The Ohio Supreme Court Got It Right - Or Did They?

On September 14, The Ohio Supreme Court issued its opinion in Merrill v. State of Ohio.  The Court opined that the boundary between the public submerged lands and the private lands of lakefront owners was the natural shoreline.  Thanks to the wonders of technology, both sides had claimed victory within hours. 

The reader can decide by looking at Case Number 2009-1806 on the Ohio Supreme Court website.  After a decade of seeking legislative action and a half dozen years in the courts, it appears that the lakefront owners may still have some work to do if they want to privately enjoy the peace and quiet of their little slice of paradise.

My last post, back in July talked about the unique features of East Sandusky Bay and the problems and opportunities it provides to property owners on the Cedar Point peninsula.  It turns out that the Merrill Court based their decision largely on a confirmation of the decision it made back in 1878 that involved the fishing grounds a couple miles from the Ohio Beach Guy's Cedar Point house.  That brought the decision close to home.

I had previously planned to explore the key cases which the Court referenced  from a historic perspective.  Now there is a modern background to use as well.  It's interesting to see the spin which various academics, journalists, and lobbyists are putting on the decision.  If they are all right, it must have been a heck of a strange case.  If some are wrong, it may be necessary for the legislature to get into the act - something they were unwilling to do a decade ago.   This time, there is no excuse for not acting.

Coming Soon - The Rest of the Story About Issatan and Kafralu Islands

It's been quite a while since I thought I'd quit carping about the Asian Carp and move on to new topics.  At the time of my last post, I had several hot topics, such as the history of the islands in East Sandusky Bay including the resorts of Issatan Island and Kafralu Island.  Both have an interesting history that affect our life and time on the East Sandusky Bay.

Then life got interesting.  I got called for jury duty the week of the Erie MetroPark's Huron Greenway trial.  The trial  was for a jury determination of the money damages owed to Warren Jones.  Mr. Jones was one of several property owners whose property was "taken" by eminent domain for the project.  Under Ohio law, the government agency who wants the property defines what they need to "take" and a jury then decides what the "take" is worth.  The MetroPark thought the "take" they defined was worth less than $10,000.  The property owner's appraiser said it was worth over $500,000.  I didn't get chosen for the jury, but I was so fascinated that I watched the trial for an entire week as the sole gallery occupant.  The jury awarded Mr. Jones about $200,000 plus legal fees.  The current director and park board has attempted to spin the story as the fault of the previous administration - but it was the current guys who defined what the park was "taking."  A board meeting set for next Tuesday should produce some interesting public comments.  By the time the dust settles, the Greenway is likely to be a multimillion dollar debacle. 

Incidently, I think the Greenway jury got it just about right - possibly a little low.  I guess the system works.

No sooner did I get focused back on Kafralu and Issatan than my friendly banker demanded that I get flood insurance or pay off my mortgage in 30 days.  It seems that it had been federally guaranteed and the feds were nervous.  The bank explained  that were told by FEMA that the house was going to wash away sometime in the next hundred years.  After working that problem for a while, I got a lot smarter about the floodplain designations.  A few hundred dollars later, the house was "saved" by my surveyor.  In the process, I learned that the new survey technology allows micrometer level accuracy in determining the elevation of a blade of grass and the flood maps were now new and improved.  Everyone should know what elevation their house is at within 0.01 inches.  This was once accuracy territory approached only by a skilled tool and die maker working on a well-tuned Bridgeport.  What FEMA didn't tell the bank was that the related problem of determining the level where the water may rise to is still done the old fashion way and, in fact, has not been rechecked anytime since 1977.  It remains unclear when, if ever, it was scientifically determined for even the "open lake."   It is clear that, even following the Army Corps of Engineers' analytical framework, it was never determined for East Sandusky Bay.  But that's the subject for a half-dozen future blog entries in which I will try to maintain my cool while discussing how your tax dollars are at work and costing me money.

The Asian carp story refuses to go away.  More of your tax dollars at work.  There's more and more handwringing from the environmentalists, cries for action from the politicians, and news stories about recipes and eating the critters.  Even the New York Times recently picked up on the idea of eating invasive species.  After all, the Carp we are so afraid of are called Kentucky tuna just a couple hundred miles to the South.  (One should remember that the first Asian carp to reach the Great Lakes in the 1880's were brought here by the federal government to help the fishing industry.)    Since the Chinese love big carp, maybe we can trade to get back our dollars in exchange for their favorite fish. 

My personal feelings are that Sandusky Bay and other shallow waters of Lake Erie are the waters most endangered by the new carp invasion but that the greater threat is from trucks rather than the river system.  Ohio should be taking an Ontario-like approach to stopping them at the border by simply making possession of live fish illegal.  Some politicians claim the "new and improved" Lacey Act stops interstate shipments under federal law.  However, it appears to have more holes than a badly built gill net.

Another angle on the Carp crisis is to let them eat the green gunk that grows on the western basin to fatten them up before shipping them to China in trade for dollars.  Seems like a win-win.  Guess we'll have to keep carping about the situation.

In our spare time, we've been looking at such famous people as Lyman Cooley, Robert Manning, and John Ripley Freeman who have helped to shape the Great Lakes a century ago and whose technology still govern Great Lakes science.  Say who???  Stay tuned for the answer to what all inquiring minds want to know.

The Asian Carp Problem is Worth Carping About for Ohioans

Just when I thought I could stop carping about the Asian carp, someone sent me a copy of Michael Scott’s Cleveland Plain Dealer article from March 12 about a new Life Science Investigation for middle school students.  Scott’s article is at http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03/bad_carp_good_algae_and_ugly_u.html and the LSI program can be found at http://wviz.org/lsi .  The program contains eight video segments and a number of links that teachers can give to the students for additional research.  It is an exceptionally thorough piece of work by the Great Lakes Science Center and WVIZ.

In light of the two recent Ontario convictions for attempted importation of Asian carp at the Bluewater and Ambassador bridges, it’s clear that live Asian carp were transported through the Great Lakes watershed by truck.  One of the convicted importers owns a fish farm in Peru, Indiana, which is within about 25 miles of the Lake Erie watershed. 

The Army Corps has acknowledged that feral Asian Carp are in the Wabash watershed within 25 miles of the upper limits of the neighboring Maumee watershed.  There is a valid concern for a transfer between the watersheds in the case of flooding.  However, there had been no mention of fish farm operations in the area.  The owner of the Indiana fish farm arrested at the Canadian border has told reporters that the fish were trucked from a southern United States fish farm.  http://blogs.wlfi.com/2011/03/08/illegal-in-carp-shipment-netted-in-canada/ .

The federal law governing the import of “injurious fish” into the United States is the Lacy Act.  However, the Lacey Act does not regulate intrastate transfers unless the receiving state has regulations in place that criminalize live fish possession.  The Lacey act has recently been updated to include the Big Head carp but is widely regarded as too little too late.  While it prohibits importation, it does little to regulate interstate transport since few states have laws against live Asian carp possession.

In 2007, The Asian Carp Working Group, consisting of 66 government employees and other interested parties, generated a report identifying 22 “pathways” for introduction of the Asian carp into the Great Lakes.  The Working Group roster indicates that Ohio was not represented.  The Working Group’s 223 page report identified a myriad of introduction opportunities and clarified that totally preventing introduction may be next to impossible.  The report can be read at http://www.asiancarp.org/documents/Carps_Management_Plan.pdf .

The latest Control Strategy Matrix (Jan 2011) includes 33 million dollars of requested funding and is online at: http://asiancarp.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/2011-Matrix-Dec30.pdf .

After reviewing the on-line information, I am convinced that, unless all of the Great Lakes states simply ban possession of live Asian Carp in the same manner that Ontario has, the Asian carp will eventually enter the Great Lakes.  Ontario’s position is clearly and unequivocally stated in their law.  You simply cannot possess live Asian carp anywhere in the Province for any reason.  We should promulgate similar laws in Ohio and in the other Great Lakes states.

Clearly, Ohio’s Lake Erie estuaries, such as Sandusky Bay, Old Woman Creek, East Harbor, and the many Black Swamp marshes will become ground zero for the propagation of the Asian carp if they make it to Lake Erie waters. 

In the 1880’s, the Federal Government intentionally introduced imported German carp to Lake Erie to compensate for over-fishing of the native stocks.  In a span of 130 years the German carp of 1880 became the “common carp” of today.  The effects of “common carp” on our ecosystem are discussed in Video 5 of the Public Television/Great Lakes Science Center middle school video series referenced in the first paragraph of this posting.  http://wviz.org/lsi/interior

If possession of live Asian carp is not banned throughout the Great Lakes region, they seem destined to become the “common carp” of 2111.  It is clear that no one knows for sure what damage these fish can cause.  I don’t think we want to find out and I see no upside to letting them in without putting up a good fight. 

I urge government action to address all of the potential introduction pathways and not just the Chicago River connections on which the Army Corps of Engineers has focused to date.

A Busy Week for the U.S. Carp Professionals and Canadian Carp Cops

February 8 was the twelfth and final regional NEPA Public Scoping Meeting conducted by the Chicago Army Corps of Engineers Office on GLMRIS, (the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study.)  In English, that means “How are we going to keep the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes”  The meeting was in Ann Arbor and was well attended.

John Goss, President Obama’s Carp Czar attended the meeting.  Mr. Goss’ background includes serving as Indiana’s DNR under two governors and for four years as the executive director of the Indiana National Wildlife Federation.  See: http://archive.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/09/us-names-asian-carp-czar.html

As the twelfth in the series of NEPA meetings on the Asian carp problem from Minneapolis to New Orleans, it was a well-orchestrated presentation followed by an opportunity to ask questions and make comments.  Comments can also be submitted in writing or on-line until the end of the month.  Major General John Peabody, head of the Army Corps’ Great Lakes and Ohio River Division led the meeting.

For more background information or to comment, see the GLMRIS NEPA website at: http://glmris.anl.gov/involve/whatisscoping/index.cfm .  All of the public comments, both written and oral, will be put on-line next month.

The oral comments were overwhelmingly in favor of preventing the Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes and doing it quickly.  Many of the public comments sought to clarify that prevention should mean 100% prohibition and not just “discouraging entry” to some level deemed economically feasible based on a Corps analysis.  Many comments also addressed the need for a sense of urgency and considered the five year scoping study timeframe unacceptable, citing the fact that it had been more than a decade since Asian carp escaped from a southern fish farm.  

Reportedly, the fish were first imported in the 1970’s to southern fish farms.  http://detnews.com/article/20110308/METRO/103080373/Feds-defend-carp-strategy-at-Ypsilanti-meeting

A SCARY DEVELOPMENT IN THE CARP STORY

While the Carp Czar and the Chicago Corps were meeting with the public to scope their study, reports of live Asian Carp crossing both the St Clair and Detroit Rivers were reaching the press.  Of course, at the present time, the carp had to do this by truck and, fortunately, they were stopped by the Ontario law enforcement officials.  It seems Ontario has wisely already outlawed the transport of live Asian carp.

The Detroit River crossing was first reported over the weekend.  The St. Clair River Crossing was first reported on Tuesday.  During the week the story expanded and, by Friday, we learned from D’Arcy Egan of the Plain Dealer that the Toronto Chinese community sometimes celebrate with a pair of live Carp by eating one and releasing the other for good luck.  Egan’s article is at http://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/03/sales_of_live_asian_carp_threa.html   

For many of the other carp articles this past week, check the GLIN.net archives at:  http://www.glin.net/news/inthenews.html

ANOTHER EXTENSIVE CARP INFORMATION SOURCE

In an earlier post, I mentioned finding references to the introduction of German carp to the Great Lakes area by the federal government.  At the time, I was trying to understand the differences between historic Lake Erie fishing practices employing seine fishing and pound fishing technology.  As a byproduct of that research, I have now found an excellent on-line information source on the entire German carp importation history and its effects.

For those of you wanting to understand what damages the Asian carp can do in greater detail, check out the 1904 Report of the Bureau of Fisheries.  Pages 524-641 present a factual retrospective analysis of the last carp crisis on the Great Lakes after the damage was done.  The entire report is on-line at:  http://www.archive.org/details/reportofbureauoff1904unit

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There are two disturbing things about this week’s Asian carp developments. 

·        First, they are here already, having come by truck. 

·        Second, some were trucked in by a Peru, Indiana, fish farm operator. 

Sort of makes you wonder if the Great Lakes states should copy and enforce the law used in Ontario.  Let’s stop the carp before they reach the Bluewater and Ambassador Bridges.  Doesn’t sound too hard to me and doesn’t require a five year scoping study  - just find and copy the Canadian law.

Unfortunately, I’m sure the Chicago Army Corps Office will correctly find that such laws are beyond their jurisdiction.  However, maybe we can seek the help of the Carp Czar, who is also from Indiana, (a Great Lakes State,) has run a Department of Natural Resources, and is connected in high places.  Just a thought.  Start writing your state officials if you care.

Why Pound Fishing Replaced Seine Fishing on Lake Erie

In a previous post, I  explained how and why the Fisheries Commision encouraged the introduction of (european) carp into the Great Lakes to address the dwindling fish supply in the 1880's.  In that post, I also mentioned that I came upon the references to the carp introduction as a diversion from trying to understand why the Sandusky area commercial fishing industry changed from "seine fishing" to "pound fishing" around 1860.  It's time to get back to understanding seines and pounds and why they were so important to Lake Erie's expanding fishing industry in the second half of the 19th century.

The change in technology was clearly important to the Ohio Supreme Court's decision in Sloan v. Biemiller
34 Ohio St. 492(1878).  As it turns out, the change was made simply to take advantage of the higher productivity of the pound method.  A smaller crew could harvest more fish in far less time.  After all, the bounty of the lakes was free for the taking and was limitless - at least under the common wisdom of the day. 

The other thing that happened with seine to pound changeover was that fishing was no longer under the control of the landowner in possession of the shore.  Commercial fishing with seines had to be done from the shore.  Pound fishing was done from pound boats.  The pound boats became the pick-up trucks of Sandusky Bay by the 1880's. Shore access was no longer required and was irrelevant for pound fishing. 

In fact, seine fishing continued to be done from the shore on the Detroit River long after the conversion to pound fishing on Lake Erie.  With time, the equipment was vastly improved with mechanical net retreival systems but it remained labor intensive.  Pound fishing was, of course, impractical on the River because of the impairment of navigation created with the net stakes and extensive leaders required for a commercial pound system.  To this day, net stakes are shown on Lake Erie navigation charts.  The following figures are from the Fishery Commision report to the 50th Congress are were obtained from the Washington University sites provided in the links.

Typical Pound Fishing Arrangement

Lifting the Pot on Lake Erie Pound Fishing System

Seine Fishing From Grassy Island on Detroit River

In the near future, we'll begin to explore the past, present and future of East Harbor State Park's once wonderful beach.  We will explore how the East Harbor Beach has responded to past level changes, storm events and  governmental "fixes."  We'll also crystal ball what's likely to happen in the future.

  

Fortunately, East Harbor's Beach has a citizen group intensely interested in it's restoration.  Beachaideastharbor has been a key advocate for the Beach at East Harbor for nearly a decade.  Their website is at http://beachaideastharbor.com/.

New At East Harbor

East Harbor
We took advantage of the sunshire earlier this week to visit East Harbor and see what's new.  It appears that there has been a good ice cover all winter and there has been little sand blown from the beach over the parking lot.  Hopefully, the near shore ice can remain for a few weeks.

The South parking lot is the scene of a pipe welding operation which appears to be assembling lots of plastic sewage pipe - presumably for a restroom upgrade at some point on the beach.  We'll try to find out more.

There is also a new paved parking area near the north turnaround.

Ohioans Should Be Concerned About The Feds Messing With Lake Erie Levels

I had been planning to blog about the International Upper Great Lakes Levels Study (IUGLS)and its implications for Lake Erie in a series of future posts.  When the Army Corps subscription notification of the Monthly Levels Bulletin arrived in my in-box this morning, as is my practice, I clicked my way to the Lake Erie levels chart for the month at:

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/_kd/go.cfm?destination=ShowItem&Item_ID=3883

Once there, I realized that there was a strange dip in the Lake Erie level for the past month.  Such a dip, but to a lesser degree, occurred in February 2010 as the result of an ice jam on the St Clair River.  To check the cause of this year’s dip, I clicked the link to the chart which displays the six month projection for all the lakes at:

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/_kd/go.cfm?destination=ShowItem&Item_ID=3887

Sure enough, there was another St Clair River ice jam this year.  Amazingly, this year’s jam was apparently worse than last year’s and earned a special note on the Lake St Clair chart.  Even more amazing, this year’s jam was sufficiently bad to affect not only Lakes St Clair and Erie, but also Lake Ontario.  As the chart shows, Lake Ontario was totally unaffected by last year’s St Clair River Jam.

For those unfamiliar with the IUGLS activity, it has been ongoing for about five years.  The documentation of the study activities to date and the overall plan is available at http://www.iugls.org/ .  The study has an extensive public input activity and has held meetings around the Great Lakes over the past years.  The public comments received in 2009 are at the following location:

http://pub.iugls.org/en/Other_Publications/Public_Questions_and_Comments.pdf   

I was the author of “Comment 9” on page 8 which reads as follows.

I attended the IUGLS presentations in Toledo and Cleveland and reviewed the draft report and project summaries. I am a life‐long resident of Northern Ohio, a Great Lakes boater for 40 years, and a lakefront property owner for 18 years.

I was, in general, positively impressed by the preliminary results to date. It is clearly a vast improvement over the control algorithm that has governed the control of the Lake Superior outflow for the past several decades. I hope that the results of the multiple studies will be applied to the improvement of the IJC control algorithms. I do not believe that control structures in the St. Clair River are advisable at the present time and I am deeply concerned that the impact of any such structures on Lake Erie has not been fully evaluated. Lake levels should be allowed to follow their natural seasonal patterns to the extent possible with the minimum amount of human intervention.

There is clearly a conflict between the interests of various lake users as well as conflicts between similar users in different areas. For example, what is good for Georgian Bay property owners is bad for property owners along the Michigan/Lake Michigan coastline and any changes will clearly affect all users of the Great Lakes.

I believe that the most valuable portions of the present study were those dealing with climate change and isostatic rebound. The climate change segments clearly indicated the shortcoming of the Residual NBS determination approach that has been used for decades. I hope alternate approaches will be adopted.

The change in calculation methods for isostatic rebound using the basin outlet locations rather than basin averages is also an improvement over past practice. Isostatic rebound is a fact of nature that all residents must live with. It should be pointed out that Edwin Moseley looked at Isostatic rebound along the south shore of Lake Erie more than a hundred years ago. He predicted that Port Clinton Ohio would be underwater by now. He was wrong. In the future, the science of GPS should allow more and more accurate evaluations/predictions of rebound as the science develops.  I hope it will be used to its fullest capability.

The least encouraging portion of the presently used science is the continued use of outdated and inappropriate approaches for evaluating the river flow conditions. The use of “Manning’s equation” for control purposes by the IJC is inappropriate. When Manning derived it 120 years, he established its limits of applicability and these are not met by the conditions of the St Clair River. The so‐called “weed factors” and “ice factors” seems to have little correlation to what actually exists in the rivers. I see little value in the high resolution static analysis of a highly dynamic river system which is poorly understood even at a gross level.

Hopefully, a specific recommendation of the study will be to implement a new control algorithm for the Lake Superior outflow with a closer connection to actual conditions in the rivers and over the lakes and their watersheds.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit my comments.

The board’s response to my comment can be found on the website.  Since the time of my comments, the study has continued to proceed with its very detailed, albeit flawed, analysis which ignores the effect of the Niagara River flows on levels throughout the lakes. 

While the analysis may be flawed, the study team seems extremely certain of its conclusions, stating that the effect of any “Rounding Errors or Unknowns” is “Negligible.”  (Final Report, December 2009, Figure Ex-2, page vi.)  I respectfully disagree.  I also hope that any readers with property or marine interests in Ohio will urge the study team to leave the river alone unless and until they can get a better handle on what effect any changes they may recommend will actually have on Lake Erie’s levels.

In general, I think Ohioans objectives should follow those of the Lake Michigan residents in Michigan who have asked the Study Team to leave well enough alone.  For some of their comments, see:

 http://www.iugls.org/lake-michiganders-dont-want-to-see-water-levels-raised.aspx

If you agree, drop the IUGLS folks a note at http://www.iugls.org/ContactUs.aspx

Much more on this topic later.

Asian Carp – Let the Kentuckians Keep Their Kentucky Tuna

One of the most fascinating aspects of researching early Lake Erie history is that the early legal cases are closely linked to effects of technology and changes in the natural environment.  Typically, one reference leads to another in a never-ending chain of cause and effect.  It also sometimes leads to fascinating “if only” questions. 

For example, one of the key cases to reach the Ohio Supreme Court in the 19th century was Sloan v. Biemiller (1878) 34 Ohio St. 492.  It involved fishing rights off of Cedar Point.  (Probably near the location of the present amusement park)  The Court’s opinion was based on innovations in fishing technology when the use of seines was replaced by the use of pound fishing.  Until the introduction of pound fishing, the owners of the shore claimed the right to control all fishing near the shore without argument. 

In a desire to understand what the Sloan Court was talking about, I chased down a report made by the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries to The 50th Congress, Second Session (1891), Congressional Report Misc. 133.  That report summarized the state of commercial fishing at the time of Sloan.  The report included an extensive discussion of commercial fishing on the Great Lakes, including the technologies used, the harvest size by year, and a prediction of the future of commercial Great Lakes fishing. 

The Commission correctly predicted that the future was grim.  After the Sloan decision, fishing in Lake Erie was largely unregulated and growing at a rampant pace.  It represented a prime example of “The Tragedy of the Commons.”  This theoretical concept is a key focus of what modern law schools teach in introductory environmental law classes.  See, for example, http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html  for a concise and easy to read explanation.

With much hand wringing about the future of the commercial fishing industry, the Commission recommended a novel solution – the introduction and propagation of European carp.  The carp were described in glowing terms as follows:

“Sufficient attention has not been paid in the United States to the introduction of the European carp as a food fish, and yet it is quite safe to say that there is no other species that promises so great a return in limited waters.” (at page lxxvi)

History showed the Commission to be wrong.  A great book on the history of Great Lakes fishing is Margaret Beattie Bogue’s Fishing the Great Lakes – An Environmental History (2000).  Ms. Bogue notes how changes in transportation and food preservation had permitted entrepreneurs engaged in commercial fishing to expand by shipping the “deer of the lakes” (whitefish) as far as Liverpool.  (p34.)

Bogue provides an excellent and easy to read summary of the expansion of commercial exploitation of the “infinite resources” of the lakes and their collapse less than half a century later.  She provides a detailed look at how the state and national governments of the Great Lakes blew it.

With the benefit of an extra century of perspective, Ms. Bogue has a slightly different take on the Good Carp – Bad Carp Issue, as follows:

“In the 1870’s, fish culturists experimenting with ways to increase species suitable for

commercial use released two (intruded species) into the Great Lakes waters: the alewife and the carp.”

For a time, enthusiasm for carp ran high.  In 1888, Seth Green wrote a small book in which he advocated that farmers raise carp and provided instructions on the construction of carp ponds.  ......  Introduced into Sandusky Bay in 1888, carp soon became numerous in the shallow waters of Western Lake Ere.  In 1893, 631,000 pounds went to market; six years later, 3.6 million pounds.”  (pp.164-165)

Today, the only experts who seem to like the Asian carp are Chicago politicians, people dependant on them, or people who already have the carp in their waters like Kentucky.  Some Kentuckians are now extolling the virtues of the Asian carp in their rivers.  The folks at University of Kentucky say Asian carp tastes like tuna and have developed some yummy recipes fit for the finest kitchens.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SNtJo958BM 

Here’s my humble opinion:

·        First, as an engineer, I’m very impressed with the Asian Carp’s “eyes on the bottom” design – obviously designed for sucking algae off the surface – possibly a useful characteristic in Western Lake Erie – but not worth the risk.

·        Second, based on past experience with those wonderful European carp that the governments loved for a while, I’m sure they’ll thrive in Sandusky Bay.

·        Third, based on the large population of European carp that were trapped in East Sandusky Bay and died while spawning when levels temporarily dropped a few years ago, I can imagine the stink we will have from the new, improved and larger Asian version if water levels continue to drop as I expect they will.

In summary, I’ll make a swag (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess) that the new carp are bad news – despite their excellent mechanical design as algae skimmers.  Unfortunately, the ability to make swags seems to been bred out of government scientists of the past decades.  In essence, swag skills have disappeared decades ago along with the demise of slide rules and punch cards.  We now have to study such problems for five years with alphabet soup programs like the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS) before coming up with a plan.  http://glmris.anl.gov/

Your comments are welcome.  I promise to post any that aren’t nasty rants.  Finally, please remember to buy books and support your local libraries and historical societies.  That’s the only way we can learn from the past, understand past mistakes, avoid future ones and keep our government on the right track.

British Beach Users Want Clean Sand And Clean Water Above All Else

Last year, Ohio’s Office of Coastal management in Sandusky conducted an on-line survey of visitors to Ohio’s North Coast.  The results have not, as yet, been distributed as far as ohiobeachguy knows.

While reviewing some past issues of Shore and Beach, a publication of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), ohiobeachguy came across a survey of British beach users which the magazine published in its Winter, 2009 edition.

The survey analyzed the inputs of users at six beaches on the Bristol Channel  The Bristol Channel is similar to Lake Erie in its major dimensions.

The survey was fairly conclusive.  Give us clean water and clean sand and everything else is secondary.  Safety and toilets came in a distant third and fourth.

It will be interesting to see what beach users in Ohio tell the Coastal Management Office.  Hopefully, the results of the Ohio survey will be published this year.

Not on My Beach

As I sit at the computer during yet another blizzard, I can’t help but wonder why I’m here blogging rather than in someplace warm on the deck of a sailboat.  It is clearly the “fault” of a number of people in my past including:

·        The fantastic boss who got me interested in sailing 40 years ago,

·        The many fascinating members of Cleveland Amateur Boatbuilding Society who imported cheap boat kits from England and taught many non-sailors how to build and enjoy beach boats like the Mirror Dingy,

·        The members of the International Fireball Class Association who taught me to build fast boats and to relish sailing flat out,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgUWxWOMk0I

·        The realtor who convinced me I “needed” an open water landing for my Fireball

·        The neighbors who wanted rocks placed on my landing beach to “fix the erosion problem” caused by Lake Erie’s rising levels of the 80’s and 90’s.

·        The half-dozen like-minded lakefront owners who formed the Ohio Lakefront Group to seek legislative action clarifying that they owned what their deeds said

·        Other property owners throughout the Great Lakes who formed the International Great Lakes Coalition to seek out reasonable controls for the water levels of the Great Lakes.

·        The Cleveland Marshall Law Professor who took no mercy on an aging first year law student and ripped to shreds my first attempt at defining the so-called public trust boundary at the edge of the Lake in 1999.

And here I sit watching it snow.  I no longer naively think that I am no longer naive.  Instead, I realize that there are many unanswered questions, including legal, technical and political ones, which will determine the future of the Great Lakes and the people of the region.  The legal ones, at least in Ohio, will be answered by the Ohio Supreme Court, in the not too distant future.  Hopefully the Court will reach a just solution in a few months based on the thousands of pages of legal briefs.  In addition, there were53 minutes of oral arguments offered for their consideration.  http://supremecourtofohiomedialibrary.org/Media.aspx?fileId=128853

The unanswered technical and political questions are, at this point, of far greater immediate concern.  Of those, the variability and control of lake levels is the greatest long-term threat to Lake Erie.  Excessive and abnormal levels were the root cause of wide-spread public and private property damage in the last part of the 20th century.  Amplifying the damage caused by fluctuating lake levels was the effect of ill-conceived projects meant to protect the shore.

While levels are a long-term concern, a focus on levels should not prevent those of us in Ohio from taking short term actions to repair our public beaches. 

Which Beach Do You Want?

Ohioans have seen many of their beaches disappear over the last 60 years.  I wish I could promise that we can get them back permanently with just a little common sense.  However, shoreline and watershed management is only part of the problem. 

Much of the problem started with unanticipated lake level changes over the past seven decades. At present there is a real and current threat of changes to the St. Clair River which, contrary to government claims, may affect Lake Erie levels.  If levels drop too far on Lake Erie, the marinas and boaters will be in trouble.  If levels rise too far, the beaches are, once again, history.

The following photos are recent shots from the "protected" beach at East Harbor State Park with non-existant sand and the beach which my neighbors and I restored with American Beach Grass at Cedar Point.  In the coming weeks, I'll explain how each location got to the shape it is in today. 

Historic records for each site exist for each site dating to the 1820's.  The mystery of how these two locations could be so radically different is an interesting story. 



East Harbor "Beach"




Cedar Point Beach



 In future posts, we will compare the early history of Cedar Point and East Harbor and explore what we can learn about how the environment was 150 years ago and how it has changed.

For those of you who care more about other areas of Ohio's shoreline, or other lakes, I promise to mix in information about those as well as we go on.  One of my favorite public beaches in Ohio is Lakeview Park in Lorain.  Since the DeLuca's Place in the Park reopens next week, it will be a great time for a visit.  You can check out the beach at http://www.metroparks.cc/lakeview-park.php  I was there last week and the winter has done a number with blowing sand.  We'll deal with that in a later post.

If you need a guide to get around Ohio's Lakeshore, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of Ohio's Lake Erie Public Access Guidebook.  It is available on-line at the ODNR Coastal Management Website and FREE copies can be picked up at locations listed on the website.
  http://dnr.ohio.gov/Default.aspx?alias=www.dnr.state.oh.us/coastal

If you want to do a little extra credit homework, pick up a copy of Ginger Strand's book entitled Inventing Niagara.  It will give you a preview of where we are going - and she's a much better writer than I am.  There's a New York Times article about the book at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/books/review/Sullivan-t.html

While you're at it, be sure to support your public libraries.  Much of the information which I have uncovered would have been lost forever without Ohio's wonderful library systems.