In Southwest Michigan, erosion is taking away beaches, backyards more and more every year

CBS News

3 days ago

In Southwest Michigan along the Lake Michigan shoreline, full- and part-time residents are losing more of their backyards every year — and the changing climate and weather patterns are making the problem worse.
Those residents are now taking action to try to prevent the erosion.
On average, Southwest Michigan loses more than a foot of shoreline every year. But one specific area lost 75 feet in four years.
A steep drop, and some broken beach access stairs stuck in the sand, are signs of a beach that no one can access anymore.
John Yellich, the retired former head of the Michigan Geological Survey, is behind the first research done on erosion in Southwest Michigan in almost a decade. He fought for the research and funding he fought because of the significant erosion issues tracked in the area.
"What we wanted to do is to be able to study areas, and what was causing those changes," Yellich said. "Put a sand pile on the beach, and it's fine. Pour water on it with a cup, and all of a sudden, it disappears."
Coastal erosion is behind about $500 million a year in property loss in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Residents, such as Victoria Turbov and John Barkley, have been witnessing the land loss firsthand. They started speaking up.
"As a Navy pilot, I'm used to panic, but I panicked. So there were some days here where we lost several feet. We saw the boardwalk collapse into the lake. We saw part of our drain system collapse into the lake," said Barkley. "People bought homes there based on their ability to have lake access from their homes, and once the bluff started to erode, they lost that access."
The research into erosion along Lake Michigan brought together Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan geologists and geography experts. The research focuses on Mount Pleasant in Allegan County, and Miami Park in South Haven, Michigan.
Images from their published research dating back to 2017 document the land loss.
"The [Army] Corps of Engineers would say that we could expect erosion at a rate of one foot per year, so we were expecting a creeping one foot," said Barkley. "But what we learned is it goes in spurts, so that over time it might be an average of one foot, but over the last three years — from maybe 2020 to 2022 or 2023 — we lost about 75 feet."
Turbov has summered along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Southwest Michigan since she was two years old. She has had a front row seat to changes for more than 70 years.
"This is very precious to us, because we don't want this bluff to collapse," she said.
Now, thanks to the work proving erosion is worsening, Turbov's 100-year-old neighborhood is doing work to bolster itself.
"It's a fight to keep the water off the cliff," she said.
Turbov led the work in his own neighborhood about half a mile down the road.
"It used to be a vertical drop, but once we sculpted it, then we were able to vegetate it with deep-rooted plantings," said Barkley.
Planting those specific types of plants used in those deep-rooted plantings, implementing water management systems, making changes to their irrigation system, and reinforcing the beach with rocks are all solutions to an erosion problem with a connection to our changing climate.
"It's gotten worse because of the climate, and we are just more aware. This was not on people's radars 20 years ago," said Turbov. "Now we're coming to see, as most people are, we need to protect this place and other places and, you know, our environment in general."
As we track warming global temperatures, rising sea levels, and lake levels for the matter, experts say our coastlines and shorelines are paying the price.
"But the whole bottom line is that, yes, these are dramatic changes, not slow," said Yellich. "Major rainfalls, major droughts, and sometimes, of course, when you get the drought and a lot of rain, it doesn't soak in, so it runs off."
While the EPA has tracked the cost of the problem, local and national EPA offices confirmed they are not doing any work targeting erosion right now. And Yellich emphasized that when it comes to erosion, the problem is not going to go away.
"It's just something that isn't going to change, and it's going to continue to happen," he said.
But in Southwest Michigan, experts and residents say doing nothing is not an option — with all the beautiful landscapes that are eroding away already serving as a warning.
"I'm saying that this is an example of what catastrophic things can happen if you don't do the right things," Yellich said.
City and Township officials in the area that is the focus on this story didn't respond to requests related to this story.