No damaging spring repeat, CLOCA predicts

By Aly Beach/The Oshawa Express

Despite the strange winter Oshawa has experienced this year, the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority (CLOCA) predicts a fairly normal spring and summer.

“We’re pretty much where we should be for this time of year after kind of an odd and confusing winter,” says Perry Sisson, director of engineering and field operations for CLOCA.

If CLOCA’s predictions prove correct, it will be a nice change of pace after the past two years of flooding and droughts.

In 2017, Oshawa and the Region of Durham saw record high water levels and flooding throughout the region and surrounding areas. The pier was damaged; beaches were eroded and many waterfront homes faced flooding.

As of August 2017, the City of Oshawa staff estimated it would cost the city as much as $225,000 to repair the pier, $65,000 to fix damaged fencing along Lakeview Park beach and $30,000 to repair beach erosion caused by flooding.

“The problems that we ran into last year were brought on by a fairly mild winter that caused problems with the outflow from Lake Ontario and then an extremely wet early part of the year last year all across the Lake Ontario watershed,” says Sisson.

The year prior, in 2016, Oshawa faced a mild drought according to Sisson.

Even though spring came late this year, water levels are where they should be according to Sisson. He says Lake Erie is providing “significant inflow” to Lake Ontario, which CLOCA will be monitoring.

“We don’t foresee that Lake Ontario is going to be a significant problem for us this year,” says Sisson.

Despite the recent wind and ice storms, the damage is not nearly as severe as last year. Sisson suspects the worst of the damage is on the west end of the lake, away from Oshawa, due to the wind direction.