Kingston waterfront news for 2006

THE 2nd ANNUAL LIMESTONE CITY MARINE HERITAGE SYMPOSIUM will be held Saturday January 6 2007 at The Ambassador Resort Hotel from 8:00 AM to 4 PM.

The theme of this years show remains ship wrecks of the local area with a special focus on marine archeology and wreck preservation.

The lineup:

• Locally:
  • Jeremy Jones - Shore Dive Sign Project. Jeremy reports on regional effort by divers to place in water signage for the protection of both wrecks and divers.
  • Scarlette Janusas, a professional underwater archeologist, on researching, working on, and protecting our Marine Heritage.
  • Ed Burt reports on his discovery of the almost mythical HMS Speedy
• Dr. Ed Reinhart presenting on his geological and archeologic efforts in Caesarea
• the always popular photograher Vlada Dekina show casing the wrecks of Belle Isle, Nfld
• Dr. Doug Smeaton on historic shipwrecks of Halifax

Tickets may be reserved by contacting wreckshow@ontariodiving.com. Seating is limited so please book early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 07:30 am.

HERE'S THE START of some basic research on rowing basins.

THE HERITAGE NEWSPAPER, via Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, reports Pollution-to-housing waterfront deal hits a snag about the Davis Tannery site development.

AN 8-STORY PARKING GARAGE for Kingston's waterfront?

American boaters, on the other hand, are rightfully pissed at the idea since it affects them far more than it will ever affect Kingston.

If this goes through, it's just one more reason why the northern shore of Lake Ontario is a nicer place for boating, and for quality of life. On this so-called "issue" Kingston's current mayor, Harvey Rosen, would be well advised to zip it.

Click the chart below for a larger view or, better yet, see the US Homeland Security page. The box outlined with "blue" dots is the five-mile distance from the U.S. shores and/or U.S.-Canada maritime border. The boxes outlined with "yellow" dots, here shaded pinkish, are the proposed safety zones on Lake Ontario.

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THE LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER/ WOLFE ISLAND WILDLIFE ASSOCIATION WETLAND CORRIDOR PROPOSAL has been released. This is all about cleaning up and renewing the Wolfe Island Canal.

See the very interesting 40-page, 19 Mb PDF document, which includes some fascinating appendices including an inventory of fish, plant, and wildlife on Wolfe Island.

FOUR LARGE CHRONICALLY MALFUNCTIONING LIGHT BUOYS in the lower Cataraqui River were replaced this week with much smaller spar buoys.

WATERKEEPER HIGHLIGHTS two recent Whig articles: Ontario sewage standards stink and Spineless over sewage.

The reaction of Kingston's current mayor, Harvey Rosen, is interesting. The fact is, the city of Kingston only started cleaning up its act after it was left with no other recourse. Ref: the Belle Park Dump.

HERE"S AN INTERSTING ITEM involving an agreement with First Nations involving Belle Island at the Oct 3rd Council meeting.

LAKE ONTARIO WATERKEEPER argues water is not just another commodity.

GENERAL BROCK ON THE ROCKS: Today The Whig Standard published this front page story about the 100-passenger tour boat General Brock III, operated by 1000 Islands Seaway Cruises, that ran aground South of Seeleys Bay. No passengers were on board, no injuries were sustained, and apparently damage to the vessel is minimal.

UPPER GREAT LAKES WATER LEVELS ARE VERY LOW, and there's no relief in sight. Huron and Michigan are at their lowest levels since the 1960s and Lake Superior is at its lowest since 1926.

THE COLLINS CREEK GREENBELT CORRIDOR will be one step closer to reality following the Planning Commitee meeting next Thursday.

Most people don't realize the immense size of the Collins Creek watershed. You barely notice Collins Creek driving over its mouth on Bath Road. Click the diagram below for a larger version.

BOUNCING BOATS are hard on your back.

WORTH ANOTHER LOOK: The Kingston Boardsailing Association has a great clickable chart of Wave Sailing Spots In the Kingston Harbour with brief descriptions.

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For example:

Snake Shoal Break

6-8ft; Straight onshore conditions and nice long rides straight downwind. Jumps on either tack. This shallow shoal is good even in the early season high water. At low water, I wouldn't try to sail straight across this shoal. Instead, ride the surf down either side.

THE WHIG REPORTS on the three options presented by the International Joint Commission for regulating Lake Ontario water levels. See the commission's 162 page report, including some fascinating annexes.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper endorses Plan B+:

Plan B+ represents a favorable compromise between pre-dam ideal environmental conditions and human uses of the Lake and River waterways. LOW notes that this is the only candidate plan that is directed towards the goals of the study, that is improving the Lake and River ecosystem. By permitting a greater range of fluctuations, meadow marsh habitat in Lake Ontario will be significantly improved. Plan B+ does more than any other plan to address species at risk, with notable improvements to populations of least bittern, black tern, yellow rail, and king rail.

VICKI SCHMOLKA writes about getting involved in The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, a 2-week country-wide effort organized and tallied by the Vancouver Aquarium.

We need this.

GOOGLE HAS ANNOUNCED UPGRADED IMAGERY for Google Maps and Google Earth. Large parts of North America are upgraded, and though the Kingston region is not included, Gananoque, Western Howe Island, the Admiralty Islands, and the Lake Fleet Islands are.

Western Camelot and Eastern Niagra Islands from Google Maps.

FIVE PEOPLE DIE at a poker run on Lake Texoma near Willis, Oklahoma.

ABLE SAIL KINGSTON is a dymanic and remarkable piece of our waterfront. You may be impressed with all they are doing, and amazed by the depth of Kingston's Able Sail capabilities. Here are the beginnings of our Able Sail Kingston topic.

CORMORANTS TAKE A BITE OUT OF FISH STOCKS, which confirms what local fishermen have been observing for a long while.

TALL SHIP IN TOWN: The dock of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes will be graced by the 179-foot barque Picton Castle between Aug 31st and Sept 4th. The barque will be hosting a cargo sale Friday and Saturday 11-7, and Sunday and Monday 10-6.

FUNDRAISING CONCERT: GORD DOWNIE will be performing a "Heart of a Lake" tour in three cities between September 18 to 21, 2006. All proceeds from the tour will be used to help communities win back their rights to safely swim, drink, and fish in Lake Ontario.

He'll be performing in Kingston on Thursday, September 21st, 8pm at Sydenham Street United Church, 82 Sydenham Street, Kingston. Tickets $18, fees extra. Available online at www.maplemusic.com and www.grandtheatre-kingston.com, at the Grand Theatre Box office, the John Deutsch University Centre and The Grad Club, and by phone at 613.530.2050

BEACH INFORMATION WHERE? Wondering if a particular local beach is open or closed? The KFL&A Health Unit website is no help. First you must guess that their news page is where this information is kept, and then you must guess if a news item is current since their items are not dated. What's worse, the beach information is buried in a narrative paragraph which must be interpreted, and some of the beach-closure related news items mention some beaches while omitting others.

Searching for "Beaches" or "Beach Closing" on the City of Kingston website yields dysfunctional results.

What this city needs is a web page that clearly shows us the status of all local beaches at a glance.

LYME DISEASE TICS HAVE ARRIVED: Tics carrying Lyme disease have established a presence on Thwartway Island, also know as Leek Island.

UPDATE: Wednesday's Whig reports that a park worker has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, and we can assume that the tics have infested all of the Thousand Islands.

KYC'S 110 YEARS interesting story yesterday at CKWS-News about the celebration at Kingston Yacht Club marking its 110th anniversary, and the 30th anniversary of hosting the sailing competition of the 1976 Olympic Summer Games.

MORE MARINA SHENANEGANS IN THE CITY:

Here's a scanned copy of the 11-page City of Kingston Request For Information (RFI) No. CS-AM-2006-02 on the future of Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour that describes itself as

"Partnering opportunity with the municipality in the provision of capital investment in marina infrastructure and delivery of marinas operations and marketing services"

Read the whole thing.

[Updated]: Click here to view the July 25th 2006 City of Kingston website announcement of the matter. Click here to see the interesting and detailed documents submitted to Council to approve this move in late March, 2006.

Various questions arise from all this:

• Why hasn't this document been widely circulated? It was advertised once in Kingston This Week. Pick-up only from the Midland St office. It was never publicly posted online by the City. Was a notice of this forwarded to, say, the Ontario Marina Operators Association? Were players from the wider marina industry approached? Why such a short leash?

• What is the linkage between this RFI and the Request For Proposals, which apparently would soon follow? Why the rush? The RFI packs onerous production requirements into a short time, and reserves all rights to plans and intellectual property conveyed by respondents. The period for questions, for example, has already expired, just three weeks into this.

• What's in place to protect taxpayers, protect access for boating residents and events, and for equitable treatment for other local waterfront-related interests, both commercial and public?

• Why does all this appear to not pass a basic stink-test? Last April, for example, the The Kingston Brewing Company was precipitously given the task of running #6 Clarence Street, which is now the marina office, in what was the restaurant nearest to Confederation Basin.

VICKI SCHMOLKA, who is running for Kingston City Council in Trillium District, notes that the Waterfront Trail is finally, but slowly, being posted.

LAKE ONTARIO WATER LEVELS ARE UP, now about four inches above average. Upstream, Lake Superior is 10 inches below average, and Lakes Michigan and Huron are 20 inches below average water levels.

POKER RUN: Today's Whig Standard lead story, complete with colour photo, proclaims: " Big boats lead to new business".

The Thousand Islands Poker Run proved (sic) it is good for more than electrifying crowds and breaking speed limits over the weekend.

For the first time in its 19-year history, the motorsport spectacle was parlayed into a showcasing weekend for companies looking to expand.

A company in town for the event, which Kingston Economic Development Corp. general manager Jeff Garrah would not name ahead of an official announcement, committed to building a 15,000-square-foot facility that will create about 16 new jobs.

To put this into perspective, your average freestanding fast-food franchise represents as many full-time equivalent jobs as this. This is evidently front-page KEDCO-lauding news in this town.

Lower down:

"We had spectator boats lining both sides of the river from Kingston all the way to Prescott," Taylor said. "That's the magnitude of this event."

Yeah, like a sunny Saturday in August wouldn't otherwise be busy with boat traffic throughout the Thousand Islands.

Our friends at KEDCO and Poker Runs America would be well advised to curb their collegial self-congratulations, and recognize the other boats standing clear for what it really was.

CORMORANTS: The Syracuse Post Standard today ran a story titled Give cormorants credit for goby diet. Cormorants have become a huge problem on some islands near Kingston. Gobies (see also here) are an invasive species currently threatening many native fish populations.

Here's the latest 1000 Islands CAN/AM Poker Run schedule.

CORK STARTS: Today is the first day of CORK, and it starts with the CORK Offshore event for larger keelboats.

CKWS-TV yesterday carried this story about the 110-foot long tall ship Fair Jean, currently operating in Kingston, and its planned year-long return trip to the Caribbean. Apparently there are still crew positions available.

Here's another recent article about the deadly virus killing fish in Lake Ontario.

Here's a Utilities Kingston Tender posted August first, closing August 16th, for work that must be done before December 15th 2006. Therein:

Landscaping of the on-shore areas of the east and west shores of the Great Cataraqui River - the naturalization of 5,800m2 on the west shore, the restoration of the east shore and landscaping in the vicinity of the River Street Sewage Pumping Station, including Douglas L. Fluhrer Park.

In-water fish compensation works in the Great Cataraqui River - construction of an artificial reef on the east shore of the Great Cataraqui River and the installation of ten (10) root wads on shoreline areas.

On August 1st, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper published a short piece about three local beaches that are presently closed because of E.coli.

Meanwhile, at Richardson Beach, which wasn't closed, on the hottest, muggiest, and smoggiest August 1st in Kingston history, there were very few swimmers, doubtless due to the general confusion over which beaches were, or wern't, safe.

This 112-foot Westport luxury yacht recently spent a few hours at Collins Bay Marina. Next stop: Confederation Basin

Mike Kalin, originally from Kingston, now a varsity sailing coach at MIT in Boston, finished 7th at the 2006 Laser North Americans near Halifax.

Two recent posts from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper:

The City of Kingston has issued a Request for Information for potential partners to "provide capital investment in marina infrastructure" and to "deliver marinas operations and marketing services" for Confederation Basin and Portsmouth Olympic Harbour.

We've just added a new page about The Island Grill on Wolfe Island, another of our local waterfront restaurants, some of which, like The Grill, are immediately accessible by boat.

CBC-News reports that some passport exemptions are likely for ferries and pleasure craft by the January 1st 2007 target date.

(The Horne Ferry on Wolfe Island, less than 10 miles from Kingston, links Canada to the USA.)

Bruce Schneier has an interesting post related to this on his blog: Schneier on Security (a blog that is always interesting).

Either one of two things are true. Either passports are required for security, in which case we interfere with ferries. Or they're for show, in which case we can just do what's convenient. Or maybe we just know that terrorists never take ferries.

Finally, after being notably low, Lake Ontario water levels are about normal for this time of year.

CBC News reports Rideau Canal system hit by high gas prices, bad weather and border woes. In some places along the Rideau Canal, traffic is down 30% compared to last year.

CKWS-TV has filed a transcript of a report on a recent fish die-off in Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence river. It's apparentlly caused by the VHS virus. Here's the report by The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the matter. See also here and here.

Here's an interesting article by Jamie Swift in the July/August 2006 edition of Independent Voice titled On the shores of Lake Ontario -- In which we attempt to stroll along Kingstons waterfront.

Here are links to two recent CKWS-TV reports about the Ravensview sewage treatment plant upgrade and the Lafarge controversy in Bath.

The Friends of Lake Ontario Park have a website. Therein you can see PDFs of Concept 1, Concept 2, and Concept 3 proposals from the Lake Ontario Park Revitalization Study prepared by Corush Sunderland Wright Ltd.

The city's sewer bypass log reports 5,400 cubic meters (1.2 million gallons) were dumped into our waterways on June 27th. For a sense of perspective, a typical tank truck, the sort used to make fuel deliveries on highways and around town, can contain 5,000 gallons. Imagine a line of 240 such trucks, lined up to pump sewage into the water at the causeway. The equivalent of that happened this week in Kingston.

Tuesday we dumped the contents of 240 of these.

Here's another local waterfront blog, called A Sailor's Log, maintained by Nathan Baron, and billed as News, Events, and Stories from the Kingston Yacht Club.

Here's a link to a Globe and Mail article titled Ontario tightens penalties for impaired boat operators.

As we approach July, Lake Ontario water levels are still about six inches below average, and about four inches below last year's level at this time. The forecast calls for levels to rise through July, when historically levels fall.

Abbott Boats of Sarnia, Canada's premier manufacturer of racing sailboats, is completely destroyed by fire. See also here.

Here's a very cool Google Earth File of Lake Ontario Windsurf Spots compiled by Evan Wamsley. If you haven't yet installed Google Earth, you're in for a treat. Download it here.

CNN reports Green goo globs up Great Lakes. It appears that algae blooms have been on the rise since the mid-1990s in parts of all of the Great Lakes. Here's the text of the report referenced in the CNN story. It's Lake Michigan-centric, but it applies also to Lake Ontario. Interesting how zebra mussles play a part in all this.

Waterkeeper is right: Lafarge's application for a landfill in Bath and it's recent application for burning waste in its kilns should be examined in context together.

Trillium Energy Power Corp apparently plans to build a 140-turbine, 710-megawatt wind farm off Main Duck Island.

To give a sense of the scale of this, only 122 megawatts of wind-generated power exists in the province of Ontario today. 710 megawatts would be sufficient to meet the needs of 200,000 homes. This would be the biggest offshore wind farm outside of northern Europe.

The notable difference in Lake Ontario water levels between this year and 2005 is narrowing.

The Snowbirds precision aerobatic air show is scheduled for 5:45 PM this Wednesday afternoon.

Update: In Kingston the 35-minute Snowbird show started exactly on time and included several 9 plane formations.

Parks Canada is inviting the public help them develop the first management plan for the Kingston Fortifications, in particular to ensure their commemorative integrity. They are concerned with Cathcart Tower, Shoal Tower, Murney Tower and Fort Frederick.

Read the excellent 12-page illustrated brochure here and a comment form is here. All are invited to an open house in Memorial Hall, Kingston City Hall, on May 25 2006 from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

French brochure here and comment form here.

This week the City tabled a transportation report that suggests, among other things, the re-routing of King Street South of the heating plant to improve flow and alleviate Kingston General Hospital parking issues. This would require some infilling. Most of this park exists because of prior infilling.

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At long last, the boathouses at Kingston Yacht Club are being renovated.

As of this weekend the Brown's Bay Inn on Wolfe Island (website here) is open for dining.

Click here for a large-sized diagram of the vessel., and see more MetalCraft Marine fireboat pictures here.

Cold water and its effects are involved in virtually all kayaking and recreational boating deaths. An article posted on the Yachting World website explains what makes cold water exposure so potentially risky, reviews some strategies to minimize that risk, and raise a few hairs with some stories of tragic, and mostly preventable, cold water deaths. For example:

• Nine elite marines, water survival instructors, capsized in 36F water wearing sweatsuits and no PFDs. None of them survived the attempted 100 yard swim to shore.
  
• Sixteen (16) Danish fishermen jumped into the icy waters of the North Sea when their trawler sank in a storm. They were in the water for a 2 - 3 hours before being rescued. They walked across the deck of the rescue vessel and went down into the galley to warm up. Each and every one collapsed and died in the galley.
  
• An average adult person has a 50/50 chance of surviving a 50 yard swim in 50F. water.
  

The City of Kingston announces that the Inner Harbour sewer overflow tank (is now) in operation.