In his presentation to a recent virtual meeting of the Huron Water Protection Steering Committee, Zuzek Inc.
President Peter Zuzek pointed out that shoreline erosion is a natural process.
Zuzek Inc. provides hazard investigations, climate change adaptation and resilience planning, and natural resource management.
Zuzek said with higher lake levels, some of the sandy beaches are partially submerged, but they will recover as levels go down. But a study they conducted recently doesn't offer much hope for the future.
“The study we were able to complete focused a bit more on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario than Lake Huron, but what it showed in those lakes should be transferable to Lake Huron is as our weather data shows a change to warm, these cold winters with lake ice cover are going to be rarer and rarer,” said Zuzek.
Zuzek added if all of their projections happen, it could be a huge problem.
“If all of these projections happen, we will reach a situation, by late century, where there is no longer ice cover on Lake Huron and that has serious implications for our shoreline communities and our eco-systems and our beaches.”
He said the absence of lake ice dramatically exposes the shoreline to storm events in the winter when the storm would normally be in the form of snow and at a time when the shoreline would be protected by ice, it will be exposed to even more storm waves.