LATEST NEWS
Repair work completed! Check the picture below taken November 10, 2017 to see the completed project. Tons of tightly packed gravel fill the washout while boulders protect the shoreline.
The picture below taken October 12, 2017 shows the crane placing large stones at the base of the bluff. The first layer was smaller stones, about 10” in diameter for bedding, then large stones on top.
THE WALL
The bluff between Old Lake Shore Road and Lake Michigan is about 50 feet high with the CSX railroad tracks running along a shelf about halfway up the bluff. The seawall extending from about Vail Court on the south to the St. Joseph Water Plant on the north was constructed decades ago to protect the railroad tracks. That wall is now in considerable disrepair. In fact, one section has been completely destroyed by the waves, and the bluff is sliding into the lake.
The seawall has been modified over the years with the current version being vertical steel sheet pilings parallel to the shoreline. The wall is anchored with steel rods to a framework of large I-beam pilings tied together at the top with horizontal I-beams. The space behind the wall, and covering the I-beams is (was) filled with large boulders of sizes up to 4 feet across. The distance from the wall to the base of the bluff ranges from about 20 feet to about 40 feet. Jetties perpendicular to the shore and extending about 25 feet out from the wall had been installed. Most of those are now gone, with just traces remaining.
HISTORY
In 1929 the Pere Marquette Railway Company purchased easements from the lakefront property owners for the purpose of building and maintaining a seawall along the Lake Michigan shoreline to protect their roadbed and tracks. This was a perpetual easement to the Company and its successors and assigns for such construction and maintenance at their sole cost and expense. Successor companies were the C&O Railroad, then the current CSX Transportation. The wording on all of the recorded easements is the same, and one of them is included here as an example. It describes fairly specifically the design of the seawall that was to be built and maintained.
The seawall consists of vertical steel sheet pilings parallel to the shoreline. The wall is anchored with steel rods to a framework of large I-beam pilings tied together at the top with horizontal I-beams. The space behind the wall, and covering the I-beams has filled with large boulders of sizes up to 4 feet across. The distance from the wall to the base of the bluff ranges from about 20 feet to about 40 feet. Jetties perpendicular to the shore and extending about 20 feet out from the wall had been installed.
RECENT YEARS
We purchased the home at 2405 Old Lake Shore Road in 1987. A few years later I noticed a gap in the seawall below our house that was about 20 feet wide. Since then, the relentless attack of waves from storms has torn out another 100 feet of the seawall and has washed the equivalent of about 2 train carloads of the big boulders out into the lake. With the wall and protective stone gone, the waves have begun eroding the base of the bluff, causing it to slide down, taking trees and brush with it.
The lake level is almost 3 feet higher than it has been over the last decade, magnifying the erosion damage. Additionally, the warm winter weather of 2016-17 has prevented the formation of the usual shore ice, leaving the bluff exposed to the full force of winter storms. The face of the bluff, now stripped of vegetation, will be exposed to erosion from the spring and summer rains, adding to the destructive action of the waves below.
THE CONCERN
I have been sending picture updates to CSX for over 15 years, thinking that they would like to repair the break before it got bigger and more expensive to repair. So far they haven’t seen a need to do so. The larger concern is that the rail line will eventually become unusable and will need to be abandoned. This would negatively impact companies relying on freight shipments, passengers using Amtrak, and the community at large. There is even the possibility that a sudden slide near the rail line could cause a derailment with Amtrak or chemical tank cars going into the lake.
Click Here for a drone’s eye view of the erosion site taken 3/31/2017.