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The summer of the low water is over. Let’s ask around to see what happened.
“We are still at historic low water levels at several places along the river,” says Michael Sarich, a spokesperson for the Ottawa River Regulating Committee, the agency that monitors water levels on the Ottawa River.
It was partially the mild winter last year, partially the fast spring and hot summer that followed, but put it all together and the Ottawa River has never been this low.
“The river never came back to normal levels this summer,” Sarich continues, “We are finally getting some rain up north, though, which should help later this month.”
Over at the Ottawa River Keeper, Meredith Brown says it is too early to say whether the low water — which also led to a noticeable spike in water temperature — had any effect on fish stock. Although it is possible. By next summer we might know.
“It is always hard to pin-point these things exactly,” says Brown.
Make my way to Port of Call Marina in Constance Bay, to find out what happened down there. Hear stories about boaters who had trouble launching their boats. Who had to jump six feet to use the government wharf down at Buckham’s Bay.
“Oh, it’s been a challenging season for a lot of boaters,” says Brian Davis. “Has anyone talked to you about the deadheads?”
And it was only then that I stumbled upon an unexpected problem to emerge (quite literally) from the low water this summer — hundreds of submerged logs that are now swimming above the water line.
If you’re a boater who hit a deadhead this summer, you may want to stop reading now. The rest of this story is going to drive you nuts.
But here goes:
“The deadheads have been an unbelievable problem this summer,” says Gord Black, who runs Log’s End, a timber salvage company on the Ottawa River. “Not a day goes by when I don’t get a call from someone wanting me to remove a bunch of deadheads in front of their home.
“There are parts of the river that have hundreds of them right now. A lot of them are sitting right in the navigation channels.”
Which can make life interesting. Or frustrating, when you consider how easy it should be to remove or mark a dead-head. But this is Ontario, and we have a problem, as you’re about to find out.
“No one is in charge of deadheads anymore,” says Black. “The federal government used to clean them out from time to time, but that stopped years ago, when they gave jurisdiction of the river to the provinces.
“The lumber companies used to clean the river, but there hasn’t been a long drive in nearly 20 years. The Upper Ottawa Improvement Company used to dredge for deadheads, but they disbanded years ago.”
Not only will no level of government remove them, no one bothers to mark them either. The Canadian Coast Guard office in Prescott is responsible for maintaining the navigation channel on the Ottawa River. It confirmed last week that it doesn’t bother marking deadheads.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” says Black. “There are probably tens-of-thousands of old logs lying at the bottom of the Ottawa River.”
Now, Black would gladly remove the deadheads. He actually does it every day, on the Quebec side of the river, where he has a permit to salvage logs.
On the Ontario side, however, he can’t remove a single deadhead (nor can you, for that matter).
That’s because he has been waiting nearly two years for a salvage permit.
“Just the application is about 80 pages long,” he says.
“There’s paperwork on the Endangered Species Act. Paperwork on silt formations. Paperwork that says I have to hire a government worker to scale the wood, once I salvage it.”
The process is so cumbersome and costly no one bothers to salvage logs on the Ontario side of the river.
The waterway has become a playground for deadheads.
So, if your boat hit a deadhead this summer, a couple of things you might want to consider. In the future, drive on the Quebec side of the river.
And send your repair bill to the Ontario government. It sounds like they’re liable.
ron.corbett@sunmedia.ca