DETROIT (AP) - The water in lakes Michigan, Huron and Erie sunk to their lowest levels in decades last year - and even worse may be on tap for this summer.
Federal forecasts predict the level in the three Great Lakes could drop as much as 10 inches below last year's lows.
Already, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has received 225 dredging requests, well above last year's pace.
"Water levels are the hot issue right now. But just wait until spring," said Michael J. Donahue, director of the Great Lakes Commission, a policy group that advises state and federal officials. "It's going to get hotter as soon as people try to put their boats in the water."
During last year, there were 1,000 dredging projects along Michigan's coasts - more than twice that of the previous year.
"But there is a problem with so much dredging: Many sites where dredging takes place are polluted."
Already this winter, several Detroit-area communities have applied for dredging permits, including Grosse Pointe, St. Clair Shores, Grosse Pointe Farms and Grosse Pointe Shores.
"We have to do something," said Dick Huhn, director of parks and recreation in Grosse Pointe Farms, a wealthy suburb that maintains a lakeside park with its own 281-slip marina. "People have been running aground. If we don't dredge, we think we'll lose 50 percent of those boat slips."
But there is a problem with so much dredging: Many sites where dredging takes place are polluted.
At least 30 sites along the Detroit River's bottom are polluted with heavy metals such as lead, nickel and cadmium, farm pesticides including DDT and toxophene, and diesel fuel, according to federal studies.
In addition, officials said there isn't much space inside confined disposal facilities, the storage areas where polluted dredge has to be deposited by law.
The water level in the three lakes is expected to drop because of a warm, dry winter that kept ice from forming until recently. Without the ice cover, water can evaporate from lake surfaces.
"This is the third year in a row with little or late ice cover on the Great Lakes. That's highly unusual," said Roger L. Gauthier, the Corps of Engineers' supervisory hydrologist in Detroit. "These lakes are really, really low. The only thing going to change that is an extremely wet spring."
