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Living on the shore or a major lake has many benefits and a lot of hazards with wind, waves, and erosion being some of them. In 2017 and 2019 we had major high water years causing quite a bit of flooding and damage in the area. We were lucky in that we suffered only minor erosion, but many a night was lost worrying about the consequences of being so close to the water (33 meters from my bedroom to the waters edge).
In 2018 we contacted one of the local engineering firms to come up with a plan to stabilize and strengthen our shoreline in case of future disasters. Because of the houses location, all work is approved by the local conservation authority who has the ultimate approval/disapproval for that work.
Our engineering firm working on the project had mainly their junior engineers working on the project as it should have been fairly straightforward and an easy plan for them to put in their CV for work/permits/plans files. The problem was that because they were typically junior in the firm, there was a frequent turnover of staff as they left for better paying positions and were only using this firm as a stepping stone.
Every new engineer would start where the other left off, but kept revisiting old questions that had been answered by us before continually setting us back in the processes. We finally reached a point of where everything had been answered, drawings were made, surveys were done, and plans were submitted to the approval authority.
Then COVID struck and everything went sideways. The approval authority had questions, no one worked in the offices causing delays and games of phone tag. One of those questions was what should have been a simple straightforward answer turned out to be a major hurdle. What size rock would we use in the plan? My wife and I often said the largest that we could get ahold of...that isn't the correct answer though because of all of the issues caused by coastal wave dynamics.
The engineering company couldn't sign off on the size of stone as that was not their specialty and would have to consult either shoreline engineers, or coastal engineers for the answer. Those engineers wouldn't sign off on that question as they didn't do the site plan and would have to conduct their own studies before they approved anything.
That would set us back to ground zero starting the entire process over again. So after spending $20,000 dollars in engineering fees, we were at a point of starting over from scratch. We had one final meeting with our engineering firm stating that we were unhappy with their progress, and what were our options. We reached a mutual understanding that there wasn't much more that they could do and that we may need to hire a different firm.
Fed up, we scheduled another meeting with the conservation authority and explained the entire situation (meeting lasted for about 3 hours) and how with everything we've done, there was only one question that kept holding our project from moving forward. We finally came to a compromise and our project has been approved with the plan basically being approved from a previous draft and the authority telling us what size to use. (They could have told us that years ago, saving us time and money, but...)
So 5 years of headaches, heartaches, and sleepless nights we are going to fix, stabilize, reinforce our shoreline for hopefully the last time in our lifetime (with only minor repairs as needed).
The money spent with the engineering company may be a lost cause as they did do work, submitted plans, etc. and I don't know how much if any of it we can recoup. C'est la vie.
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@goosehd Is climate change affecting the great lakes, and if so, in which way? There shouldn't much current in the lakes, right? So erosion boils down to changing water levels and wind?
Rising tides of the North sea was one factor I considered when buying a house on an island, but in the end, I chose not to care and worry too much.
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@tody Great question. Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes and the last in the chain that connects them to each other. Lake Superior is the first of the chain with all of the lakes and their catch basins slowly draining into Lake Ontario, then into the St. Lawrence Seaway, and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.
Over the last decade, the entire area (all five great lakes) have had increased precipitation, leading to higher water levels at each of the lakes. In 2017 and 2019 we had extraordinary amounts of rain with no way to drain it out of Lake Ontario in an expeditious manner.
The high water levels combined with wind (which has been progressively worsening) causes waves that are quite similar to what you would see in ocean environments. There have been a few instances where we have seen waves in front of our house at 2 to 3 meters high.
I've mentioned it a few times in the past of where my family and I have went without power for multiple days due to some of these storms, winds, and massive tree damage. I also lost a truck due to one of those trees crashing through it and totalling the vehicle.
I do feel that climate change is a part of this and honestly don't know if my home will be here in 50 years. To be honest without the permit to reinforce our shoreline, I wasn't sure it would be here 20 years from now.
So to answer your question, yes, it does boil down to water levels and wind.
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@goosehd if I may interject: depends on what I'm eating. Fish & chips - copious amounts of malt vinegar. Pretty much everything else with chips: mayonnaise as seen here: https://www.ironheart.co.uk/forum//post/771862
