Contaminants are not just yesterday's story,'' he said. By lowering water levels, large-scale water diversions would concentrate the amounts of contaminants in the water itself, said Manno. Worse, lowered water would expose toxic sediments to dispersion by wind and waves. About 90 percent of Great Lakes wetlands in place before European colonization are gone. They are the most biologically productive areas in the Great Lakes.
Wetlands provide habitat for wildlife and a home for proliferating plant life.
They form a natural buffer zone that slows the progress of pollutants and weed-growing nutrients into the lakes. Loss of protective lakeshore vegetation also increases erosion and damage from flooding. That includes mussels, fish, snails and crayfish. Martin is already living the life that global warming might bring. In Mud Bay, three miles west of the St. Lawrence River near Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, water levels last summer were 2 feet lower than normal, stranding 28 of Martin's 100 boat slips and cutting into rentals, and boat and fuel sales.