Great Lakes draining away.

A decade of warm winters with sporadic snowfall has failed to refill the snow-dependent Great Lakes, with falling water levels bringing the top ever closer to the bottom in Lakes Michigan and Huron.

The ebb has raised cries to dredge harbors, cost lake freighters small fortunes and meant trouble for breakwaters, which can survive the fiercest storms but won’t suffer exposure to the air.

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he menace for cargo ships is not air, but fear of grounding. Thousand-foot freighters now move so nerve-rackingly close to the bottom that crews aren’t loading them as full.

“Every inch we lose, we would lose 120 tons of cargo capacity” to make it down the St. Lawrence Seaway, said Dennis Mahoney, president of the United States Great Lakes Shipping Association. The lost cargo’s value translates to between $6,000 and $12,000 per voyage, he said.

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