Michigan’s myriad inland lakes and rivers are blessed/cursed by natural/anthropogenic changes with beneficial/adverse impacts on water levels, watershed planning, and human dimensions of management. Prescient words of a famous agrarian, an eminent ecologist and a renowned geologist: “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” -- Wendell Berry. “Mechanized man, having rebuilt the landscape, is now rebuilding the waters. The sober citizen … freely submits his lakes to drainage, fillings, dredgings, pollutions, stabilizations, mosquito control, algae control, swimmer’s itch control, and the planting of any fish able to swim. So also with rivers." – Aldo Leopold. “… (B)y throwing dams across the outlets, the outflow of the lakes may be controlled for a number of purposes, … power, irrigation, logging operations, city water supply, etc. … (L)akes have served a useful purpose in the storing of water for various projects which, … necessitates the building of a dam, thereby interfering with the natural level of the lake …. This may involve a raising or lowering of the level, … (and) serious inconvenience and often damage to property along the shores.” -- Irving Day Scott. Two case histories of similar magnitude: (1) a chain of shallow artificial lakes (4,277 A) created by a series of dams within the very large Tittabawassee River watershed (2,471 mi2) (Midland, Gladwin, Saginaw Cos.); (2) Crystal Lake, a very large natural lake (9,896 A) within a very small watershed (44 mi2) (Benzie Co). One involved catastrophic failures of two dams (19 May 2020) and regional flooding (90 Bgal); the other involved a dam breaching (23 Aug 1873) while building a canal and unintentionally creating a beach (56 Bgal). The author is an eye-witness to the Tittabawassee flood; a participant in the Sturgeon Creek WMP; and a chronicler of the Crystal Lake Watershed.

Presented by Stacy Daniels, Benzie County River Improvement Co. during the 2020 Michigan Inland Lakes Convention