CORNWALL, Ontario – Water levels on the St. Lawrence River west of Cornwall are so low that boats are becoming stuck on the bottom, or in their lifts.
John Mason, who lives on Island 17 near Long Sault, said his sailboat’s keel is stuck on the bottom and if the water levels on the river don’t increase, even slightly, there could be real problems.
“I’m not alone here,” he said. “Ault Island is like that. The (Long Sault) marina is like that.
“My jet-ski is high and dry…and the sailboat’s stuck in the mud.”
Mason said, according to his measurements, the level of the river near his home has dropped some 70 inches from a high-water mark earlier this year – nearly six feet.
Mason added he hasn’t seen a drop this bad in more than 30 years.
Things look bleak along the shoreline of the river west of Cornwall. Where there was once ample water is now a rocky landscape. Docks that were once surrounded by water are dry as a bone.
The level of the St. Lawrence River often drops in the late summer and fall.
This fall the water level has dropped more than usual because of a wet summer on Lake Ontario. Those levels are controlled by adjusting the outflow of water at the R.H. Saunders power dam in Cornwall. With high levels on Lake Ontario more water is released at the dam in Cornwall – resulting in low levels immediately west of the power plant.
Jennifer Gardiner, a spokesperson for Ontario Power Generation, said her agency receives direction from the St. Lawrence Board of Control concerning water levels on the river.
Board spokesperson Jacob Bruxer likened it to pulling the plug on a bath tub, or replacing one.
“It’s really going to affect the water immediately near the plug,” he said.
The board has been receiving a number of queries, and complaints, from boat and home owners west of Cornwall.
One person, via social media, suggested it had been 30 years since water levels dropped this much, but the board said that is not the case.
“Lake St. Lawrence was last this low in 1998,” the board said on its Facebook page, though it did concede levels have dropped drastically. “I drove the north shore on Saturday while the level was at its lowest mid-afternoon. You could see stone fences from the Lost Villages and other such features that very rarely surface. It was quite surreal.”
Another woman complained: “I’d love to get some water under my boat so that I could possibly start it and pull it out! It is currently sitting completely surrounded by mud where three-plus feet of water used to be.”
The board plans to increase the level of the river, perhaps as early as this weekend, so that recreational boaters can get their vessels removed from the water.
“The board continues to target this weekend (Oct. 10-11) for a subsequent flow decrease to temporarily raise levels and aid in boat haul-out on Lake St. Lawrence, please continue to plan for this and we will update with more information in the coming days,” said a Facebook submission Monday morning.
Bruxer said by decreasing the flow at the power dam levels immediately west should see an increase – fairly quickly in some cases.
