Rising Waters, Rising Concerns: Part 4 - 9 & 10 News - 9&10 News

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Rising Waters, Rising Concerns: Part 4 - 9 & 10 News - 9&10 News Posted: 18 May 2020 03:11 PM PDT All of the Great Lakes water levels are incredibly high with Lakes Michigan/Huron setting new records every month. With so much water, our wetlands are spreading out and that's actually good news!  Think of the wetlands as a filter. They transform and they cycle nutrients while they are taking out the toxins. Think of these places as the kidneys of the Great Lakes, our coastal wetlands are crucial to the health of the lakes! "I always like to say that the coastal wetlands are essentially this last line of defense with pollutants and intoxicants coming off the landscape. So it's the wetlands that filters that material and essentially cleans the water before it reaches the open waters of the Great Lakes," said Dr. Donald Uzarski, director of CMU Institute of Great Lakes Research. Wetlands sustain life above and below the surface. They're important for floodwater storage. They're nursery habitat for fish.  About 90% of all the fish species in the Great Lakes rely on coastal wetlands. There's only so much energy in the ecosystem as a whole and at this point we have problems with over a 180 species of exotic species in an ecosystem and then we get a new one on average every six months. Now keep in mind that we have lost, we've developed 50% of our coastal wetland and in some areas like Saginaw Bay we've lost 95%. So we're losing an energy source and the energy that is there is going into the invasive species. And can trigger harmful algae blooms across our great lakes. The question is are these high waters good for wetlands? The part that helps these coastal wetlands is the natural water level fluctuation! We want to see low water and we want to see that shift right into high water. Think of these systems, they are a transition zone. There are transition from upland or truly terrestrial habitat to the open Water of the Great Lakes.  So it's the gradient in between the upland in the open water and what happens if these wetlands will migrate back and forth with water levels and actually with the more fluctuating water levels they expand and they expand into very distinct zones. The problem in many cases is that we, people, like to live on the water and we like to be on the water.  So what happens to that upper portion of the wetland as it gets filled in and developed and it becomes a resort or somebody's home, road or a parking lot – When we get high water instead of that wetland migrating, as it should, we get flooding because we have a road there we have bisected the wetland itself the road will flood. If the wetland was in place it would handle it fluctuation of the water levels. Thus, the water backs up. That's why you're seeing inland banks, rivers, and swamps water levels rising. The lakes, the streams, and the wetlands, they're all at the water table surface, but right now the groundwater table is up.  And because of our weather patterns and the changes in the jet stream that were seeing we're getting moisture brought into the Great Lakes basin that shouldn't be brought in here. So we're seeing these really high water tables and of course the lakes are going to be high, the streams are going to be high, and the wetlands are going to be high because they're at that water table.

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