× 1 of 7 Expand 311sol01background Terry Brown/Natural Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota Duluth × 2 of 7 Expand 311sol07-1 This special image of Lake Superior without its water also shows different locations plotted on the map. Graphics by Terry Brown/UMD's NRRI × 3 of 7 Expand 311sol05-1 It's fine to speculate about a work without its largest inland sea, but thank goodness we can look out - here near the Temperance River State Park in Minnesota - and be reassured that Lake Superior and its water are still gracing our neighborhood. PHOTO BY LARRY & LINDA DUNLAP × 4 of 7 Expand 311sol06-2 The Aral Sea has receded by 75 miles, leaving boats stranded far from the water. PHOTO BY PETER ANNIN × 5 of 7 Expand 311sol07-3 Graphics courtesy Amlan Mukherjee/Michigan Technological University × 6 of 7 Expand 311sol07-2 Using Blender, a 3-D software used to create animations, Terry Brown input data to get a sense of what the lake would be like without its water. The process starts on a mesh grid, much as you may have seen in the behind-the-scenes animation work. × 7 of 7 Expand 311sol06-1 Satellite image of the Aral Sea from October 2008. Moderate Resolution Imaging Sepctroradioemter Rapid Response System/NASA Prev Next

In the Frank Capra movie classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey wishes he were never born and then gets the life-changing experience of seeing the world without him. George’s life, it turned out, enriched everyone around him.

There is no question that Lake Superior enriches the lives of those of us privileged to reside on or near it and those who visit. But just how much does that 10 percent of the world’s surface fresh water affect us? That is the question we explore in our very special State of the Lake Report “It’s a Wonderful Lake.”

How would we “disappear” the water? Not with an angel named Clarence. Perhaps those glaciers never left water in the basin. Or the lake may be a victim of alien abduction or of Arizonan abduction - both may need our fresh water.

Why disappear our magnificent, mystical Great Lake? In kicking off the 30th year of Lake Superior Magazine, we couldn’t think of a better way to remember to appreciate the Lake than by taking it away … for a few pages. Here, then, is what might happen meteorologically, ecologically and economically without our Wonderful Lake …

Weather & Water

If the 3 quadrillion gallons of water in Lake Superior were to disappear in the blink of an eye, expect a change in the weather. We around the lake would experience it … and so would people living on the other Great Lakes.

“Lake Superior has a big influence on how lake effect behaves even on lakes like Lake Michigan and Lake Huron,” says Greg Mann, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) in Detroit.Greg knows about Lake Superior’s influence; he’s done weather models examining what would happen without some Great Lakes. Greg’s models substituted forested areas, similar to what exists on the shores, in place of the water in the lake. Substituting sand or concrete would completely change the weather models, he explains.

“Lake Superior has by far the greatest influence on the region,” Greg says his modeling showed. “Even when you think you’re upstream from the lake, it still has an influence.”

Its size and placement gives it prominence in weather making and changing, he says. “It’s colder (than the other Great Lakes), but it’s also in an area that is colder; it produces lake effect for a longer period of time. Western lower Michigan is heavily tied to how things behave over Lake Superior first.”

The lake affects weather patterns and growing zones. The reason often relates to interaction between water and air temperatures. Lake Superior’s water stores the heat energy of the sun. Once warmed, the water holds its temperature, so the lake remains much warmer than the air long into winter. This creates the most obvious seasonal influence: the famed (or infamous) “lake effect snow.”How much Lake Superior affects winter snowfall - and how much that would change without the lake - is relatively easy to measure.

Look, say meteorologists, to what happens nearby. A good place to start is the Twin Cities, which would have a “similar climate regime” to Duluth, says Greg. The Cities average about 56 inches of snow per year. Duluth, at the lake’s western tip, averages 80 inches per year. For Duluth, that 24 extra inches is largely thanks to Lake Superior. But you must go east to see the real influence.

Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula averages 200 inches of snow per year. Credit the lake with delivering those 144 extra inches. The lake’s effect goes even farther. Buffalo, New York, known for “lake effect” snow, gets about 91 inches per year of the white stuff. However, without Lake Superior, the bending of winds, which starts with our Great Lake, may not send that snow to Buffalo, but perhaps to the south, says Dan Miller, science and operations officer at NWS in Duluth.

So without Lake Superior, forget the huge snowfalls … and the economic boom in snowmobiling, skiing and other winter recreation that comes with it. Without Lake Superior, areas near the lake would see far less snow each winter, and the distribution of snow in the central and eastern regions around the lake would be far different.

The effects would not be limited to snow. Duluth, for example, averages 52 foggy days per year. The fog, which tends to creep up the hill, can create a split personality in the city - one section sunny, one blanketed in fog. This lake effect is similar to what happens with a chilled glass of water taken from a refrigerator into a warm room; it fogs up. In winter, think of the air as the fridge, the lake as the warm room and Duluth as the glass. We would also have fewer cloudy days; the lake would not add moisture to the air.

The interaction of air, water and land can generate increased ferocity in storms around Lake Superior. When brewing storms reach the lake, they often slow down, picking up energy and moisture. Then these energized winds and clouds hit shore and must rise. “It’s a traffic jam when it hits land,” says Carol Christensen, warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS in Duluth. “The atmosphere likes to be in equilibrium, so the rising air causes precipitation.”

While water temperatures interacting with air temperatures create some weather patterns, Lake Superior also affects air temperatures themselves. But without that lake, would we be warmer or colder?

Those who garden here realize that Lake Superior has two major “zones” - a slightly milder, longer No. 4 zone near the water and a more frigid, shorter No. 3 zone away from shore. This differential spawns the familiar phrase “colder by the lake,” which applies in summer and which turns to “warmer by the lake” in winter. While our growing zone might be reduced to a shorter No. 3 without the lake, our overall temperatures might increase, say the experts.

“Spring and summer would definitely be warmer without the lake, but winters would be considerably colder,” says Dan.

“Average (winter) temperatures are significantly higher in the lee of the lakes than upstream of the lakes,” says Greg, pointing to a record annual low in the Detroit metro area of minus 21° F (minus 29° C) while in Duluth (not in the “lee” of the lakes), it’s minus 41° F (minus 40.5° C).

Without the lake, the area would see an increase in frequency and strength of thunderstorms in the warm season and we would be more susceptible to related phenomena, such as lightning, hail, damaging winds and tornadoes.

It’s a long-held belief that cities like Duluth benefit from Lake Superior “repelling” tornadoes. This has truth to it, Dan says, but it’s really more myth than fact. “If the lake were to be drained tomorrow, there is no question that the threat for summertime severe weather would be greater. The risk for tornadoes and damaging thunderstorm winds would increase significantly because of the lack of a shallow layer of stable air near and over the lake meteorologists refer to as the ‘marine layer’ which tends to inhibit damaging winds and tornadoes.”

However, he recalls a significant 1969 tornado that did a lot of damage in Two Harbors, Minnesota. “If it can happen in Two Harbors, there’s not much reason why it couldn’t some day happen in Duluth, or any other lake shore city.” Tornadoes are less common near Lake Superior than adjacent areas with similar climates, but believing that it absolutely couldn’t happen by our lake is simply wrong.

Will the Other Lakes Remain Great?

Lake Superior is the head of the Great Lakes, so it would be easy to think of it as a headwaters that irrigate lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario. (Lake Superior has the equivalent water, after all, of the other four lakes, plus three additional Lake Eries.)

Actually, the other Great Lakes are older than our lake. “Lake Superior, since it’s the farthest north, was the last lake that was carved (by glaciers),” says Keith Kompoltowicz, a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.These days, Lake Superior annually supplies 29 percent of the water in lakes Huron and Michigan. The average outflow per second from the lake into Lake Huron is 75,000 cubic feet (2,124 cubic meters), according to Minnesota Sea Grant’s “Superior Pursuit” publication. That is 28 times more water than comes into the lake from the St. Louis River in Duluth-Superior, one of its two main tributaries. The Nipigon River in Ontario is enhanced with diversions into its system. Those rivers total 25 percent of the 4.5 feet (137 centimetres) of the annual river runoff into the lake each year. Most of Lake Superior’s water comes from precipitation and direct runoff.

Lake Superior’s water does have a multiplied effect on the lower lakes, however. Lakes Michigan and Huron supply about 79 percent of the water into the lakes below them. “It increases as it goes down the system,” Keith says.

So what if Lake Superior suddenly dried up?

“It would certainly be an environmental disaster,” Keith says. “It’s the headwaters of the entire system, so the far-reaching effects would be large. We’re definitely spoiled when it comes to having an abundant supply of fresh water within easy reach.”

Not Just Wolf’s Head Canyon

Without its water, Lake Superior - or rather the 31,700 square miles (82,100 square kilometres) currently covered by Lake Superior - would not simply expose a hole in the ground (see the special graphics).

The depth of the lake varies from ankle-deep on some of our gentlest sand beaches to a gulping 1,276 feet (389 metres) down at its deepest spot, according to measurements done within the decade by the Large Lakes Observatory on the RV [Blue Heron]. In between, we have peaks and valleys as one might expect of any terrain in our northern tier of Michigan, Minnesota, Ontario and Wisconsin.

With the considerable trough just off Minnesota’s North Shore, an empty Lake Superior would simply extend the downward drive experienced from the head of the Gunflint down into Grand Marais, says Tom Johnson, a professor with the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth. “The Apostle Islands would slide up (from the landscape) sort of like the hills” in other parts of Wisconsin.

One underwater area fascinating to see would be the “peak” of the Superior Shoal, the mountain in the middle of some of the lake’s deepest water. It is said that within 3 miles (4.8 kilometres), the lake depth can change from 1,000 feet to about 20 feet (30 to 6.4 metres), a disastrous trick that the lake plays on maritime traffic. Some 1,000-foot “lakers” have a draft (underwater clearance) of 30 feet, deeper than the shoal’s top. The shoal, not really identified until almost the mid-1900s, is considered the probable cause of many disappeared vessels in Lake Superior. With the water gone from the lake, other concerns would surface, say area experts. Greg Zimmerman, chairman of the St. Marys River Binational Public Advisory Council, says that contaminated soils along the edges of the lake may become exposed from erosion without water or new sediment settling on them. Lake Superior has seven “areas of concern” identified under the binational Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

“All those PCBs and heavy metals and other organics would be exposed,” Greg says, adding that he would feel keenly the lost of the St. Marys River, which he calls “one of the most fantastic” waterways.

Greg is also chairman of biological sciences at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. When asked what might happen if Lake Superior disappeared, he immediately thought of the precious few wetlands around the basin of a lake that often has tall basalt cliffs for its shores. “You can’t have coastal marshes on a steep bank,” he says. Coastal marshes are essential fish habitat, but that, of course, would not be a consideration when there is no lake for the fish. Lake Superior, by the way, is home to about 80 fish species, some of which - like lake trout and the introduced salmon varieties - may not exist in our region without the Big Lake.

Without Lake Superior and its temperature-moderating influence, there also are some birds and mammals that would either no longer call this region home or have many fewer numbers.

“Ducks, geese, bitterns, rails, a host of bird species would be lost,” says Jerry Niemi, a biology professor with the Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He thinks there would be fewer water-drawn critters, such as frogs and other amphibians, or mammals, such as muskrats. “The big issue would be wetlands,” he adds. “Elimination of the water would be absolutely devastating.”

Areas around Lake Superior have long been a birder’s paradise because the need to fly around the big water funnels migrating birds to key points such as Hawk Ridge in Minnesota, Thunder Cape in Ontario and Whitefish Point in Michigan.

“You’re a bird and you’ve made a long trip up from Panama,” says Marc Snyder, chairman of the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory board, explaining the funneling. “Then all of a sudden ‘Boom!’ there’s 50 to 60 miles of open water. You either bear right or bear left. … If the lake weren’t there, you wouldn’t see this concentrating effect.”

Some birds, such as ducks content on inland lakes, would remain, but shore species, such as piping plovers and sandpipers, would leave.

Many large mammals - moose, deer, wolves, bear - would still find a comfortable home without Lake Superior.

What grows in the land left behind after the waters might change; as would what crops we as humans can grow, says George Host, a forest ecologist with NRRI. Thanks to the lake, there is a longer frost-free period near its influence.

“It’s this mediating effect from the lake; that warmer zone would disappear. … It would affect vegetable gardens … it would be tough on the apple crop. That whole industry would disappear.”

Because we are already at the northern edge for sugar maple trees, they might also be reduced over time. Our brilliant falls would be less brilliant and shorter.

What might seed the opened lands in the center of the dried-up lake? George suggests aspens, with free-flying seeds, and birch might get early footholds. “Vegetation would sort of creep into the lake; it would be starting over again.”

Life without a Wonderful Lake

Lake Superior is our past, our present and our future. Contemplating what might be … or might not be … without the Big Lake emphasizes its vital importance.

The history of our cities and towns reveals how Lake Superior created who we are. It’s nearly impossible to imagine our region without it. The lake has even molded our two nations: Where else would the border be located?Artifacts from 10,000 years ago show that people have been attracted to the shores of Lake Superior since it first filled with water. “Large lakes are typically magnets for human development,” says Tom Johnson. “They provide fresh water, they provide protein (fish).”

If Lake Superior were “never born” - like George Bailey in the movie - there is no doubt that our communities would be smaller or perhaps would not exist.

The culture that first called the lake “great,” Kitchi-gami - Great Water or Big Water - still may have made its pilgrimage from the east. A vision led the Ojibway people to a place where food grew on water - [manoomin], wild rice, which grows on inland lakes. The rice might still be here depending on the growing season without the lake. The lake waters were critical for food (fish) and transportation - a forerunner of what the region’s future would bring.“The lake, before the Europeans showed up here, was the transportation lake for the Native Americans,” says Adolph Ojard, executive director of Duluth Seaway Port Authority. “We piggy backed on that; we saw the same advantages they had.”

The next economic growth spurt came with fur traders and voyageurs. There is no question that if the Great Lakes stopped at the St. Marys River, fur trading would never have come here. (Of course, there would be no “sault” - waterfall - in any case.) Before the fur trade, the water carried community-altering priests and explorers, who likely could not make the trip sans the Big Lake.

So, without Lake Superior we’d have no Fathers Baraga or Marquette, no fur-trading posts, no voyageurs gathering at Fort William or Grand Portage - oh, and no portage to be grand.

After furs, our large-scale harvests were lumber then minerals. Those resources exist thanks to geologic history, but without the lake, their development would have been slow, if at all. “The cost of our iron ore would have been significantly higher if we didn’t have cheap water transportation,” Adolph says. “The port developed the infrastructure for developing the grain, lumber and other products.”

In fact, the Great Lakes are why U.S. steel production centers where it does, such as near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he says. “The Great Lakes become the major steel producers in the country and that was developed solely because of the rich iron ores that were found in Michigan and Minnesota, all of which were transported by water. … You wanted to be as close as possible to population centers and well-positioned relative to raw materials, which are coal, stone and iron ore.”

Our major ports - Duluth, Superior, Two Harbors, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Marquette - were founded and grew because they are on water. Would they exist without Lake Superior? Hard to say, but Rich Axler, a research aquatic ecologist at UMD’s Natural Resources Research Institute, points out that for Duluth-Superior at least, “the St. Louis River is a big river, so there would be a city here.”

Adolph Ojard speculates that cities may not have popped up in the middle of the woods. “The sheer existence of Duluth is because we are at the end of the lake. There was talk that Duluth would become the next Chicago because it would be the terminus from the western United States.” That same optimism belonged to Ashland-Bayfield-Washburn, Wisconsin, for the same reason.

As to mining in the U.P., the growth of the industry required cheap, accessible water transportation - first, to attract explorers to find the metals, and second, to move the mined ores.

As it is, Lake Superior cities are transportation hubs with ports, multiple rail lines, trucking and air services. Those rails may have gone directly to the iron ranges … if that was financially feasible.

If iron ore were moved only by train, “is it still going to be competitive in the international market?” asks Ken Thompson, president of Jeff Foster Trucking in Superior. “Maybe that kills the mining industry. If Lake Superior isn’t here, maybe those industries aren’t going to be here.”

It’s obvious that the maritime presence would not be here without the water (see story), but that presence is not just the port and freight carriers. There are U.S. Coast Guard stations - two in Duluth, one in Marquette, one in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and one seasonally in Grand Marais, Minnesota - and Canadian Coast Guard.

Many regional businesses depend on abundant and often high quality water. From paper mills to breweries, water plays a critical role, though not only Big Lake water.

Another “industry” tied to Lake Superior is blossoming freshwater research here. Major universities and other government agencies near the lake in Thunder Bay, Duluth, Superior, Ashland, Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie draw national grants and first-class researchers for lake-related studies. The existence of about a dozen research institutes targeted to fresh water would be doubtful without Lake Superior. Their impact is millions of dollars locally.

Another of the major economic engines for towns big and small around Lake Superior is tourism. The loss of the Great Lake beside us would be a blow to the recruitment of visitors to our area, regional experts agree.

The powerful, mystical “inland sea” would resemble forested regions nearby, without water and no distinguishing “canyon” or particular physical feature. Rich Axler points out that the rivers and often steep terrain, without the lake, would create “waterfalls, hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Paul Pepe, Thunder Bay’s manager of tourism, who moved with staff into new waterfront offices (which would not be “waterfront” without Lake Superior), says that if the lake drained, “it would diminish the value of the city’s tourism marketing brand … ‘Superior By Nature,’ and lake-dependant … experiences such as boating and angling. People are attracted to water. Sleeping Giant Provincial Park loses some of its aura with the coastal element gone.”

Ontario tourism groups are enthusiastic about promoting the newly designated National Marine Conservation Area in the western half of the lake. That would no longer be, if the water were gone.

“If you don’t have water, you lose a key element of the visitor experience,” Paul says.

Recreational boating and paddling, a blossoming area of revenue, would dry up without water. Another major recreational draw - snow sports - would take quite a hit if the “lake effect” snows no longer blew onto the Upper Peninsula. A 2000 study estimated that 18 percent of 2.2 million skiers to Michigan went to the U.P., an impact of $28 million. Snowmobiling, a wider-spread activity, has a greater impact on local economies. All the snow wouldn’t go without Lake Superior, but the U.P. could expect about 160 fewer inches per year (see section on weather).

Summer or winter, Lake Superior is a major draw, says Terry Mattson, president of Visit Duluth. “Our research shows that Lake Superior is Duluth’s No. 1 attraction. We’d lose momentum as an economic engine.

“On the other hand,” he adds whimsically, “wouldn’t it be fun to explore what’s on the bottom? … But we’d rather have the water.”

Without Lake Superior, this region would lose a huge chunk of its past, major attributes, attractions and vital businesses and industries in its present, and one of the most appealing tools for creating a bright future.

“Water was initially the conduit for commerce,” John Austin, who directs the Great Lakes Economic Initiative for the Brookings Institution, said on a recent visit to Duluth. “You are on a port … of an inland ocean; you feel that here.”

Water will be the new “conduit” for commerce, not simply because it can move or be used to create goods, but because innovators of new technologies want to live by water, especially a magnificent water such as Lake Superior.

For many new high-tech businesses, John says, “you don’t need water to do it, but you’d sure like to be near it.”

No Boats in Harbor? No Harbor Either

What would our region lose - besides water? Here’s the maritime industry we would NOT have without Lake Superior.

In Thunder Bay, some 450 jobs are directly related to port activity, which includes handling of grain and other cargo and jobs with fleets, generating an economic impact of about $50 per tonne of grain moved through the port. In 2007, the latest full-year figures, the port handled 6.3 million tonnes of grain.

“It’s been a grain port since the late 1800s,” says Tim Heney, chief executive officer for the Port of Thunder Bay. “It was actually the second largest port in Canada and it was the largest grain port in the world. It still has the largest grain storage in North America.”

Total tonnage through Thunder Bay in 2007 was 8,492,768 with 431 vessel arrivals.

In Duluth-Superior, most tonnage comes from coal, which totaled about 21 million short tons in 2007. Total port tonnage that year was 47,858,484 with 1,231 vessel arrivals.

In 2002, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority commissioned an analysis of the port’s impact on the local economy. It determined the impact of the 2001 shipping season and related waterfront investments as $210.2 million with 1,227 jobs directly connected to that activity. Indirect jobs, supplying vessels, etc., totaled 766.

Waterfront facilities paid nearly $2.6 million in local property taxes.

Besides the two main ports, there are ports in Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Taconite Harbor in Minnesota; Marathon, Heron Bay and Michipicoten and Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario; in Sault Ste. Marie, Munising, Marquette, Presque Isle, Houghton/Hancock and Ontonagon in Michigan; and Ashland in Wisconsin.

The Soo Locks and the U.S. Corps of Engineers staff there accommodate about 10,000 vessels each year.

All would be gone without Lake Superior.

Sidebars

The Power of Our Lake

At the St. Marys River, Lake Superior becomes a source of more than water. Hydropower plants are on both sides of the river in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Michigan.

Without that water, the Francis H. Clergue generating station, completed in 1981 and now operated by Brookfield Renewable Power, could not fulfill its daily capacity of 52 MW (1 megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts). An older station had operated at the site north of the Canadian locks since 1916. The power is sold into the general Ontario electricity market and may be used around the province.

In Michigan, the two hydroelectric plants are operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (a 20 MW capacity) and by Edison Sault Electric (a 25-30 MW capacity). The Edison hydro plant opened in 1902. The two generate an annual total of 360 million kilowatts. That electricity - delivered by Lake Superior’s outflow - provides 40 percent of the power to the 23,000 customers in the eastern Upper Peninsula, says Lee Baatz, assistant vice president of rates for Edison Sault, and to an additional 17,000 customers through Cloverland Electric.

“The hydropower is our lowest cost source of power,” Lee says. “We have among the lowest rates in Michigan.”

Refilling Lake Superior

Just how much effort would it take to refill a lake that lost its 3 quadrillion gallons (11.5 quadrillion litres) of water?

It would take slightly more than 1 million years for Wisconsin’s 1,253,000 dairy cows, which each average 2,268 gallons of milk annually, to refill the lake with milk;

OR it would take 6.7 billion years of Ontario maple syrup production - at 1,686,000 litres a year - to fill the lake with sweet syrup;

OR 1.4 billion years of Michigan-brewed beer sales (about 2,073,218 gallons or just more than 66,000 barrels annually);

OR it would take 17.8 billion years of Minnesota’s annual live bait usage - that 168,000 gallons of minnows, shiners, chubs and rosy reds a year - to refill the lake with bait fish. Ewww.

Better to stick with 3 quadrillion gallons of fresh water!

Disappearing a Lake

To siphon all the water from Lake Superior for the lake-bottom map, Terry Brown of the Natural Resources Research Institute in Duluth used two resources: lake-bottom elevation data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and an earth image from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Using Blender, a 3-D software that is used to create animations, Terry input the data to get a sense of what the lake would be like without its water. The process starts on a mesh grid, much as you may have seen in the behind-the-scenes animation work.

“The elevation was imported as a grayscale image; the darkest colors were the deepest part of the lake,” Terry explains. The shades of gray were used to set the heights for each of the 66,049 points in the mesh. Some elevations are slightly emphasized to show them off more.

Terry and the NRRI have used similar mapping techniques to help in various research or in helping communities to plan zoning and development.

Meanwhile, Michigan Technological University in Houghton has also mapped the bathymetry of Lake Superior, creating a navigable 3-D version of the lake. Put on those 3-D glasses (yes, like the ones at the movies) and you can take a virtual “swim” in the lake.

The work was supported by MTU’s “Research Excellence Fund” under principal investigator Amlan Mukherjee, assistant professor in the university’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and his former graduate student Matt Watkins, who now works at Epic Systems in Madison. The system was developed using the Java Development Kit - a computer programming language.

“It’s a navigable environment,” Amlan says of his virtual Lake Superior. In addition, the model provides researchers in a variety of fields, such as environmental engineering, and lake studies, an experimental tester to investigate how the environment of the lake may affect fish habitat and other aspects.

A Receding Sea

How sad when a fisherman must leave the sea; but sadder still is the case of the Aral Sea, when the water drained from the fishermen.

At the start of the 1960s, the Aral Sea was the world’s fourth largest inland sea. Located between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, it covered 26,254 square miles (68,000 square kilometres) before a major Soviet Union irrigation project diverted water from two sources, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. It is widely believed that this saline lake in the desert could not be sustained without those waters, not surprising since it had gone dry in its distant past. Today, the shore of the once great lake has receded by about 75 miles (120 kilometres).

(Editor’s note: For an update on the Aral Sea, see this June 2015 National Geographic story.)

Peter Annin took a photo of the boats now far from the reduced water of the Aral Sea. “It was really quite an extraordinary experience to stand on the bottom of what had once been a great lake trying to imagine what the ecosystem was like before,” he says.

Peter Annin, author of The Great Lakes Water Wars, visited some communities in Uzbekistan to see what happens to a water-based culture without water. “Their economy, culture and society was intimately interwoven with the local water-based ecosystem. We had generations upon generations of fishermen. There were septuagenarian and octogenarian fisherman who still couldn’t believe what had happened to this inland sea … that had so defined their lives with. In fishing families, their children couldn’t grow up to be fishermen anymore. So they had to go away or find another job. You had these former seaside people completely landlocked in the desert now. And they still had a fishermen’s collective. These men with calloused hands and sun-wrinkled skin, I listened to them wax poetic (about fishing days) then slide into a befuddled and almost disbelieving depression about what’s been lost.

“What was an interesting surprise to me was that, like the Great Lakes, the weather patterns were intimately wedded to the Aral Sea.” It’s a desert ecosystem, but was cooler by the sea. Now the once shoreside communities suffer blistering temperatures in summer and colder high-desert winters. In addition, land once under water, which had become contaminated with the heavy fertilizers and other chemical runoffs, suddenly were dry, exposed soil that let pollutants become airborne. The drier air and harsh winds increased respiratory problems for the communities.

“Now that the Soviet Union has crumbled, there’s more admission that the irrigation is a problem, but now they’re continuing to irrigate because they need the western currency that the cotton crop brings.” The situation is now an unsustainable spiral because the remaining water becomes increasing saline, changing the soil that it irrigates and eventually making it unfarmable.

Could such a thing happen here? First, Lake Superior is not in a desert system, although its narrow watershed is considered small for the size of lake it sustains. In 2008, the U.S. president signed into law the Great Lakes Basin Compact, first passed by all eight states bordering the lakes, to protect this unique freshwater system from major diversions outside the basin. The two Canadian provinces beside the Great Lakes system adopted a companion agreement.