Dredging work on the Conestogo River through Drayton is expected to proceed this fall as part of Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) plans to spend $1.3 million this year on projects in the watershed.
The authority recently confirmed it plans to spend $200,000 to “restructure the Drayton channel” of the Conestogo River.
“We’d be very excited to see that get done,” said Mapleton Mayor Neil Driscoll, who noted township officials have lobbied since the 1990s for improvements to the river to help reduce flooding in the village, which occurs almost every year.
In the past, GRCA officials stated dredging would have a negligible and short-lived effect on flooding because an eroding CN Railway abutment upstream would just fill in the excavated channel (CN officials refute there is any direct connection between the CN bridge support and flooding).
“I’m not an engineer, but how could it not help?” Driscoll said, reiterating the sentiment expressed by several Mapleton officials over the past decade.
The GRCA has since agreed to a cleanout of the river channel and originally including funds in its 2014 budget.
The authority was forced to postpone the job due to concerns from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which places restrictions on when work can be done in watercourses under its jurisdiction.
But last week GRCA officials confirmed the project is “moving ahead” in “late summer or early fall.”
Senior water resource engineer Gus Rungis said the GRCA is still waiting on Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) approval under the Public Lands Act, but he does not foresee that holding up the project.
When asked for more details about the scope and nature of the channel work, Rungis said dredging will be completed by excavators from the banks of the river.
“It will involve skimming some of the sediments that are in the lower part of the floodplain out of the channel,” he told the Community News.
“It does provide a little bit of a reduction in nuisance flooding … up into the fairgrounds and into some of the people’s backyards in the area upstream of Wellington Street bridge in Drayton.”
Rungis said the decision to not enter the water with machinery was made due to endangered species in the river area and a sanitary sewer downstream of the Main Street bridge.
While the project technically hinges on MNR approval, Driscoll said he is pleased there at least appears to be some movement on the issue.
“That’s great to hear,” he said. “Anything (new on this project) is progress as far as we’re concerned.”
Mapleton public works director Brad McRoberts said he plans to meet with GRCA officials in the coming weeks to discuss the project.
Rungis said the GRCA will tender the project once MNR approval is received.
Other local GRCA projects
The GRCA also plans some to complete some work at the Conestogo Dam in Mapleton this year, including pavement repairs and an emergency generator upgrade.
