St. Joseph neighbors worried by shrinking shoreline
-
3:01
New Buffalo Area Schools to build workforce housing
-
7:27
Center for the Homeless hosting Dancing With Our Stars
-
2:10
More wet weather arriving later tonight, but sunnier skies after
-
3:16
Public input on the proposal to restart the Palisades Nuclear...
-
1:35
Dari Fair opened Wednesday for 2024 season, temperatures cool...
-
1:22
Another round of rain, then a cool weekend
-
4:33
Should Indiana’s abortion records be public?
-
2:52
Trailblazing promotions at the South Bend Fire Department
-
1:30
Downtown South Bend and Notre Dame to see improved connectivity
-
1:44
Storm threat today holds relatively low severe risk
-
0:30
Officials share opioid settlement funding plan
-
1:04
Bonneyville Mill opens for the 2024 season
ST. JOSEPH, Mich – Some residents in St. Joseph are concerned about the shrinking shoreline.
“The beach itself was probably 100 yards of beach that’s now below water there in about 2013,” St. Joseph resident Tom Thornburg said.
Great Lake levels have been high including Lake Michigan which came close to breaking the all-time record high which was set in 1986.
Chronically high lake levels led to beach erosion for coastal areas along Silver beach, Tiscornia beach, and Lions beach.
Some residents chose to put steel retaining walls or rock barriers to protect their properties.
“My neighbor just down the way here had to put their own sea wall,” Thornburg said.
St. Joseph City Engineer Tim Zebell said the city has taken steps to protect areas around the city.
“There’s a combination of things that have been done it’s predominantly a steel wall south of the water plant but there’s also rock revetment along there too,” Zebell said.
The city of St. Joseph is looking at both short and long-term solutions along with recommendations from a study they had done with Abonmarche.
Some residents like Thornburg said there are solutions that could be developed with modern technology that would be beneficial to the whole community.
“It would be better to have some community wide program that would help stop that wave action before it hits the beach,” Thornburg said.