Mr. Editor,
Sir, I know you get upset about the silted-up harbour (The 3Rs…Rants, Raves & Rumours, November 20, 2025 print paper) and want to shake a stick at what appears to be a lazy town council but a little understanding might make you cool down.
Constant dredging of the harbour (for what?) is a no-win game. But looking at contributing factors might make you understand the big environmental causes at work.
As a dedicated trail worker on the Trout Hollow Trails I have witnessed huge erosion issues happening up stream. The intense rain storms in the summer and a raging river washed out our east side trail twice. Previously intense erosion and the collapse of a bridge into a deepening gully forced the closure of the south end Red Trail. That particular area is composed of fine sandy soils trapped by a glacial moraine thousands of years ago. That kind of soil is easily washed away and is the source of your harbour silt.
The Conservation Authority knows about the problem but with huge uncertainty in their future they aren’t willing to spend money on remediation.
Another factor of why the harbour looks so bad is that once again the lake levels are dropping exposing the silt beds. The summer’s widespread drought now has the Bighead River running at about 15% of its normal flow. If all the rivers around the Great Lakes are in the same dismal shape then you won’t see the lake coming up any time soon.
As a matter of historical interest, Thornbury had the same problem with their river dumping into their harbour. In the early 1900s they solved it by separating the river from the harbour with a robust concrete wall.
Meaford worked on this same problem in the 1990s by creating a boat basin to the east of the traditional harbour. So, who wins by dredging the harbour and for what purpose? Rivers create deltas and that’s what you are seeing happen.
