Municipal staff hope to reopen the west side of the dual boat ramp at Thamesgrove Conservation Area sometime this summer. Unfortunately, they aren’t sure exactly when.
Deb Veccia, supervisor of Chatham parks, said the ramp’s been closed all season due to a buildup of silt from the Thames River.
“It’s from the river rising and falling over the past couple of years,” she said of the buildup. “Basically since the dock was renovated, it has dumped a ton of silt there.”
The east boat ramp remains open and uncongested.
Veccia said when staff pulled out the floating docks in the fall, they noticed the silt buildup on the west side was getting bad at that time. But they wanted to see if the flow of the river would wash it away through the winter and spring.
The opposite happened.
“We have floating docks on both sides. The east side docks are in, but the floating docks on the right are not. If we put them in, they wouldn’t be floating. They’d be resting on dirt,” she said.
The municipality has a construction company lined up to remove the silt, but it is now a matter of when.
“You need a long-armed excavator to dig out the silk,” Veccia said. “The company is busy with other projects right now. We’re on the list; it’s just a matter of when he gets to it.”
Work to remove the silt also could not have taken place before the end of June, due to provincial habitat guidelines.
“You can’t do any in-water work until after (fish) spawning, and that is after June 30,” Veccia explained.
Patrons still use the east side ramp, while a large concrete block with “RAMP CLOSED” spray-painted on it obstructs access to the west ramp.
“You can still use the launch. We haven’t had a whole lot of folks calling about it being backed up,” Veccia said. “But the other side (the closed west side), the depth isn’t there. I wouldn’t want to risk someone getting caught in there.”
She added the silt buildup has occurred at the launch prior to the renovations in the past, and believes it’s just due to the changing river conditions, amount of silt in the water and the natural flow of the river.
