Name: As Lake Michigan waters rise, erosion poses an existential threat to North Shore towns and homeowners
Brand: chicagotribune.com
SKU: chicagotribune-com-138
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

As Lake Michigan waters rise, erosion poses an existential threat to North Shore towns and homeowners

preview

AdvertisementBy Pioneer PressJul 30, 2020 at 5:00 amLong before the first man-made beaches in Winnetka made their debut in the mid-19th century, those hoping to take a stroll along Lake Michigan were limited to rambling along a slim ribbon of sand that took its cues from Mother Nature. “When the lake was high there was no beach, but when the lake was low, the beach would appear again,” said Charles Shabica, a coastal geologist and professor emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. AdvertisementAccording to Shabica, after suburban communities like Lake Forest, Winnetka and Evanston were established in the mid-19th century, the North Shore became a haven for summer visitors. The growth prompted the construction of concrete groins and seawalls built to protect the eroding bluffs, and wooden piers were erected and used for public sunbathing, swimming and boating. But the North Shore’s engineered shoreline and man-made beaches have proved to be no match for Lake Michigan.AdvertisementMore than a century later, record-breaking Lake Michigan water levels and accelerating erosion coupled with increasingly volatile weather threatens to permanently alter the shoreline. “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 need to figure out how to allocate federal and local funding because it’s really important to take care of the shoreline and beaches, and I think people up here on the North Shore understand that.” The numbers are startling.According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Michigan-Huron — for measurement purposes the two lakes are considered one as they connect at the Straits of Mackinac — has broken high water level marks every month of 2020. The trend is expected to continue at least until September.As of June, Lake Michigan-Huron’s water level was 582.16 feet above sea level, which is how the Great Lakes water levels are calculated. The previous June high water record was 581.79 feet, set in 1986, according to the U.S. Army Corps. The June 2020 levels also surpassed the previous high water record for July, which was set in 1986 at 581.99 feet.As the continue to rise, shoreline erosion also is increasing, battering area beaches and bluffs. The torrential rainfall and brutal storms in recent years have forced scientists to reconfigure their metrics that define so-called 100-year-floods. And with summer in full swing and beach-goers eager to return outdoors after pandemic closures, North Shore residents, public officials and scientists are wringing their hands over what the increasingly unpredictable weather has inflicted on their beloved lakeshore.In the three-part series A Changing North Shore, Pioneer Press will explore how rising Lake Michigan water levels and an eroding shoreline have forced public officials and suburban homeowners to make tough decisions on how to pay for repair and restoration projects that can run into the millions. The series also will offer a snapshot of the scientific research, and examine the North Shore’s tumultuous history with Lake Michigan.AdvertisementExperts say it’s a problem with no easy fix, complicated by a raft of public and private concerns, dozens of government agencies and an overall lack of a comprehensive approach to shoreline management.While the effects of an eroding shoreline are often first felt by lakefront homeowners and local beach-lovers, the irreparable damage has the potential to affect the entire region in ways that may reshape the North Shore’s complex relationship with Lake Michigan. When a stretch of unseasonably mild weather in early January was swiftly upended by a winter storm that slapped the shoreline in Wilmette with 20-foot waves and 50 mph winds, the park district’s lakefront manager Holly Specht, who retired in May, said she was not surprised.After all, the temperamental winter weather was reminiscent of the unpredictable local climate officials struggled with last summer, when after enduring weeks of chilly temperatures and torrential rains, an eroding shoreline and rising Lake Michigan water levels forced the park district officials to close the North Shore suburb’s Langdon Park swimming beach.“We can’t just dump sand where the beach used to be, because it would be putting it right into the lake,” Specht said at the time. AdvertisementAlready Evanston has closed the city’s popular dog beach for the third consecutive year, and expects to spend millions on storm and high water damage. The city also told residents to stay off large lakefront revetment rocks, long a spot for teenage gatherings, because they were battered in recent storms and aren’t considered safe.And in Highland Park, when the loss of sand because of high lake levels and storms threatened infrastructure at the recently restored Rosewood Beach, the park district was forced to spend nearly $400,000 last year on replacement sand.While the North Shore still is dealing with the fallout, there is no sign that lake levels will return to average levels anytime soon.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projections for August and September indicate lake levels could eclipse previous highs for those months. However, August levels are predicted to drop about two inches from July’s high water mark, which projected at 582.22 feet above sea level.Coastal geologists and climatologists say climate change and extreme weather in recent years is, at least, partly to blame for eroding shorelines across the Great Lakes region.AdvertisementWhile area historians and coastal geologists say the North Shore has long been tormented by Lake Michigan’s capricious behavior, North Shore residents with lakefront property still often face formidable challenges to preserve their beaches and, in some cases, ensure their homes don’t break free of their bluff-top footings.Unlike in Chicago, where city zoning rules kept most residential development away from the lakeshore in favor of open public land, suburbs along the lake’s North Shore for years welcomed private landowners.Before the development, naturally eroding bluffs of the North Shore would nourish beaches and add sand to the lake currents that flow southward. The sand transported in what is known as the littoral drift replenishes shorelines and ends up at the Indiana Dunes.“When people settled in the North Shore and they didn’t want to lose their property, they started to protect" with hard structures, said David Bucaro, outreach manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Chicago District.That not only cut off a supply of sand to the system, but increased the effect of erosion on adjacent properties because waves reflect and refract off hard structures.“With a little bit of armoring, you are causing increased impacts to the adjacent shorelines that are not protected, and you get to the point where you can’t have any areas that are unprotected," Bucaro said.AdvertisementLooking 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.“Lake Michigan did not rise much higher than the levels recorded in 2019, but what is significant is that water levels did not decline considerably during the fall and winter of 2019/2020. Typically water level declines around one foot from the summer high to winter low, but this year, we only saw about a half a foot decline. This combined with a lack of winter ice resulted in major impacts when a strong storm came through in early January,” Theuerkauf said.Nonetheless, whether the lake’s water levels will drop slowly or suddenly, and whether it will be followed by another cycle of prolonged lows, is yet to be determined, he said.“What’s frustrating, but interesting, about the Great Lakes is they’re so dynamic, complex and unpredictable,” Theuerkauf said. “We know the lake levels will go down eventually, but it’s different than ocean levels, which are rising at a pretty specific rate, and you can predict what will happen. Here in the Great Lakes, it’s not predictable.”AdvertisementHe said another factor to be considered is the effect of rising water levels in the area. Every time Lake Michigan’s water level rises, it transforms the coastal system through erosion, he said.While beaches and dunes can be restored and reclaimed when the lake water recedes, bluffs see more lasting effects.“When bluffs retreat, it’s permanent, so the next time the water levels go down, the system will not respond in the same way,” Theuerkauf said.With rising lake water levels causing beaches to vanish on some stretches of the North Shore, Theuerkauf said of greater concern to researchers is the long-term effects of erosion on the clay sediments that makes up most of the lake bottom along the North Shore, and the thin layer of sand blanketing the clay.“When you erode the sand, and it erodes down to the clay, you can’t get that clay back,” Theuerkauf said.The danger of losing clay is that it leads to the bottom of Lake Michigan becoming deeper, Theuerkauf said. Deeper water results in bigger waves, which even with the same type of storm, will further accelerate erosion, Theuerkauf said. “When the lake level drops, you’ll eventually get the beach back, but that recovery will be slower in areas where lake bed erosion and deepening occurred,” he said.AdvertisementLocal architect Jon Shabica, who is the son of researcher Charles Shabica, has been increasingly busy fielding calls from residents begging for help in restoring their inundated private beaches and seeking advice on how to prevent their bluff-top mansions from tumbling into the lake. “The bottom line is, everyone is freaking out,” said Shabica, vice president at Shabica and Associates, whose firm works with homeowners across the North Shore, including Evanston, Winnetka, Highland Park and Lake Forest. “We need to recognize the fact that change is now happening at an alarming rate, and while it happened before, we’re seeing an impact now that is different in its ferocity,” Shabica said. It’s a burden felt by Craig Neimann, who lives in Winnetka but who also owns a waterfront home on the Michigan side of the lake.When he moved into his home near Sheridan Road, he said he was flabbergasted by the freedom North Shore homeowners have to build shoreline projects that affect their neighbors.“I was vastly surprised that residents were allowed to destroy the coastline with rock formations and steel pilings ... projects that would never be allowed in Michigan,” Neimann said. “Things are drastically different on this side of Lake Michigan."AdvertisementMan-made interventions of the type suburban homeowners can undertake can complicate the natural shoreline restoration process after periods of high water levels, Theuerkauf, said.“On the North Shore, the coast is heavily engineered and heavily armored,” Theuerkauf said. “Everyone is building these rock walls and revetments, and each of those impact and adjust the shoreline. And we’ve seen that there are some unintended consequences of someone’s shoreline protection.”AdvertisementHighland Park resident Robert Ritholz recalls casting a wary eye years ago on his next-door neighbor’s plans to construct a rock revetment along his piece of Lake Michigan shoreline — a project Ritholz deemed unnecessary at the time.Lake levels were low then, and the bluffs did not appear threatened by wave attacks.“I said, well, if he wants to do it,” recalled Ritholz, who lives in his childhood home in Highland Park’s Lakeview Terrace neighborhood.Since then, lake levels have risen dramatically, and Ritholz has witnessed a portion of his bluff collapse, taking some wooden stairs with it and toppling trees in its wake.And his attitude today about his neighbor’s revetment?Advertisement“It turned out to be necessary,” said Ritholz, who last fall, armored his own stretch of shoreline with an identical barrier that cost him, “well into the six figures.”“In the time I have lived here, I have never seen erosion like this. Ever,” said Ritholz, whose history with the property goes back to the 1950s. “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.“I don’t like revetments aesthetically, and I certainly didn’t want to have to pay for it. But if the erosion continued as it was, I would start to lose tableland ... my yard would start to shrink,” he said.Ritholz said three neighbors directly to the north have moved with urgency to either gird their shoreline, stabilize failing bluffs or repair breakwaters no longer holding up against the forces of Lake Michigan.The price tag for North Shore homeowners tackling shoreline projects can range from $100,000 to $1.5 million, covering everything from creating beaches equipped with fire pits and seating areas, to shoreline protection and bluff stabilization, according to Roger Tietz, a project superintendent for Gillen Marine Construction. Advertisement“The areas that have been hardest hit (during summer of 2019 were) those where there were never any attempts to armor the shoreline,” said Tietz, who oversees Lake Michigan shoreline projects from Milwaukee to Chicago.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.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.“If you have a home built on a bluff that is failing (and) if that bluff is not restored, the house can literally fall right into the lake,” Tietz said.While Tietz agrees with those who say they expect that Lake Michigan’s record high water levels will likely recede, he said only time will tell just how rapidly they descend.“I think the lake might remain high for a while, but it’s really all up to Mother Nature, so I don’t think anyone really knows the answer,” he said.Advertisementkcullotta@chicagotribune.comgbookwalter@chicagotribune.comThis is the first of a three-part series on how erosion is impacting the North Shore.Part 2: Part 3: Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Pioneer PressJul 30, 2020 at 5:00 amLong before the first man-made beaches in Winnetka made their debut in the mid-19th century, those hoping to take a stroll along Lake Michigan were limited to rambling along a slim ribbon of sand that took its cues from Mother Nature. “When the lake was high there was no beach, but when the lake was low, the beach would appear again,” said Charles Shabica, a coastal geologist and professor emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. AdvertisementAccording to Shabica, after suburban communities like Lake Forest, Winnetka and...

public

Karen Ann Cullotta

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

As Lake Michigan waters rise, erosion poses an existential threat to North Shore towns and homeowners

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS