Forces joined to monitor lake

ANN ARBOR—Lake St. Clair, already nearing a record low level and quite “sluggish” in its circulation, is now heading into a seasonal retreat that could lead to increased pollution problems for communities that line its shores.

In an effort to better understand the physical processes at work in this situation, one of these communities—St. Clair Shores, Mich.—has asked the University of Michigan Ocean Engineering Lab (OEL) to investigate the lake and, by extension, to develop a system to better predict events such as beach closures and to guide city officials in water sampling strategies.

To that end, the OEL staff—led by Guy Meadows, U-M professor of naval architecture and marine engineering—have brought their expertise in advanced hydrodynamic modeling, in-situ measurement, and remote sensing (satellite) to the task and prepared an automated monitoring buoy which they launched in Lake St. Clair on Wednesday (Aug. 9).

The buoy—an Aanderaa Instruments Coastal Monitoring Buoy 3280—is a self-contained, solar cell-powered, and moored unit capable of recording and transmitting wind direction, wind speed, current direction, current speed, air temperature, water temperature, wave height, and wave period.

The U. S. Coast Guard has granted the OEL permission to position the buoy in the navigable waters on the U. S. side of Lake St. Clair; once installed, it is expected to radio-transmit data about the winds, waves, and currents to a receiving station in St. Clair Shores every half hour. As the data is received at the shore station, it will be transferred to servers at the U-M via modem, then placed on a special Web site developed by the laboratory for real-time viewing by health officials and anyone else with an interest in lake water level and movement—e.g., boating or fishing enthusiasts (see www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/oel/projects.html).

The OEL staff intends to use the data they capture to better refine numerical models of the lake’s circulation and to develop new models for future predictions. The buoy will be in place at least until the end of the navigation season; researchers hope that it might then become a permanent fixture on Lake St. Clair, for the purposes of long-term monitoring.

EDITORS: For more information, contact Guy Meadows at (734) 764-5235 or Mary Jane Brunell, communications director for the city of St. Clair Shores, at (810) 447-3414.

Ocean Engineering LabGuy MeadowsU. S. Coast Guardcity of St. Clair Shores