North-Branch-Muskoka-River-April-25-2019.jpg

Harding: No one to blame for water levels

Nothing can be done in the short term about inconsistent water levels in Muskoka. 

That was the message from Mayor Phil Harding at the July 14 Muskoka Lakes Council meeting. He pointed to` inconsistent weather and massive rainfall in the month of July as the reasons for undesired water levels. 

“Seven days ago, when everybody was up in arms that the water was so high, remember that we had five to six times the normal amount of water through the last week of June to the first week of July. Absolutely torrential rains. I don’t know how to stop that. Anything normal and there would have been no problem.” he said. 

The current Muskoka River Water Management plan, which handles water levels, has been questioned by many Muskoka residents for not being fast enough to respond to weather conditions this month. Mayor Harding says that the inconsistent nature of the weather this year has led to inconsistent results.

“I can tell you at the end of June I had people yelling at me that the water levels are too low and ten days later they’re yelling at me that they’re too high. There’s lots of people saying you can predict the forecast. I’m not sure about any of you who look outside right now but when I saw the forecast last night at this time it was supposed to pour rain all night. As a matter of fact it was supposed to rain all day Monday. It was supposed to rain all day Tuesday, it didn’t. Environment Canada will tell you their best predictive model is 24 hours.”

This timeline makes the job of water management difficult. “They cannot manage the Muskoka River water management plan and all 42-control structures within 24 hours. So, it tends to become reactive instead of proactive in much of the stuff they can do the best job they can with much of this stuff.” Harding said.

From April 15 to June 15 it was less than 40% of the average rainfall. Harding said that members of council were hearing that the water level was too low at the start of the season.

Councillor Glenn Zavitz asked if it were possible to pass responsibility on parts of water management to the province.

“How are we able to hold someone to account by that I mean the province and the Ministry of National Resources. That’s the problem. That’s why we are getting pounded,” Zavitz said.

Harding said he has a commitment from the premier to continue to look at this and to move things forward. But he added that changes to the Muskoka River water management plan is not something that is going to happen in three months or six months, it would take a number of years or may not be changed at all. 

Don’t miss out on Doppler!Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!

Click here to support local news

Join the discussion:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments are moderated. Please ensure you include both your first and last name and abide by our community guidelines. Submissions that do not include the commenter's full name or that do not abide by our community guidelines will not be published.

0 Comments