only seasonal cottages primarily dotted the barrier beaches and were located close to the shore.

We often are unable to get good information about hydropower and especially in Canada. Because NYS buys so much Quebec electricity off the grid, it pushes the IJC toward leniency in hydroelectric production on the St. Lawrence. 

Agencies and non-profits, marinas and others are ready to spend $$$ to 'restore' fragile bays and other sensitive areas with concrete break walls. Why? 

Might be that the variable nature of Great Lakes hydrology, hydroelectric production leaves too much room for speculation?  

We could lose the Great Lakes as a water resource entirely.  . . . . perhaps that is what we could remember.

Land under Jakarta subsiding

According the news agency Reuters, cities in Indonesia like Jakarta and the surrounding area called Jabotabek which includes Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerany and Bekasi with a population pushing 25 million are losing the battle against water through subsidence. 

"The problem is particularly acute in Jakarta because most of its millions of residents suck water through wells that tap shallow underground aquifers. 

"Wells also provide about a third of the needs of business and industry, according to city data. 'It’s like swiss cheese underneath,' a World Bank’s representative said. 

'Groundwater extraction is unparalleled for a city of this size. People are digging deeper and deeper, and the ground is collapsing.'  

"The effect is worsened by the sheer weight of Jakarta’s urban sprawl. Economic development in recent decades has transformed the city’s traditional low-rise silhouette into a thickening forest of high-rise towers. The weight of all those buildings crushes the porous ground underneath."  

Annual floods in the rainy season are made worse by burgeoning urban population growth.  Jakarta is considered a 'mega-city' or an 'urban agglomeration.'  As people leave rural areas moving into the city outskirts, the old forests and wetlands around the city disappear. The infrastructure to support the population is nonexistent in many areas. 



The loss of environmentally-sensitive and flood-forgiving land in a city of massive poverty and slums has degraded life and water quality for everyone. 

Building a 'fake beach' east of Braddock Bay L. Ontario

Customized boat launch basin in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Does the Town of Greece want to do this at the far western
end of Edgemere Dr.? Will Great Lakes Restoration Initiative 
fund this which was built by Canadian firm, Baird and Associates?

The Town of Greece has always thought 'big.' Its 94,000 population provides a substantial assessment base and traditionally Republican voting bloc. What does the Town want?  They want $$$.

They want RECREATION even if that means bending science to fit the facts and politically shimmying up to Senator Chuck Schumer [D-NY] for that $9M in US GLRI funding.

What does the IJC support for Braddock Bay?

Look at a prototype designed by Baird and Associates of Ottawa, Ontario which is commissioned by the IJC for this kind of work.  And is funded by US $$$.  Be prepared for this to occur on the eastern side of Braddock Bay with sands constantly being replenished by transporting them from the submerged barrier, the old Manitou Trolley foundation which runs across the entire mouth of the bay.  Yet, it is this old, submerged foundation that keeps the Bay healthy --- take it away, change that hydrology and wave action . . . . turn the Bay into a muck hole with sediment deposition from Salmon and Buttonwood Creeks. 

L. Ontario water levels under IJC's "Plan 2014"

Westspit Braddock Bay NY Summer 2014

In plain language, competing interests for water levels on Lake Ontario fight on stage called the "International Joint Commission."  This US-Canadian body has power over water levels due to both the hydro projects and the shipping locks in the St. Lawrence Seaway.  In between are nuclear and coal-fired power plants, sports fisherpeople, boaters, shoreline residents, birders, hunters, environmentalists and a plethora of scientists who make a living off this endlessly contentious issue.  

Water levels make or break $$$.  It's that simple. So everyone wants to preserve their investment.  Overriding all of this are the goals and policies of NY and Ontario.  Released this year is Plan 2014 [a refinement of Plan BV7] which is under scrutiny by both country's federal governments.  There is no word from the State of New York.  

In June it was reported that "US and Canadian commissioners said that Plan 2014 balances the interests of hydropower operators, the environment, commercial shipping, recreational boaters, and shoreline property owners. The previous plan didn't take the environment into consideration and, as a result, important coastal wetlands have been damaged. No regulatory plan can satisfy the needs of all the interests all of the time," said US Commissioner Dereth Glance said.

OK -- let's see whose message is the loudest in the coming months  . . . some of whom are business and environmental people with vested interests who know that a LOT of $$$ are coming down the pike for 'hazard mitigation' in light of possible water levels rising due to global warming [more storms and other weather events] as well as 'coastal restoration' types who fit the 'environmentalist' category.  Buzz words: "coastal flooding and erosion."  NOTE image of Braddock Bay's west spit on the lake side: where there is no 'rip rap' or other revetment [seawalls, rocks, shoreline concrete, etc.], there is a nice beach.  Research has demonstrated that wave and storm action against revetment does create a sloping sand 'beach' if the water levels are allowed to go up and then to go way down again.  The incoming sand piles up and in low water, it is a beach.  Because shoreline residents are essentially hysterical over this issue and have political clout with local politicians, they make a lot of noise: see Town of Greece Board opposing Plan 2014. 

Great Lakes and Fresh Water

Three percent of the world's water exists as fresh water - two percent is locked in the polar ice caps; less than one percent resides in freshwater lakes and streams according to the Wisconsin Water Library:

Sodus Bay NY Lighthouse

• The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system on earth. 
• The Great Lakes contain an estimated 5,500 cubic miles (22,700 cubic kilometers)of water—a fifth of all the liquid surface fresh water on Earth. And, it's enough to submerge the continental United States in nearly 10 feet of water. 
• The United States draws more than 40 billion gallons (151 million liters) of water from the Great Lakes every day—half of which is used for electrical power production.
• Nearly a tenth of the U.S. population lives in the Great Lakes basin. 
• More than 35 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water, jobs and their way of life. That breaks down to 24 million people in the U.s. and about 9.8 million in Canada. That's roughly 8 percent of the U.S. population and 32 percent of Canada's. 
• The Great Lakes support one of the world's largest regional economies, including a $7 billion fishery and $16 billion tourism industry. 
• More than 3,500 species of plants and animals live in the Great Lakes basin.
• More than 170 species of fish inhabit the Great Lakes, their tributaries and connecting waterways.

Lessons from the collapse of Mississippi delta marsh wetland

Flooding of Mississippi River Delta from the Gulf of Mexico -- due to 
levees that divert sediment, extreme weather conditions, 
and freshwater canals which prevent the deposition 
of sediment which is the primary mechanism by which the 
delta was originally formed and is replenished.

What happens when you 'over-engineer' and do not take a simple thing like sediment deposition into consideration?  How does 'land' disappear?

"Subsidence" is the gradual sinking or caving in of land caused by a number of things including: climatic, mechanical [physical], chemical and other processes such as:

• lowering of the water table due to withdrawals [agriculture-irrigation, mining, salt removal, oil, natural gas extraction, etc.] which creates a space . . . and water will fill it.
• obstruction of the natural deposition of sediment due to re-routing of sediment-laden rivers and streams by levees, seawalls, etc. which cut sediment supply off from its original destination.
• chemical dissolution of limestone [composed mainly of calcium carbonate] which comes down in rain [the atmosphere absorbs carbon dioxide resulting in carbonic acid] with water filling in cracks, holes, caves, etc.
• hydrocompaction of soils when organic-rich sediment [peat, etc.] is subjected to loss of water due to draining of swamps.   

In marshes, deltas, etc. subsidence is offset by the deposit of sediment. Coastal wetland sedimentation is the key thing in keeping marshlands alive.  "By holding in floodwaters, the levees prevent sediment delivery onto much of the river's natural floodplain," said Carol B. Lutken, associate director of the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute at the University of Mississippi.  "The levees focus greater volumes of water over a diminished area which results in more of the flow arriving at the river's mouth.  This focusing of flow enables the river to carry a greater suspended load of sediment and increases the proportion that will bypass coastal marshes."

Scientists agree: "The Mississippi River Delta is disappearing at an astonishing rate: A football field of wetlands vanishes into open water almost every hour. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost nearly 1,900 square miles of land, an area roughly equivalent in size to the state of Delaware.  Many factors have led to the delta's collapse. One of the most significant is that the lower Mississippi River has been straitjacketed with huge levees as part of a national program to 'control' the Mississippi River and protect communities, economic infrastructure and croplands from river flooding. But the delta's wetlands are built and sustained by sediment delivered by the river. Cutting the river off from its delta with levees doomed existing wetlands and largely stopped the cycle of new wetlands growth. Without land-building deposits from the river, the delta is doomed to continue sinking beneath the water, endangering people, wildlife and jobs," says the organization Restore the Mississippi River Delta.  

Lake Ontario ~ a natural world-class ecosystem

When you look from this angle, L. Ontario's inspiring blue waters and unusual surrounding topography remain one of the world's most valuable freshwaters, as are all the Great Lakes.  Take a look at 2013 Canadian award-winning documentary, Watermark, a beautifully-filmed and researched take on today's freshwater.

Living on the south shore of L. Ontario, I've come to see that with so many competing and overlapping agencies, the conversation needs to take in more information usefully. One way is to analyze the lake's "Water-Energy Nexus." 

Along with measuring our "water footprint," we are looking from many different perspectives to see the Great Lakes' basins from the angle of watersheds.   

We can no longer rely on old environmental-politics, but have to re-design the process by which we make decisions.  Lawsuits regarding 'water withdrawal' brought by the Sierra Club and others are always going to be part of the process as the technical, legal environment is highly complex and deserves this kind of action. In NYS, the legal battles over the Adirondacks are legendary.

Ever subject to criticism, the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation is trying to keep the public informed: http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/enb.html but its power appears to be eroded by over-arching laws and agencies. 

But over the past 50 years, increasing federal, state, provincial, international, local and micro-level agencies, laws, and actions have struggled to keep up with changes in industry, agriculture, tourism, sports, development, and hydro, nuclear, coal-burning, natural gas and other power-generation stations. 

The job is not done. Development and open space . . . management and restoration . . . water withdrawal and replacement are continuous. Citizens are now able to become conversant and aware and with that must take this new vocabulary and perspective to our governmental officials.  

Upstream Salmon Creek in center of village of Hilton NY

“It is estimated that more than $2.9 billion a year is spent on wetland and stream protection and restoration through the U.S. wetland mitigation program, and many tens or hundreds of millions more through other restoration efforts,” stated Jessica Wilkinson, senior policy advisor for mitigation at The Nature Conservancy.  

Watershed Approach Handbook

NYS DEC Open Space Conservation Plan seeks your comments

Hurricane-Super-Storm Sandy has had a big effect on the State of New York, its politicians  and planners.  Built into the Draft NYS DEC Open Space Conservation Plan are strategies and priorities concerning coastlines.  

RIPARIAN BUFFERS, COASTLINE AND WETLAND PROTECTION PROJECTS AIMED AT REDUCING THE IMPACTS OF STORMS, STORM SURGES AND FLOODING ON HUMAN AND NATURAL COMMUNITIES {131.}

Open Space conservation programs and strategies that focus on protecting wetlands, floodplain, forests and coastlines should be our first line of defense to protect adjacent private property and communities from increased storm intensity, flooding and rising sea level. These natural resource based programs are usually far cheaper than “engineered” solutions that often shift negative impacts downstream or to adjacent property owners, as well as not being sustainable for the long term or protecting natural resources. As an added benefit, these programs can promote the resilience of

natural communities to climate change (for example, by enhancing aquatic connectivity, protecting cover along streams and lakes that serve as refuge for trout and other cold water fish species). Spatial modeling can inform where strategic investments in the protection of riparian and wetland areas through fee and easement acquisitions can promote more climate-resilient human and natural communities and should be used to prioritize protection projects.  

Do you have any comments to make?  Make sure to email to LF.OpenSpacePlan@dec.ny.gov  Comments must be received by December 17, 2014. 

Ecohydrology issues are solved locally ... at the scale of the watershed

Salmon Creek Hilton NY

There is new thinking in the area characterized by 'ecosystems' which might be termed 'ecohydrology.' There are other terms as well including 'water nexus' which refer to the dynamics of land and water.

We're in a new, climate-shifting pattern of weather and its effects on earth. It is unmistakable, but we are players in this interaction and what we do counts.

"The solutions to the global water crisis can't be global," says Dr. Karen Bakker of the University of British Columbia's Program on Water Governance at the University's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. Dr. Bakker teaches an edX course, Blue is the New Green. 

"The solutions are necessarily local. They're going to operate at the scale of the watershed."  If that is the case, I have been watching the evolution of 'local' to mean 'superseded' by more and more agencies. For instance, what happened in legislation and agreements decades ago dictates today:  "Lakewide Management Plans (LaMPs) stem from the 1987 amendments to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, originally signed by the United States and Canada in 1972. This historic agreement committed both countries 'to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem.' To meet this commitment, the two governments agreed to develop and implement LaMPs for open lake waters and Remedial Action Plans (RAPs) for specific geographic Areas of Concern (AOCs). LaMPs are intended to identify critical pollutants that affect beneficial uses of the lakes and to present strategies, recommendations and policy options to restore those beneficial uses. LaMPs for lakes Erie, Michigan, Ontario and Superior have been developed with guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada. Through an iterative approach, these documents will be updated and re-released every two years to incorporate new data and public input."  Overlapping and confusing . . . . 

"Restoration" the new buzz word for wetlands

Hunting in America is big business, generating more than $67 billion in economic output and more than one million jobs in the United States according to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.  Read more about the economic impact of hunting: http://www.fishwildlife.org/files/Hunting_Economic_Impact.pdf

New York State is considered part of the Atlantic flyway in North America. Generally birds do not fly directly across Lake Ontario's 60 miles of open water, but skirt the edges.  

One of the most moneyed pockets of support for 'restoration of wetlands' is Ducks Unlmited, a national organization with 600,000 members and based in Tennesee. The DU members are hunters who believe in conservation and now 'restoration' of wetlands.  Buoyed by the hundreds of millions of dollars being handed out by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, DU has been awarded grants in New York State.

Among the projects funded by GLRI is one located at Braddock Bay.  "The conservation methods proposed at Braddock Bay FWMA and Lake Shore Marshes WMA [eastward to Oswego area along L. Ontario] have been successfully implemented in other parts of the Lake Ontario basin to improve fish and wildlife habitat. Preliminary results of projects on French Creek WMA, Lakeview Marshes WMA, and on private lands in Jefferson County show positive ecological benefits from channel and pothole excavation in cattail stands," says Ducks Unlimited.  

"DU received funding for this project through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, North America Wetlands Conservation Act, and private donations from Constellation Energy. Partners include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, New York Department of Environmental Conservation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership, Fresh Water Futures, Friends of Montezuma Wetlands Complex, Montezuma Audubon, Town of Greece, the Nature Conservancy, Braddock Bay Fish and Wildlife Management Area Committee, Town of Greece Parks, and Lake Plains Waterfowl Association."  Read more about what DU is pushing in NYS: http://www.ducks.org/new-york/du-to-restore-lake-ontario-wetlands-in-new-york