Experts say it’s time to ‘retreat’ from eroding shoreline

There are dozens of stairs leading nowhere along the Lake Huron shoreline. Erosion cutting the ground out of from underneath them. Stairs are just the beginning of the problems, according to a coastal expert who said it’s time shoreline property owners practice the 4 R’s.

“The three everyone knows, reduce, reuse, recycle, and the 4th one, is retreat,” said Dr. Mary-Louise Byrne, a Wilfrid Laurier professor and geoscientist who has been studying the Great Lakes shoreline for more than 30 years.

Dr. Byrne, speaking at “Is the Coast Clear,” the first Lake Huron Coastal Centre conference in five years, said the hardening of the shoreline with stone and steel, property by property, simply isn’t working, nor should it.

“You’ll end up creating an environment that is far from the beach environment as it can be, so that you can stay at the beach. It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

Dr. Byrne isn’t alone in her coastal findings.

Pete Zuzek is a geoscientist specializing in coastal geomorphology. He said “coastal retreat” is the only way to stop homes atop the bluff from eventually falling into Lake Huron.

“There is a growing amount of evidence that it’s actually cheaper to try and move these cottages and homes further back from the lake, than to try and stop the erosion,” said Zuzek.

A crowd attended the Coast Clear conference organized by the Lake Huron Coastal Centre on May 5, 2023. (Scott Miller/CTV News London)

Try telling that to shoreline property owners, said local politicians and conservation authorities who floated the idea of “coastal retreat” along parts of Lake Huron several years ago, and were ridiculed and vilified for it.

“We’ve got some places where there’s four rows of cottages, and they don’t want to give up the front row for four rows back. So, it needs to be a real community conversation. Not an easy answer,” said Municipality of Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn.

However, it’s a conversation that should be accelerated, said Zuzek. Research suggests overall higher lake levels by mid century, and peak levels exceeding 2019-2020s record setting levels by at least a foot.

Shoreline erosion near Grand Bend, Ont. as seen in February 2020. (Scott Miller/CTV News London)

“We have to be planning for the levels to be even higher than they were just recently,” he said.

“The best way to adapt is to think as an entire community, what is the best thing for the lake. Then to make the hard decisions, and to retreat from the shoreline,” said Dr. Byrne.