Flood revives pressure to dredge Thames River
Mayors urge senior governments to fund ‘proper cleanup’ to avoid jamming flow
The recent flood that swamped parts of Chatham-Kent has renewed calls for dredging at the mouth of the Thames River. Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope and Lakeshore Mayor Tom Bain are pressuring the federal and provincial governments to do something to clean out the river’s mouth at Lighthouse Cove. Hope said flood damage at Thamesville and Chatham could have been more extensive had the river’s mouth not been clear a week before.
Both he and Bain said that dredging at the mouth is necessary to ensure the river remains open. “I want to get it dredged out so when the debris flows directly out, whether it’s ice, trees or whatever it is, it’s not going to jam up and create a flood situation,” Hope said. “Can you imagine if there had been no flow (at the mouth of the river)?”
Bain said dredging is necessary. “If affects our businesses (in Lighthouse Cove) so much,” he said. “Our marinas and restaurants and stores — boaters won’t go in there because of the debris in the Thames and the deadheads floating in there.
“The danger is some of these are under water,” Bain said. “Then they get cast along the side, then drifted back into the river and people are breaking props left and right ... so a lot of boaters just avoid the area, and it hurts those businesses.” Both mayors want the senior governments to provide funding for what they describe as a “proper cleanup” to straighten the channel from the mouth of the river into Lake St. Clair.
“They need to open the mouth of that river up, clean the debris and get it deeper,” Hope said. “I want to clean it up so the channel itself, or the river, flows directly out. “We have three-and-a-half to four feet of water if you were to drive a straight line out of the river — it’s very shallow. I’m hoping to get the federal and provincial government to understand we need money to dredge this out .... It is a navigable water system — and the feds and province need to know that’s their responsibility.” Bain said the issue has been a longstanding one for his municipality. “We’re continually battling for help to get that cleaned up,” he said. “The problem is, a few years ago some of it got cleaned up and now we’re back in the same situation.”
Hope said the long-term goal is to also see the return of tourist traffic along the river. He said he’s been working with the Coast Guard and Chatham-Kent Police Service to determine how speed limits on the Thames River might be adjusted to make the trip more attractive to boaters.
“I have been looking at speed limits on the Thames, and have variable speeds throughout the river that actually gets (travel time by boat) to an hour and 10 minutes to the city from the mouth of the river,” he said. “It wouldn’t be eight kilometres an hour all the way — it would be variable.”
However, adjusting speed limits along the Thames would be for naught if deadheads and debris clog the mouth and keep boaters on the lake from risking collisions. But Hope said that aspect is secondary to avoiding potential flooding issues in the future.