Living with the lake

Lake Erie is rising, as you probably know from your climate change reading. We are seeing the effects here with a significant rise in the bay and lake all around our peninsula, Presque Isle State Park. It even gets so bad after a rainstorm that they have to close some of the roads as they get flooded over.

Here along the lakeshore we are seeing the effects, too. Erosion is all along the shoreline in Pennsylvania. Since this includes quite a few residential areas and homes, people have invested mightily, I hear, in trying to save their lake front.

We have a few old, old piers that over the course of years and years have changed. Parts have fallen off, other pieces are submerged, and some sections are dipping into the lake but still passable. We decided to take on the most savable one and see what we could do. On the advice of a local contractor that has done a lot of work on lakefront property (and admits that some of what he did just a few years ago is already being reclaimed by the lake because of erosion and the change in water levels) we have having the upper part of the pier re-paved so that at least there is some access to the beach area and a walk out to the water. Here is how it looks this week.

There is also going to be a new fence along the bluff above the lake, with a gate at this pier. I'm very excited that we are at least trying, sensibly, to keep our lakefront people-friendly/enjoyable.