SOUTH DUNDAS – Residents along the St. Lawrence River are being told to prepare for the river to rise “significantly” over “the next few weeks.”
The South Nation Conversation Authority flood watch Monday was directed specifically at South Dundas and the neighbouring townships of Augusta and Edwardsburgh-Cardinal in Leeds-Grenville.
But the advisory, theoretically, could apply to anyone upstream of the Moses-Saunders Dam in Cornwall – the main control of water flowing out of Lake Ontario toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the North Atlantic Ocean.
According to Rob Caldwell, manager of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Regulation Office of the federal environment ministry, outflows at the Moses-Saunders Dam are being increased to help lower levels.
“(Lake Ontario) should peak within centimeters of the current level,” Caldwell said.
In a social media posting, The International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board said it increased the dam flow from 6,200 cubic meters a second to 6,400 cubic meters a second at midnight today (May 8).
The Lake Ontario level was at 75.7 meters (248.4 feet) as of Saturday. The lake was 21.7 inches above its long-term average level – 2.4 inches from the record rise set during flooding in 2014.
A silver lining to the situation – there’s no significant rain in the forecast this week.