Boblo Dock a shell of its former self after sheet-metal roof removed
Without giving town officials any prior notice, a work detail from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans descended on the decrepit Boblo Dock in Amherstburg Tuesday and removed what was left of the sheet metal roofing. The DFO owns the dock, which once served as the jumping-off point for passenger ferry service to the island amusement park. The wooden structure that supported the metal roof remains. Mayor Aldo DiCarlo said administration only got an update from the DFO Wednesday after town hall received a media inquiry regarding the roofless pier. “They didn’t let us know ahead of time. They said someone was supposed to call us,” DiCarlo said. “You really don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
The town has been after the federal government to address the decaying condition of the defunct dock since Coun. Diane Pouget asked for a report on it back in February 2016.
At the time, Pouget described the dock as an “eyesore,” and said residents complained about sections of the roof blowing off in high winds, ending up in the Detroit River and then washing up on local beaches.
A spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans confirmed Wednesday it was their staff who “recently removed the metal roofing panels from the Boblo dock in order to address potential health and safety concerns.”
In June, another DFO spokesperson told the Star the Canadian Coast Guard had an interest in the dock and was doing a study to determine possible future uses for the site.
Rachelle Smith, a DFO communications adviser, said Wednesday a final decision on the dock’s fate isn’t likely to come before 2020. “The Canadian Coast Guard is currently undergoing a multi-year, strategic infrastructure assessment that includes assessing the potential use of the Boblo Dock for operations. A final decision on ownership is not anticipated before spring of 2020,” Smith wrote. DiCarlo believes the government is loathe to make a decision and then have to pay for it.
“My best guess is that they’ll let it fall in the water and then nobody has to pay for anything,” DiCarlo said. “Now we’ve got a shell of a dock just sitting there.”
The DFO completed its own condition assessment and option study for the dock in March 2017 and shared that information with council that same spring. Part of that report said “it is recommended that the pier either be demolished and the site restored to a natural state or a new pier, including new piles, be constructed in its place to enable public access.” The problem, as DiCarlo has noted before, is that the land adjacent to the dock’s entrance on the west side of Front Road South is privately owned.
“There is no land access,” he said again Wednesday. “You can only access it from the water, so why would they want it? Which means, they don’t want it and they don’t want to pay to remove it.”