The Riverside Park dam in Cambridge is aging and its future will be considered in an upcoming study.

30 March 2011

Aging Riverside Park Dam Facing Review

Cambridge Ontario - City hall is girding for a public uproar over talk of removing the dam in the Speed River at Riverside Park.
 
The 110-year-old overflow dam is crumbling. If it fails suddenly, the surge of water could damage the wooden Canadian Pacific Railway trestle immediately downstream. The tracks carry every new car made at the Toyota auto assembly plant on Fountain Street.
 
With a replacement costing more than $8 million, compared with $800,000 for removal, the latter option is part of the discussion.
 
"We know it's going to be contentious," said George Elliott, the city's engineering commissioner.
 
To warn city council about an impending study into the dam's future, Elliott prepared a background report outlining the issues and costs last week. A study of the dam's future won't start until summer, when a public meeting will be scheduled. Recommendations to city council are expected by March 2012.
 
The dam was built around 1890 to feed water to the flour mill on the south side of the river, the city report says. It's 67 metres long and 1.5 metres tall.
 
It was privately owned but became a legal orphan, so the city took over ownership in 2008 despite worries about huge repair costs.
 
The city spent $50,000 on emergency repairs in later in 2008, with plans to conduct an environmental assessment of the dam's future in 2009. That was delayed in the city budget until this summer.
 
If the dam is removed, it would allow the mill race carrying water to the flour mill to be filled in. That would allow Waterloo Region to remove a bridge on King Street over the race, instead of expanding it as part of road works planned there in 2014, the report says.
 
Originally, city staff estimated dam replacement would cost about $1.2 million. An engineer's report now estimates replacement at $5 million to $8 million.
 
"The dam is in serious final stages of its life expectancy. It has already started to fail," Elliott says in his report to council.
 
"It will be considered critical and imminent for failure after 2013."
 
Rehabilitation would cost about $1.7 million, but only buy 10 more years of life, the report says.