OTTAWA – Fish in the Ottawa River are threatened by the lowest water levels in a century, the executive director of Ottawa Riverkeeper says, even as Ottawans are taking more water out.
Meredith Brown said last winter’s light snowfalls had affected water levels in the river this summer.
“We had such low snow this year. That’s really the primary driver.”
Temperatures in the river are warmer than normal, causing lots of plant and algae growth. This is not dangerous to people, Brown said, but, while humans will not be affected by lower water levels, the fish population of the Ottawa River could be. Brown said there could be few new fish in the river next year as new plant life sucked oxygen away from fish.
Ottawans should try to conserve water, Brown said, because the water supply is not limitless.
“It’s important that people are in tune with their natural environment,” she said.
“The more we take out of the river, the less that’s left for species that depend on water.”
The city’s water system has no trouble sucking as much water out of the Ottawa as Ottawans would like. Tammy Rose, Ottawa’s manager of drinking water, said residents should not worry that they will not have enough running through their homes.
Water is still entering intake pipes at the bottom of the river, she said. Water demand for Ottawa is currently 345 million litres per day, up 15 per cent from this time last year.
“There is no worry to the water system,” Rose said. The maximum capacity at each of the city’s two water treatment plants is 400 million litres per day, she added.
Despite the increased demand on the stressed waterway, Brown said, the Ottawa River is resilient, and will bounce back. We should expect more rain in the fall, she said, so the river will be rejuvenated.
Claire Milloy of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority said low river levels did not necessarily indicate a low water table.
In the water table, Milloy said, increases and decreases in water level occur much more gradually than they do in rivers. People usually do not notice changes in the water table, she said, and are usually not affected if the water table is low.
The exception is with older homes in rural areas, which may have shallow wells sensitive to changing water levels.
“Some people have replaced their wells with drilled, deeper wells, so they wouldn’t really notice anything,” Milloy said.
Some habitats, such as streams and wetlands, rely on the water table being high, Milloy said.
This is where a lower water table may be noticeable, but Milloy said it was difficult to tell whether a wetland was fed by groundwater or rainwater.
Milloy added that crops sucked up rain rather than water from underground, so they should not be affected by a low water table.
In general, she said we cannot use river levels to determine what water table levels are like.
“However, it might be an indicator that you might want to look at the ground water levels to see what they are doing,” Milloy said.
If you worry you may have to cancel your kayaking or rafting trip due to low water levels, fear not. Byron Lester, guide manager of OWL Rafting, said rafting conditions were still good.
The Ottawa River is a high-volume river, he said, and water levels fluctuate from year to year. The Ottawa River is experiencing typical mid-to-late summer water levels.
“It actually provides some of the more fun rapids that we get throughout the season,” Lester said. “As far as our rafting is concerned, these are rafting trips, for us, that sell. This is what people come back for.”
Rivers that are low-flow may make whitewater rafting difficult, Lester said, but he added he had never had to cancel a rafting trip in the Ottawa River because of low water levels.
In the spring, the Level Six Capital Cup, an annual freestyle kayaking event off Bate Island, was cancelled because there was not enough rushing water.
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