I recall while in college in Michigan, covetous eyes were always
glancing at the Great Lakes, jillions of gallons of water just
sitting there, doing nothing. The problem is that the Lakes are
also a great commercial waterway; 1000' freighters taking low
sulphur coal east and high sulphur coal west, and other large
frieghters carrying gypsum (think drywall) and iron ore. And don't
forget the foreign shipping that takes away the various
grainstuffs. The locks at Sault Ste. Marie handle more traffic than
both the Suez and Panama Canals combined. Some hydrologist figured
that for evey inch the Great Lakes were lowered, something on the
order of 4,000 tons per ship of freeboard would be lost. I'll have
to do some digging to find that source, as it were.
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