Anne Snabes

asnabes@detroitnews.com

One common factor has likely played a role in water levels plunging in the Detroit River and Lake Erie this fall, along with the running aground of two freighters in Detroit in November: wind.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers experts said that wind events impact water levels in Lake Erie and the Detroit River, where levels plunged 3.76 feet at Bar Point Shoal on Nov. 26. On the other side of Lake Erie, in Buffalo, New York, water levels rose about 4.6 feet, according to provisional data.

Two Canadian freighters ran aground in the Detroit River last month, one on Nov. 7 and the other on Nov. 26, but the U.S. Coast Guard is still investigating those incidents and hasn’t released what caused them.

Army Corps spokesperson Brandon Hubbard said his understanding is that these vessels were anchored well outside the federal channel area that the Army Corps maintains, so the incidents were “more wind related than water-level related.”

Brigitte Hébert, a spokesperson for the CSL Group, said wind and the strong current in the area were contributing factors in the Nov. 7 grounding of MV Rt. Hon. Paul J. Martin, a freighter that the CSL Group owns.

“However, wind causing a drop in water level was not a factor,” she said in an email.

Rand Logistics, which owns the freighter that ran aground on Nov. 26, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of hydraulics and hydrology for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, said the Detroit River fluctuates as the Great Lakes fluctuate. He noted that the water level is currently “very near average” on Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, so the Detroit River’s level is “very near average” during still conditions.

“What we end up seeing, though, especially during these very energetic fall storms, is the wind pushes the water all over the place,” Kompoltowicz said. “So we had multiple instances of the Detroit River fluctuating on the order of several feet in several locations, just because the water in Lake Erie essentially was blown to Buffalo, New York.”

He said when there are strong westerly winds, the water is essentially blown from one end of Lake Erie to another. When the winds subside or change direction, the water flows back.

“And it just doesn’t go back and stay there. It’s kind of like a youngster jumping in a bathtub,” he said. “The water kind of sloshes all over, around.”

Megan Royal, chief of the watershed hydrology section at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, said that windy conditions were observed in Detroit on Sunday. The National Weather Service reported an average wind speed of 19.1 miles per hour with gusts up to 40 miles per hour in the southwest direction.

“In addition to the winds observed on Sunday, water continuing to oscillate back and forth across Lake Erie may also be impacting the Detroit River levels,” she said in a statement.

An Army Corps chart shows plunges in the water levels on the Detroit River on Nov. 26 and on Sunday. Royal said at the further downstream gauges on the river, there was a “substantial water level drop” over several hours and then a rebound occurred, followed by some reverberations. She said the locations on the Detroit River that are closest to Lake Erie are going to be most impacted by changes in the lake levels.