Cutter fleet may grow

The Port Huron Times-Herald

Lawmakers and associations from the Great Lakes region are pushing to get more icebreaking ships on the water.

The U.S. Coast Guard's fleet isn't capable of keeping up with the area's harsh winters, they contend.

"There are not occasional problems, there are constant problems," said Glen Nekvasil, vice president of the Lake Carriers Association, which represents 16 companies with 63 ships on the Great Lakes. "The (Coast Guard) crews are doing the best they can, but there is no way to get around the fact that the ships are getting old."

Groups such as Nekvasil's and the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force are asking the government to provide funding to build a twin to the 240-foot Mackinaw. The ship, based in Cheboygan, is the biggest and newest icebreaker on the Great Lakes.

In a news release this week, Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, said she and other Great Lakes members of Congress are pushing for the issue to receive funding as part of a multibillion dollar stimulus bill proposed by President-elect Barack Obama. About $153 million has been requested.

Miller said such funding is important for the more than $1 billion Great Lakes shipping industry.

Nekvasil agrees.

The companies his group represents incurred $1.5 million in ice damage to ships in March, he said.

"When you don't have the Coast Guard there to keep the shipping lanes open, you can't keep the cargo moving," he said. "We need to upgrade the Great Lakes icebreaking fleet."

The U.S. Coast Guard uses eight icebreaking cutters on the Great Lakes -- including the 225-foot Hollyhock based in Port Huron.

The cutters break ice on the lakes and other waterways including Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair and Detroit rivers.

During the winter months, 20 million tons of cargo -- from salt and grain to stone and coal -- is transported on the Great Lakes, Nekvasil said. That accounts for about 15% of what's transported each year.

"This is one of those shovel-ready projects," Nekvasil said. "The blueprints are there. If they award the contracts, the shipyard can start cutting steel tomorrow."

Lt. David French, external affairs officer with the Coast Guard's Detroit sector in Cleveland, said he knows there are requests from politicians but wouldn't comment on pending legislation. more

Lake effect snow slows as Lake Erie freezes over

Cleveland Plain Dealer

You would think that a pair of near-zero nights this week would turn even Lake Erie into a solid block of ice.

If that were true, that would be good news for snow-weary Northeast Ohio. Because an iced-over lake means the dreaded lake-effect snow machine will be running out of its watery fuel any moment now - right?

Well, yes and no. And partially.

The shallowest of the Great Lakes has been rapidly freezing up over the past week - and ice growth has accelerated rapidly the last two days, driven southeastward by supercold Canadian winds.

In fact, the western basin off Toledo has been covered in a thickening sheet of ice since last weekend. And ice now extends out five miles into the lake from the Cleveland shoreline.

"We're right at a critical point across the entire lake - which is right at 32 degrees now and ready to freeze," said Lt. William Woityra, captain of the Neah Bay, a Coast Guard ice cutter heading down to Lake Erie's Western Basin from the Detroit River overnight. "This cold snap will have a massive effect and create a lot of ice in the next few days."

True, but don't try skating across to Canada just yet.

First of all, the center of the lake Thursday was still a virtual mush pit of odd-size ice chunks - often called ice floes, cakes and pancakes by those who make their living observing them.

Lake Erie rarely freezes entirely, said George Leshkevich, a water expert at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Michigan. The ice acts more like small tectonic plates. more

Hanging 10 (Degrees) on Icy Lake Superior

New York Times

Black shapes bobbed on big waves out from shore. Through the pine trees off Stoney Point Drive, past parked cars idling with their heaters cranked on, the surfers of Lake Superior waited to catch a wave.

It was a Sunday morning north of Duluth, Minn., and a blizzard had overtaken the region. The surfers — apparitions in black neoprene, floating in mist far offshore — paddled and stood when a wave began to break.

“It’s warmer in the water,” said Markus Barsch, 21, a tree trimmer from Ashland, Wis., and one of a dozen surfers who had shown up to shred on a 20-degree day.

Surfing in a snowstorm may sound like a direct route toward hypothermia or certain death. But on Lake Superior, where surfers ride all months of the year, thick wet suits, gloves, hoods, booties and petroleum jelly smudged on exposed skin all form a protective shell against the crushing cold encountered by wave catchers in what is one of the world’s most unlikely surfing scenes.

All around the Great Lakes, from breaks on Lake Michigan to western New York and Lake Erie’s shore, a freshwater surfing scene has emerged in recent years. On Lake Superior, where winds swoop hundreds of miles across open water, surfers swim and paddle year-round to ride waves as tall as 20 feet, rushing tsunamis tumbling on an inland sea.

“There is a spirit of adventure here,” said Bob Tema, 44, a graphic designer from Minneapolis and founder of the Superior Surf Club (www.superiorsurfclub.com), which has a forum, photo galleries and a section on how to surf on Lake Superior.

Mr. Tema grew up surfing at beaches in Honolulu. But for a decade, after moving to Minnesota for a job, he has driven the empty roads around Lake Superior, in Michigan, Minnesota and Ontario, in search of the perfect break.

Unlike the ocean, Lake Superior has no noticeable tides or substantial currents. Its waves are hard to predict. But about 50 dedicated locals, Mr. Tema estimates, obsessively monitor a Web page maintained by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), www.noaa.gov, for hints on when the surf will rise. They click to Web cams (like www.allete.com/lakecam.htm) for a live peek at lake conditions in Duluth, then log on to surfing forums (like the one at the Superior Surf Club — click on “Forum” on the home page), where they discuss barometric pressure, wind direction and weather patterns that might give clues to when the waves are coming. more