The Midwest drought is lowering water levels in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to near-record lows, putting pressure on the shipping industry and turning some beaches into long mud flats. It is also intensifying a debate over a decades-old dredging project near Detroit that permanently reduced the lakes' levels by nearly two feet.
The two lakes, which meet at the Straits of Mackinac, were down nearly a foot in August from a year earlier and nearly two feet below the average for the past century. The levels could break a record low set in 1964 in the next few months, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projections.
The drought has lowered water levels in lakes and rivers throughout the Midwest, including the Mississippi, which has experienced periodic closures to barge traffic. But even the vast Great Lakes, which represent a fifth of the earth's surface fresh water and are hundreds of feet deep, are being hit by the lack of rain.
Great Lakes water levels are especially important to the shipping industry, which moves some 200 million tons of cargo each year, since the depth of water near ports and shipping channels dictates how much coal, iron, grain or other cargo can be loaded on ships. Read more >>
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