https://www.intelligencer.ca/news/local-news/river-board-reduces-outflows-on-lake-ontario
River board reduces outflows on Lake Ontario
Derek Baldwin
More from Derek Baldwin
Effective midnight Saturday, operators of the Moses-Saunders Dam in Cornwall
will reduce Lake Ontario outflows by 20 cubic metres per second contrary to
Quinte region lakefront owners’ demand to open floodgates to prevent further
shoreline damage.
The International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board will tighten sluices
ever so slightly to stem outflow from 8,870 cubic metres per second to 8,850
cm/3, confirmed Rob Caldwell, secretary of the river board, Friday in a
telephone interview.
Caldwell said the “stepdown is in march step with the decline of Lake Ontario
levels.”
He cited daily statistics made available on the river board’s website showing
the Lake Ontario water level has dropped to 75.0 metres above sea level (246.06
ft.) a month after a major Halloween storm dumped massive rainfall over several
days that lead to higher water levels on the lake and corresponding higher
outflows at the dam.
With lowered water levels on the lake in play now, capping outflows are
necessary this weekend to slow down fast currents to encourage safer shipping
conditions for Great Lakes vessels plying the lake and the river downstream, he
said.
The new outflows reduction of 20 cm/s is the equivalent of holding back 20,000
one litre bottles of water every single second or 1.72 billion litres in 24
hours.
The decision to retain more lake water behind the dam is the second such
reduction since a Nov. 20 rally in Quinte West drew hundreds calling for the
repeal of Plan 2014 which governs high water marks triggers to release water
from the dam downstream.
Caldwell said he understands emotions are high but said regulators and
operators of the dam are doing their best to balance the safety of citizens who
live above and below the dam as well as shipping companies who operate vessels
in the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Despite the reduction, Caldwell told The Intelligencer water outflows will
still remain at 200 cm/s higher than prescribed under Plan 2014 with even more
flexibility in months ahead given the IJC’s instruction to deviate from Plan
2014 on Nov. 22.
“We’re providing all possible relief to riparians upstream but we have to
consider all stakeholders,” Caldwell said.
Not only lakefront homeowners on Lake Ontario are suffering from high water
levels, he said.
Seaway companies, as well as hydro companies, are being effected as it takes
ships five extra hours to traverse the St. Lawrence Seaway canal systems and
hydro firms are losing hydroelectric generation money from opened spillways.
“Nobody wants this high water – it’s not beneficial to anyone,” Caldwell said,
adding “we’re riding the limits within the system.”
Brighton resident John Martinello was not impressed with word the river board
was about to hold back more water when lake levels are so high above seasonal
norms.
“Despite the facts that Lake Ontario is 1.51 ft (approx 1 ft, 6 inches) above
its long-term average level and that Lake Erie (the source of 80 per cent of
all water that enters Lake Ontario) is 1.90 ft (approx 1 ft, 11 inches) above
its long-term average level, the International Lake Ontario-St Lawrence River
Board (ILOSLRB) will — once again — reduce Lake Ontario outflows,” he wrote in
an email to media and local politicians Friday.
“It seems clear to me that the current Canadian federal government is, at best,
[un]interested in the issue of Lake Ontario flooding,” he said.
.
Don
Don Harben
_______________________________________________
Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and
every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal
to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
