Celebrating (and watchdogging) the Kingston Ontario area waterfront

INSIDE LOOK AT THE LAFARGE TIRE-BURNING CASE is a very interesting podcast from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. A good summary of where we stand, and don't stand.

Download the 12.5 Mb MP3 file which runs 27:19 minutes. You can also subscribe to Lake Ontario Waterkeeper podcasts with iTunes.

A PRIMER ON IJC PLANS is a new K7 page that shows how Lake Ontario water levels in two plans still under consideration by the International Joint Commission differ from the plan we've had for the past 50 years.

THE SPINY WATER FLEA is the subject of an interesting article in The Whig yesterday.

Anglers on local lakes are being asked to let their lines, nets and other gear dry completely between fishing expeditions to prevent the spread of a parasite that a Queen's University researcher (Dr. Shelley Arnott) fears is taking over Ontario's lakes.

The same proscription presumably applies to boats and trailers.

A HOME FOR THE PHOEBE is the title for a front-page colour photo in Friday's Kingston This Week.

Students in the Building Construction Internship Program heritage carpentry class secure a piece onto one of four large timber trusses that will support the roof of a 22x60 foot exhibit pavillion. The shelter at the rear of the Pump House Stream Museum will house the restored steamboat Phoebe. The group of 12 students should have the building complete by the end of the school year.

Related: This diagram of the exhibit shelter from last September.

AT COUNCIL ON TUESDAY is the recommendation to use Black Bird Holding, LTD of Belleville for replacing B-dock at Confederation Basin.

They beat other bids from Goderich and Peterborough.

METALCRAFT MARINE'S NEW FIREBOAT FOR VICTORIA is their first fireboat built for service in Canada.

One fireboat in forty built so far. All told, MetalCraft Marine have built over 500 hulls.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE, likely since 1998, that we've had such high water on Lake Ontario.

A FRESH MAKEOVER for the CORK website.

LAKE ONTARIO PARK CLEANUP, by the Friends of Lake Ontario Park and all interested volunteers, is planned for this Friday (April 25) from 1 to 4 pm.

It's 37 acres, and it's worth doing.

Bags and gloves are available at the 'long house' anytime after 1 pm.

Related: Lake Ontario Park, looking for a plan from March 23rd.

THE NEW SHED FOR AHOY RENTALS is currently under construction behind the Marine Museum.

Ahoy Rentals' new shed is shifted West to accommodate a new timber frame exhibit shelter for the Phoebe.

Here are links to the Ahoy Rentals and the Phoebe restauration project websites.

SCUBA DIVING MAGAZINE has a brief article on diving near Kingston, now online from its March issue. The article covers three wrecks: The George A. Marsh, The Comet, and The Wolfe Islander II.

From the introduction:

With upward of 24 known moored wrecks, including schooners, barges and passenger ships, Kingston, Ontario, is a tempting destination for cold-water wreck divers. In fact, more than 400 ships are known to have wrecked in the area.

Well worth reading each spring: SHOCKING NEWS ABOUT COLD WATER.

• Nine elite marines, water survival instructors, capsized in 36 degree 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.
• A 50 year-old person in 50F water has a 50/50 chance of surviving for 50 minutes.

The water temperature in Kingston Harbour is currently about 40F.

Read the whole thing. Stay safe.

TWO LOCAL SAILORS, Audrey Kobayashi and Robert Davis, recently learned they'll receive Quest for Gold Carding and funding from the provinvial Ministry of Health Promotion.

JOSEPH AND MOLLY BRANT are subjects in the latest Thousand Island Life, now online.

This is circa 1783. Relatively recent by some local waterfront standards.

HERE'S THE LINEUP of exhibitors for the Kingston Boat Show this upcoming weekend.

It's a pretty good list, all things considered.

IDLING BOATS are covered in a proposed by-law to control the idling of vehicles and boats, still in committee at City Hall.

They've received several comments about how boats, with no breaks, need to idle engines to a warm state for safety reasons, since stalling leaves few options. So here's the exemption that addresses that:

4.4 Vehicles or boats where idling is required to repair or prepare the vehicle or boat for service

NEW WEBSITE for Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston. Adjust your bookmarks, the URL is new: http://powkingston.org

Related: Preserve Our Wrecks, Kingston blog.

ON THE LEFT you see the Bypass Log For The City of Kingston.

It's reduced to 500 pixels high so you can see it in one view.

The red box is where they put the "news" about the immense sewer dumping tally of the past three weeks.

Visitors need to scroll way down to see it, past several cues that suggest the page is stale, two months out of date.

Pollution disclosure, City of Kingston-style:

Right:"Table 3" from April 3.
It lists 5 events.

( See it full-size here, from our April 4th news item.)

Right:"Table 3" from April 7.
It now lists just 4 events.

One new row has appeared, a small spill, but two rows have scrolled-off.

Vanished: 57,000 m^3 -- 12.5 MILLION gallons of sewage dumped barely 2-weeks ago.

THE BRIGANTINE St Lawrence II is busy, judging by their Spring work program.

The Summer 2008 schedule starts on Lake Erie and extends to Lake Huron and Georgian Bay before sailing back to Kingston in August.

MASSIVE SEWAGE DUMPING by the City of Kingston over the past several days.

The dumping of the past few days has exceeded the tally for all of 2007 by a considerable margin.

Dumping for 2008 year-to-date is way ahead of ALL of 2006 and 2007 combined.

Word from the Dolphins Scuba club is, at West Street, this is a visibly nasty flow of immense quantities of fecal matter, toilet paper and sanitary supplies.

Shame on the City of Kingston for its massive spending on things like OHL arenas, squares, and theatres, and so today we continue to despoil a natural lake.

No word yet about this from local mainstream media.

Finally, shame on Utilities Kingston for placing this information way down on their combined sewer overflows bypass log.

When you look at the initial viewpane for that page, you see nothing recent worthy of note. You need to scroll way down to see the real news.

They call it a "bypass log". It's nothing like a bypass log. It's a selective and obfuscated tally, with no links to details.

Related: don't barf when you read this.

DOLPHINS DECLARE THIS LAKE OPEN.

HUB STEENBAKKERS DESIGNATED AS A CERTIFIED MARINA MANAGER.

From Boating Industry Canada:

The CMM designation is a professional qualification and certification program assuring marina customers, investors, bankers, insurers and the public that marina properties are professionally managed and run. The award follows his completion of the Advanced Marina Management course, providing training in site planning, marina-development skills, marina-operation techniques, business strategies, risks and liabilities and environmental policies. Hub becomes only the 4th person in Canada and the 212th person in the world to attain this certification since the programs inception in 1992.

Hub owns and operates Collins Bay Marina.

POSTPONED: The Crew overboard! seminar, originally scheduled for March 28th, is postponed to May 31. The new programme will include on-water practice following the seminar.

LAKE ONTARIO PARK MASTER PLAN - TERMS OF REFERENCE is a 7-page report just released by the City staff for a committee meeting later this week.

The Terms of Reference for the next phase are focused on finding a viable way of putting in place the vision and planning principles agreed to in the visioning exercise. The Phase I Planning Study achieved its goal of reaching a consensus on the future of Lake Ontario Park. Phase 2 of the park redevelopment process has three objectives which are:

• To develop and recommend a multi-year strategic direction and plan for the revitalization and rejuvenation of the park as a public community facility;
• To ensure ongoing and inclusive community consultation throughout the development of the plan and the related implementation strategy; and
• To develop and recommend a long-term financing and budget strategy for the capital construction and operating costs necessary to implement and maintain the recommended development plan.

Totally unlike, say, City marinas.

Request for proposal: MARINA SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND BUSINESS PLAN (29 pages) released by The City of Kingston 9 days ago (March 10th).

But the RFP is still not posted on the City of Kingston Tenders, RFPs and RFIs web page.

Update: The RFP was finally posted sometime after 3:30 PM on March 19th.

When it comes to City Marinas we've seen BS like this before.