Chedoke Creek dredging deadline extended to December 31, 2022 – Hamilton | The Canadian News

The City of Hamilton has been granted a deadline extension to complete the dredging at Chedoke Creek.

The Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) extended the deadline for 14 months, until December 31, 2022.

A ministry order requires specific dredging after 24 billion liters of raw sewage spilled into the creek through an open door into a combined sewer overflow tank between 2014 and 2018.

“Unfortunately, the previous time frames were too restrictive given the need for extensive consultation with a number of stakeholders,” says Nick Winters, the city’s director of water and wastewater, “in addition to coming up with a design that is going to work. ”.

Those stakeholders range from the Hamilton Conservation Authority and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Fisheries and Oceans of Canada and to the Indian Nations and their partners, including the Six Nations of the Great River and the Council of the Haudenosaunee Confederation.

Winters says the dredging will take place next year and will likely take four to six months to complete.

“Typically, you are only allowed to do water work, in a given year, between July 15 and October 15,” says Winters.

“We will need some flexibility with that in 2022.”

Winters adds that these restrictions “have to do with protecting the environment.”

“Stay out of the water during the fish spawning season and stay out of the water at times that are important to some other inhabitants and organisms,” Winters says.

“We’re doing it for good reason,” Winters concludes, “to remove material that shouldn’t be there.”

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