A new system is being devised for St. Lawrence River-Lake Ontario levels to help avoid shoreline flooding, but also recognize the needs of the shipping industry.
This could be good news for people living on the Quinte area shoreline, which has been impacted by the flooding in the past.
Right now, when water levels reach a certain height, the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board is given the power to deviate from what’s known as Plan 2014, meaning they can increase outflows to whatever level necessary to avoid flooding.
It cannot do whatever it wants as there are various interests, everyone from shoreline residents to the shipping industry to environmentalists, that have to be considered.
A new Decision Support Tool is being developed.
It’s like a program or code, based on historical water supply records, that can simulate what could happen out of different decisions.
It looks at each individual interest group, or stakeholders, and measures the impact on them.
It gives you – when you make a decision – a pretty clear picture of who benefits from that decision and who may be negatively impacted by that decision, and to what degree.
Sarah Delicate of Northumberland County founded the United Shoreline Ontario advocacy group that has fought for the interests of shoreline residents in Ontario.
Delicate is quoted as saying that this tool now has enough data to accurately predict what will happen to homeowners in different flood control situations.
