In 2013, Lake Michigan lake levels bottomed out after a 15-year span of lows that was the longest in recorded history. Now, the high-water is sending the roughly 4.2 million people who live within two miles of the coast scrambling.
2019 which was the wettest on record in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and precipitation was well above average for every other state and province in the watershed. Last year, Lakes Erie and Ontario each broke record high marks. Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron each came within about an inch of record highs set more than 30 years ago in the mid-1980s.
The 10,000-mile Great Lakes shoreline winds around eight U.S. states and Canada. Across the region, contractors are booking into the fall to move or demolish homes, or repair and install seawalls, revetments, rip-rap and other rock armor that’s being used to protect beaches and near-shore structures from the relentless waves.
But more than just beach homes are being affected, coastal towns are facing the potential impact on tourism from sand loss and event cancellations due to the rising water. In Michigan alone, the 100 days from Memorial Day to Labor Day can bring year-long prosperity to the state’s shorelines in the form of the $15.4 billion water tourism and recreation industry that generates an estimated $1 billion in tax revenues.
Michigan’s coastal towns so far project about $63 million in damage from high water. That figure grows when considering costs to state systems, like roads and parks, that also are threatened by erosion. Communities collectively face up to an estimated half-billion or more in losses when potential lost tourist revenue enters the equation.
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