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Great Lakes Harbors Still Waiting For Help From Washington

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Date: 
April 27, 2012

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It's getting harder and more hazardous to navigate the Great Lakes. A lack of funding for dredging has left many shallow harbors even shallower and some are closing. Chuck May has been working on this problem since he saw a yacht run aground trying to get into Portage Lake from a storm.

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See More: Arcadia, Great lakes, harbors, Leland, Manistee, Pentwater, shipping

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A rising tide raises all boats

Submitted by Jim F (not verified) on April 27, 2012 - 11:06am.
So if I heard right, there are about $7Billion in harbor taxes that have been misappropriated elsewhere. Mr. May's efforts seem to be aimed at spending the harbor taxes on dredging and maintenance of multiple individual harbors. With that much money at play, why not install "speed bumps", deep underwater turbines or related large scale engineering projects in the St. Mary's River and similar areas. This would reduce the outflow from lakes Michigan-Huron & Superior, and ALL the harbors would benefit. The shallow harbor problem was caused by the Army Corp of Engineers dredging the St. Mary's River decades ago, and further dredging upstream of that problem is only a temporary band-aid repair. We need to undo the misguided dredging that led to this problem, otherwise you are quite literally trying to dig your way out of a hole.

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