Sweetwater Seas Under Siege - Part 1: The Seaway's Paradox: How a Dream of Commerce Unleashed Ecological Ruin

The Sweetwater Seas Under Siege - Part 1: The Seaway’s Paradox: How a Dream of Commerce Unleashed Ecological Ruin

The Great Lakes appear impossibly blue when viewed from an airplane window. They look tantalizingly similar to the Caribbean. The five lakes straddle the U.S. and Canadian border. They contain a global trove of freshwater, earning them the name “sweet water seas”. Roughly 97 percent of the globe’s water is saltwater. Most remaining freshwater is inaccessible, locked in polar ice caps or deep underground. The Great Lakes hold about 20 percent of the surface freshwater readily available for human use. This large reserve is critical, since over 750 million people lack regular access to safe drinking water.

European explorers arrived in the early 1600s, captivated by the system’s size. They hoped the lakes would provide a shortcut to the riches of China. In 1634, voyageur Jean Nicolet paddled across northern Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. Nicolet landed on the southern end of Green Bay, approximately 7,000 miles (11,265 km) short of Shanghai. He wore a flowing Chinese robe covered in colorful flowers and birds. Early settlers treated the lakes as liquid highways promising unimaginable fortune. This historical exploitation of the world’s largest expanse of freshwater continues today, causing disastrous consequences.

The Quest for an Inland Ocean

Great Lakes cities like Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit desperately needed a global shipping connection. For centuries, the St. Lawrence River blocked this commercial dream. Walter Cronkite, the respected CBS newsman, celebrated the St. Lawrence Seaway project in 1957. He told viewers that the “greatest engineering feat of our time” was then underway. Cronkite described the massive effort to move the Atlantic Ocean more than 1,000 miles (1,609 km) inland.

The plan required scraping and blasting a navigation channel through the St. Lawrence River. This manmade nautical expressway would allow giant freighters to steam from the East Coast into the five massive freshwater seas. The Seaway would open 8,000 miles (12,875 km) of U.S. and Canadian coastline to international commerce. Cronkite stated the project was completing the job nature began thousands of years ago. He declared the construction was creating an “eighth sea” of opportunity.

The geography of the region encouraged the Seaway’s conception. The Gulf of St. Lawrence extends 1,200 miles (1,931 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Ontario. A traveler might assume they could easily sail almost to the dead center of North America. This distance totals approximately 2,300 miles (3,701 km). Everything changed about 1,000 miles (1,609 km) inland. The St. Lawrence River climbed 18 feet (5.5 m) between the ocean and Montreal. Upstream from Montreal to Lake Ontario, the river climbed 245 feet (74.7 m) through impassable torrents.

Bypassing Natural Barriers

Beyond Lake Ontario, the natural barrier became absolute. The river gained another 160 feet (48.8 m) in just 35 miles (56.3 km). This severe drop led directly to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls made the Great Lakes ecologically unique. The falls tumble over the Niagara escarpment near present-day Buffalo, New York. The falls stand about 170 feet (51.8 m) high. They provided an impassable barrier, preventing aquatic life from migrating upstream from Lake Ontario into the four upper Great Lakes.

Before the Seaway, humans began breaching nature’s defenses incrementally. Work to bypass the Lachine Rapids started in 1689. French crews struggled with rock and faced attacks from Native Americans. Progress accelerated after the English captured Canada in 1763. In 1781, the English military opened the first large breach with a short canal near Montreal. This canal was scarcely the length of a football field. It crucially included three navigation locks.

A navigation lock uses a watertight chamber to adjust elevation for boats. Gravity sends water into and out of the chambers. This first canal allowed boats to ascend or descend a mere six feet (1.8 m). By the 1800s, larger Durham boats sailed beyond Montreal. The 180-mile (289 km) trip from Lachine to Lake Ontario still required about 12 days.

America’s First Waterway

The United States implemented its own conquest of nature from the south. President George Washington recognized the strategic need for a Western connection. He worried isolated frontier settlers might lose allegiance to the new nation. Washington desired a canal connecting the Potomac River to the West.

New York realized this vision with the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825. The route followed the gentle tilt of the Hudson River for 145 miles (233 km) inland. The canal then cut west for 300 miles (483 km) through forests to Buffalo on Lake Erie. Before the canal, the overland trip from Albany to Buffalo took approximately two weeks.

The genius behind the canal was Jesse Hawley, a flour merchant. Hawley, writing from a debtor’s prison in 1807, laid out the general canal route. He believed Lake Erie’s high elevation supplied the energy needed to fill the locks. The 363-mile (584 km) canal climbed 568 feet (173 m) in elevation. It was 40 feet (12.2 m) wide and four feet (1.2 m) deep. The canal shortened the Albany-to-Lake Erie ride to five days. Tonnage prices dropped from $100 to $10 per ton of freight. Tolls covered the $7 million construction cost within 10 years.

The canal symbolized the “wedding of the waters”. On October 26, 1825, Lake Erie water entered the canal. Governor DeWitt Clinton poured the Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean ten days later in New York City. The return trip saw Atlantic water mixed with Lake Erie. Though celebrated as bringing “innumerable blessings,” this act also introduced “incalculable curses”.

Canada Bypasses the Falls

Canada responded to the Erie Canal’s success by building the Welland Canal. Construction began in 1824. The Welland served as a hydraulic elevator between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It bypassed the Niagara Falls barrier by hoisting ships 325 feet (99 m) up the escarpment. The Welland’s 40 locks were larger than the Erie’s, built for freight-carrying schooners. The canal aimed to connect large sailing vessels directly to the Eastern Seaboard.

The fourth Welland Canal expansion finished in 1932. Massive ships, like the 633-foot (193 m) freighter carrying 15,000 tons (13,608 tonnes) of wheat, used the locks. This enormous ship was essentially trapped, unable to pass the narrow, older St. Lawrence River locks. Navigation advocates determined they must now finish the job by building the true Seaway.

The Seaway is Launched

After years of Congressional rejection, Canada threatened to build the Seaway alone in 1952. President Eisenhower signed authorization legislation in May 1954. Immediately, 22,000 workers began construction. They built seven 30-foot-deep (9.1 m) locks on the St. Lawrence River, replacing 21 smaller Canadian locks.

A massive concentration of heavy machinery was used. One 16-story-high crane, called the “Gentleman,” scooped over 56,000 pounds (25,401 kg) of earth per minute. Construction achieved in a day what earlier canal builders required months or years to complete. The United States spent $133.8 million, and Canada spent $336.5 million on the Seaway locks. An integral hydropower dam created a 30-mile (48.3 km) long manmade lake, allowing ships to bypass rapids.

The Seaway opened in 1959. Great Lakes leaders made grand claims. Milwaukee’s port director predicted the Seaway would be the “greatest single development” for the city’s future growth. Chrysler anticipated 80 percent of its auto exports would float out the new Seaway. Chicagoans looked forward to rivaling global commercial hubs like New York and Rotterdam.

Containerization Changes Everything

The Seaway dream was undermined before its completion. In April 1956, just after the new U.S. Eisenhower Lock was dedicated, a crucial innovation occurred. Malcolm Purcell McLean, a North Carolina trucker, converted an oil tanker, the Ideal X, into the first container ship. He installed a platform holding 58 detached trailer truck bodies, creating cargo containers.

This system revolutionized shipping efficiency. Six days later in Houston, the 58 units were transferred to trucks without manual longshoremen handling. Containerization proved far more efficient than the clumsy process of loading bulk cargo that slowed Seaway traffic.

When the Seaway finally opened, initial operations were chaotic. Three-day-long jams plagued the Welland Canal and ports in Detroit and Chicago. Freighters suffered damage banging through the harrowingly narrow chokepoints. A German captain complained, “Didn’t you people expect ships?”. Shippers quickly grew impatient. The Grace Line reported over $1.2 million in losses during the first season due to bottlenecks and damage.

The Seaway’s initial optimistic promise never materialized. The overseas cargo component peaked at 23.1 million tons in the late 1970s. That traffic has recently dropped to less than six million tons. Overseas cargo now accounts for 5 percent or less of total Great Lakes shipping. Congressman Jim Oberstar, a Seaway booster, lamented that the locks were built “too small”. Railroads and East Coast ports successfully lobbied to limit the Seaway’s size, fearing competition.

The Paradox: Ecological Ruin

The physical construction caused initial tragedy, flooding 38,000 acres (15,378 hectares). Six towns, including Moulinette and Milles Roches, were submerged to create the necessary manmade lake. Yet, the Seaway’s larger paradox was that it failed to conquer nature. Instead, it unleashed an ecological catastrophe through its “Front Door”.

In 1955, eighth-grader Pat Kenney worried about the risks of reengineering the river. U.S. Seaway boss Lewis G. Castle assured him that the 600-foot (183 m) elevation of Lake Superior meant salt water could not contaminate the freshwater. Castle failed to mention the invisible danger carried by ships.

Overseas ships hold up to six million gallons (22.7 million liters) of vessel-steadying ballast water. This water is discharged into the lakes in exchange for cargo. Scientists later learned this ballast water teems with millions, if not billions, of living organisms. Ballast water is biological pollution that cannot be cleaned by capping a pipe. It breeds. The Seaway became the conduit for repeated waves of biological pollution.

The First Invasion: Sea Lamprey

The first major biological invasion exploited the earlier Erie and Welland canals. This invader was the sea lamprey, an eel-like Atlantic Ocean bloodsucker. Lampreys are anadromous, typically spending adulthood in the ocean before returning to rivers to spawn. They can use a large freshwater body as a substitute for the sea. The first sea lamprey was found in Lake Ontario in 1835, likely arriving via the Erie Canal.

Lampreys were initially blocked from the upper Great Lakes by the Welland Canal’s design. A high point in the original canal caused water to flow in two directions, confusing the upstream-swimming parasites. The Welland Canal’s third expansion in the 1880s removed this natural deterrent. The deepened channel allowed Lake Erie water to flow continuously down the Welland, providing lampreys a clear migration route.

The first sea lamprey above Niagara Falls was discovered in Lake Erie in 1921. Fifteen years later, a specimen was found attached to a lake trout off Milwaukee, Lake Michigan.

The lamprey survived four of Earth’s five mass extinctions. It uses a suction-cup mouth and a tongue rough as an emery board to rasp away skin. Each lamprey can kill 40 pounds (18.1 kg) of fish during its predatory phase. They decimated the native lake trout, which were vulnerable due to their small, soft scales. By 1950, the lamprey invasion peaked, leaving the intricate Great Lakes ecosystem in shambles.

The Hunt for a Solution

Biologist Vernon Applegate studied the lamprey lifecycle intensely. He determined the parasitic stage was brief. The lamprey spends over five years of its roughly seven-year life span as a blind, worm-sized larva. These larvae burrow invisibly into the streambeds feeding the Great Lakes. Applegate realized the lampreys were most vulnerable during their periods in the stream.

Initial control focused on weirs, or mesh barriers, to block spawning adults. Traps in 12 northern Michigan streams caught 29,425 adults, preventing 1.2 million pounds of native fish deaths. Applegate decided a specific poison, or lampricide, was necessary for “Complete eradication of sea lampreys above Niagara Falls”.

The program began secretly in the early 1950s. Researchers tested thousands of industrial chemicals. The test used jars containing two juvenile lampreys, one rainbow trout, and one bluegill. They sought a poison that killed the lampreys but left the other fish unharmed. They found the successful chemical in bottle number 5,209.

The first successful wild application occurred in 1957 on a creek near Cheboygan, Michigan. Thousands of larvae surfaced lifelessly, while native fish remained unharmed. By 1961, the poison brought the Lake Superior lamprey population under control. By 1967, continuous poisoning reduced the overall lamprey population to approximately 10 percent of its peak. This control program costs about $20 million annually today.

The Alewife Explosion

Controlling the sea lamprey did not end the ecological trouble. The second wave arrived as the alewife, a river herring native to the Atlantic. Alewives, like lampreys, used the large Great Lakes waters as a substitute for the ocean. They appeared in Lake Ontario in 1873. After commercial overharvests eliminated native predators like lake trout, the alewife population swelled to “almost incredible” numbers.

By the 1960s, alewives comprised 90 percent of the fish mass in Lake Michigan. In 1967, a Navy seaplane surveyed Lake Michigan’s southern end. The pilot observed white streaks covering miles of the surface. This slick was a massive die-off of alewives, numbering in the hundreds of millions. The fetid mess washed ashore, smothering 30 miles (48.3 km) of Chicago shoreline. Chicago workers disposed of enough rotting alewives to cover two football fields 500 feet (152 m) high. The cleanup cost the tourism industry millions. This disaster necessitated another radical intervention for the struggling Great Lakes.