St. Lawrence River will flow at record high for next week: river board

In this July 2018, file photo, a section of the St. Lawrence River looking west from the base of Brookdale Avenue in Cornwall, Ont. (Newswatch Group/Bill Kingston, File)

CORNWALL – The board controlling water levels on the St. Lawrence River says it’s “doing everything possible to provide all possible relief” from upstream flooding.

The International Lake Ontario–St. Lawrence River Board met Friday (June 21) and decided to maintain outflows at a record 10,400 cubic meters per second (2.3 million gallons per second) over the next week. That’s enough water to fill almost four Olympic sized swimming pools every second.

It can’t increase the flows any more because of flooding downstream near Montreal.

The board says it took river stakeholders into consideration when making the decision, given the increased current on the river.

While it’s still pushing out all that water, the river control board believes Lake Ontario will still remain stable or “decline slowly” over the “next several weeks.”