HOLLAND — While high water levels have dogged the Lake Michigan shoreline, causing erosion issues throughout Michigan’s west coast, the higher levels can lead to even further complications. The additional water facilitates decisions over transportation planning and runoff management — which impact the everyday lives of people in the lakeshore region.
The higher water levels have sparked discussion across all levels of government, including locally.
The Macatawa Area Coordinating Council helps oversee transportation planning and watershed management for communities within the Lake Macatawa region.
Part of the watershed management done by the MACC is ensuring that phosphorus levels in the lake are reduced. Additional runoff from higher water levels complicates that task.
Kelly Goward, environmental program manager at the MACC, said that while the organization isn’t actively involved in decisions regarding the elevated water levels, there are still steps it can take to passively manage the water entering Lake Macatawa.
“We assist several entities with their stormwater permits, as a part of that process they’ve been encouraged to look at the vulnerability of their stormwater systems,” she said.
Stormwater permits play a factor into what runoff enters the lake. As snow and rain push water into Lake Macatawa, the MACC also uses methods like introducing native vegetation to slow the water from entering the lake.
Goward added there are also green infrastructure projects that attempt divert the runoff from the lake entirely, instead rerouting it through native plant species and into the ground.
While there are plans to install green infrastructure at places like Kollen Park in Holland, surveyors have to account for the higher water levels before going forward with any plans.
“It kind of begs the discussion of our strategy of how we are going to adapt our planning and development strategy with the fluctuating water levels,” Goward said.
As for the transportation side of things, MACC transportation planner Carolyn Ulstad said that hazards like higher water levels are generally being accounted for when entities design road structures. But outdated roads might not have been constructed with the same foresight.
“If they’re really redoing a road, they’ll look at where water crosses,” she said. “Particularly because it’s one of the main issues that degrades the road over time.”
Ulstad said that older roads might not be able to accommodate higher water levels during weather events like floods and major storms. Culverts, or the pipes underneath roads that carry water, need to be big enough to prevent flooding.
“If you have an older culvert, they may be smaller than what they should be now,” Ulstad said. “If they know that more water is coming into the stream, if the hole is too small, it could start eroding soil, especially in a big (weather) event. It could erode the soil and the sand underneath the road and lead to road failure.”
In Saugatuck, a massive sinkhole caused part of Lakeshore Drive to be closed near M-89. Ulstad said that even when water levels start to fluctuate back to normal (which might not happen anytime soon), planning entities like road commissions should design roads with the additional water in mind.
“I think that they’ll keep thinking about even after our lake levels go down,” she said. “Planning around water in transportation is something that’s not going to stop.”
— Contact reporter Arpan Lobo at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @ArpanLobo.