Great Lakes initiative needs support

The good news is that the Port Dalhousie Supper Market will return in less than a month and run through to the end of August. Everyone loves a good time, right?

The bad news — if it happens — could dampen those hopes. A few days ago, St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe told Niagara regional council that “we were receiving warnings (recently) that Port Dalhousie may wind up underwater again this year” due to lack of co-ordination by Canadian communities over shoreline protection.

The issue of flooding around Lakeside Park, where the supper market is held, is a microcosm of the problem many communities all around the Great Lakes are facing.

The impact of climate change on Ontario’s shorelines has become a major problem that needs to be treated as such. It can’t be left to individual cities and towns to handle, but currently they are carrying the heaviest part of the load.

That’s not sustainable, because waterfront municipalities do not have the finances or resources to protect and continually repair their shorelines.

Nor do they have the staff or capability, and maybe not even the legal authority, needed to form some sort of co-ordinated plan involving the Great Lakes.

We applaud Lincoln Mayor Sandra Easton for stepping up as the local voice calling for the provincial and federal governments to take a bigger role in protecting the shorelines, and regional council for backing Easton with its support.

As reported earlier this week, Easton’s motion is one of several put forward by mayors that make up the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Cities Initiative.

That group wants the federal government to liase with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on that agency’s study looking into ways to better protect the coastlines in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin.

Two years ago, the mayors’ group found that Canadian municipalities along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River will spend $2.56 billion over five years on coastal protection.

That’s a lot of money, especially coming from municipalities — the smallest form of government, often representing small villages and towns.

In the United States, by contrast, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is sharing the cost of a $10.6-million study on shoreline protection with eight states.

Siscoe called it embarrassing that on the Canadian side, such an important issue gets handled in a piecemeal fashion.

There are plenty of examples around Niagara of the damage to shorelines caused by climate change and shifting water levels.

In 2020, the City of St. Catharines had to commit $2.6 million to restore some of the eroding shoreline in Port Dalhousie.

And in 2019, the Port Dalhousie Supper Market had to relocate for a time to Henley Island because of flooding in Lakeside Park.

In south Niagara, the Town of Fort Erie has seen the paved walkway built through Waverly Beach destroyed by several winter storms, and along Lake Erie and the Niagara River waves are damaging the stone wall faster than the Niagara Parks Commission can repair it.

Not to mention the damage caused to individual properties by flooding and storms.

As Easton has noted, the problem is too widespread to be left to cities and towns.

What’s happening now isn’t good enough; whatever more is needed to protect the shorelines and private waterfront properties from further damage has to come from the provincial and federal governments, probably working with state and federal authorities in the U.S.

Anecdotally, at least, the problem appears to be getting worse quickly.

We hope the voice of regional council and Easton, and the other mayors across Ontario, is being heard further up the chain of command.