The Sweetwater Seas Under Siege - Part 5: Water Wars and Genetic Fixes: Charting the Destiny of North America’s Greatest Freshwater Reserve
The history of the Great Lakes has been a cycle of commercial dreams, ecological chaos, and belated attempts at remediation. The first waves of invasion arrived through the St. Lawrence Seaway, the system’s “Front Door”. Subsequent threats arrived via the Chicago Canal, the manmade “Back Door” connecting the lakes to the Mississippi basin. Today, facing trillions of invasive mussels and the impending Asian carp threat, the world’s largest freshwater system faces three critical, defining challenges: protecting its vast water volume, adapting to climate change, and determining the ethical use of revolutionary new technologies.
The Never-Ending Threat to Siphon Away Water
The five Great Lakes cradle a global trove of freshwater. Approximately 97 percent of the globe’s water is saltwater. Of the surface freshwater readily available for human use, the Great Lakes hold about 20 percent of that volume. These lakes are not ancient pools of glacial melt; they are a dynamic system that constantly refills through precipitation and runoff while draining out toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Of global water that is saltwater
Of surface freshwater held by the Great Lakes
This vast, perpetually replenished supply makes the lakes a target for water-starved regions. Former Canadian U.S. ambassador Gary Doer predicted that future geopolitical fights over water will make the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline “look silly”. The biggest enemy to the lakes is no longer necessarily would-be profiteers but widespread human ignorance and indifference.
A line is officially drawn around the Canadian and U.S.-owned Great Lakes. This boundary, known as the Great Lakes watershed, dictates who can tap the resource. Water falling inside this line dribbles or rolls toward the lakes. Water falling just outside this line typically flows south toward the Gulf of Mexico or north toward Canada’s Hudson Bay.
The rationale for this boundary is simple: water piped over the watershed line, even by one mile, never returns to the Great Lakes. If enough water is diverted over time, the Great Lakes—which hold over 80 percent of North America’s surface freshwater supply—will begin to shrink.
The history of giant water diversion projects is grim. The Aral Sea in Asia, once the world’s fourth-largest lake, shrank to about 10 percent of its former volume by 2007. The Soviet Union diverted the rivers feeding it to irrigate cotton fields. Today, rusting boat hulls tilt on desert sands that were once the lakebed. Similarly, unsustainable withdrawals are draining the Ogallala Aquifer, which once held a volume equal to Lake Huron. Engineers calculate that the Ogallala will be drained nearly 70 percent by the middle of this century at the current rate of use.
The economic feasibility of piping Great Lakes water to distant regions like the arid West remains dubious. A 1980 study calculated that building 600 miles (965.6 km) of canal and pipes from Lake Superior to South Dakota would cost over $19 billion. This cost did not include the energy needed to lift the water onto the High Plains, which would require the equivalent of seven nuclear power plants.
Estimated cost to pipe water from Lake Superior to South Dakota
However, moving water to closer regions remains a different matter. The City of Chicago already draws approximately two billion gallons (7.57 billion liters) of water from Lake Michigan daily for various uses. Chicago sends its wastewater into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, where gravity alone carries it into the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico. This diversion, which is capped by the U.S. Supreme Court, lowers Lakes Michigan and Huron’s long-term average water level by approximately two inches (5.08 cm).
The threat of bulk export remains real. Ontario entrepreneur John Febbraro planned to load freighters with Lake Superior water to sell to Asian nations. Although the volume was small, politicians worried about setting a disastrous precedent for future diversions to regions like the Southwest or Mexico. Canada passed parallel legislation to the U.S. Great Lakes governors’ agreement that now maintains the right to block most diversions beyond the watershed.
The watershed line itself is politically contested. The city of Waukesha, Wisconsin, lies just outside the basin but depleted its own groundwater supply, which is dangerously polluted with naturally occurring radium. Waukesha successfully applied to pump an average of 10.1 million gallons (38.23 million liters) of Lake Michigan water daily over the natural divide. This request, while immeasurably small in the context of the Great Lakes, was widely viewed by critics as stretching the terms of the eight-state compact. They argue that the integrity of the boundary must be strictly upheld to prevent future claims.
Climate Change and the Shaky Balancing Act
While political battles focus on the border, climate change is fundamentally altering the lakes’ natural hydrological regime. The Great Lakes have always fluctuated, varying by about a foot between summer high and winter low. Over periods of years, levels varied by as much as several feet due to long-term weather patterns.
The problem today is a switch in the cycle. Water temperatures in Lakes Superior and Michigan are rising. A weather buoy in southern Lake Michigan recorded a Caribbean-like 80 degrees (26.67°C) in July 2012. This warming dramatically reduces winter ice cover. Lake Superior, which used to be largely frozen, now sees about 90 percent of its surface area remain open water during peak winter months.
The lack of ice leads to massive evaporation, particularly during the frigid gales of October, November, and December. Evaporation can sap up to two inches (5.08 cm) of water per week during this period. Increased evaporation caused Lakes Michigan and Huron to plunge to record lows in 2013. Hydrologists concluded that the climate has changed; the lakes are receiving precipitation but are losing much more water through evaporation.
The low water crisis was compounded by previous navigational tampering. In the 20th century, the St. Clair River, the natural drain for Lakes Michigan and Huron, was repeatedly dredged to allow large freighters to pass. Hydrologists calculated that all the human dredging and mining of the St. Clair River collectively lowered Michigan and Huron’s long-term average by as much as a foot and a half (45.72 cm). Though compensation structures were designed to offset this loss, the Army Corps of Engineers never built the permanent fixes.
One study concluded that unexpected erosion following the 1960s dredging had lowered Michigan and Huron by an additional 3 to 5 inches (7.62 to 12.7 cm). The official, acknowledged toll on Lakes Michigan and Huron tied to dredging and erosion is as much as 21 inches (53.34 cm)—nearly two feet of lost water. Critics argue that the government should now explore building water-slowing structures in the St. Clair River to undo the damage done in the 20th century. Others, including U.S. Joint Commission Chair Lana Pollack, view restoration projects as “false hope” that distracts from the root cause: climate change.
Meteorologist Paul Roebber predicts that the intensified weather cycle will push water levels to historic extremes. He believes the average level on Michigan and Huron could fluctuate between 8 and 10 feet (2.44 and 3.05 m) in the coming decades, well beyond the historical three-foot flux. This new “normal” demands action now, either through “adaptive management” (learning to live with the change) or through fully managing the system.
The Promise and Peril of Genetic Fixes
The lakes’ destiny is further complicated by technological advancements that could solve the invasive species crisis, but introduce new ethical dilemmas. The invasive species problem is not abstract; the ecological unraveling caused by ballast invasions alone was estimated at $200 million annually in a 2008 study.
Scientists are now developing revolutionary genetic tools to eradicate nuisance species. One innovation involves a daughterless gene designed to eliminate an entire fish population by ensuring the carriers only automatically produce male offspring.
This anti-carp technology was pioneered in Australia to combat invasive common carp. Research teams created common carp that transmit a gene lethal only to female offspring. The research facility producing the genetically modified fish is “zealous” about security, using multiple ponds, screens, electric fences, and netting to prevent escape. The gene’s effect is designed to disappear over time, but multiple generations of daughterless fish would have to be planted to eliminate a local population.
The same technology, if successfully deployed, could be applied to mussels. Dr. Ron Thresher, who pioneered the technique, predicts genetic solutions for invasive species will be “widely available” by the early 2020s.
This power creates a massive governance challenge. In the 1960s, Michigan acted unilaterally to stock exotic salmon that spread throughout the lakes. Today, the question is who decides if, when, and where to deploy a gene potent enough to cause extinction.
If science allows humans to recast the lakes’ species, policymakers must decide on the long-term goal. Options include managing the lakes for maximum recreational fishing fun, farming genetically modified algae for energy, or attempting to resuscitate all native species.
Many conservationists believe that simple, foundational principles must guide the future. Famed naturalist Aldo Leopold argued in 1949 that a thing is right when it promotes the “integrity, beauty and stability of the biotic community”. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
The lakes are, in fact, beginning to self-heal. On Lake Huron, native species like lake trout are reproducing successfully because their primary competitor, the invasive alewife, has disappeared. The recovery is fueled by native fish adapting to eat the invasive gobies, which in turn feast on the mussels. This return to a native-dominated food web happened despite decades of management focused on exotic salmon.
The future course of the lakes depends on protecting them from further chaos. Lawmakers must close loopholes that exempt farm runoff (nonpoint pollution) from the Clean Water Act, addressing the toxic algae crisis. Governments must mandate strict ballast treatment to stop the next wave of invaders, like the killer shrimp.
Ultimately, the Great Lakes’ best defense lies in a robust, diverse native ecosystem. Native predators, such as lake trout and perch, feed on many of the 180-plus nonnative organisms that salmon ignore, making the lake more resistant to new invasions, including the Asian carp.
The question remains whether management will prioritize the expensive, fragile exotic system built for sport fishing or commit to the difficult process of long-term native recovery that promotes integrity, stability, and balance.