Celebrating progress in the Holland Marsh

By Miriam King Bradford Times August 26 2010
Work on the first phase of the Holland Marsh Drainage Improvement project began July 1, on the South Canal.On August 23, the Holland Marsh Drainage System Joint Municipal Services Board, with members from both Bradford West Gwillimbury and King Twp., held what chair John McCallum called “a day of celebration, and thank-you’s.”
Representatives of the various levels of government, ministries and agencies involved gathered at Cardinal Golf Club, for a bus tour, to see the progress to date.
“The canal is being moved away from the road,” explained Drainage Superintendent Frank Jonkman Jr. “The primary reason is for flood protection. It is marginal if we can handle a 50-Year event,” let alone the volume of water that Hurricane Hazel dumped on the West Holland River and its watershed in 1954. “The second reason is life safety, especially in Bradford West Gwillimbury.”
Twenty-eight km. of canals surround 7,000 acres of prime vegetable-growing organic soils, which have been called “Canada’s Vegetable Garden.” About 16 km. of the North and South canals will be relocated. In areas where there are bridges or environmentally-sensitive lands and full relocation isn’t possible, the canals will be partially relocated, or dredged, to a depth of 9′. Some stretches of the South Canal are less than 4′ deep.
Where relocation is possible, a new berm will be constructed between the water and the road. There used to be a 7′ buffer that separated the canal from the roadway, Jonkman noted, but it was removed when the canals were dredged following Hurricane Hazel. “Part of our project is to re-establish that buffer.”
Overall cost of the project will top $26 million, which includes the replacement of 6 municipal bridges. The impact on Holland Marsh landowners has been mitigated by 33% Ontario Ministry of Food, Agriculture & Rural Affairs grants, and by receipt of a $10.4 million MIII grant from the province, reducing the assessment from the initial $500 per acre, to about $106 per acre, Jonkman said.
Dignitaries on the tour saw how the canal is being divided into 500 to 1,000 metre intervals, blocked by temporary coffer dams, and dewatered, to allow excavation to proceed. The project involves tree-cutting – with the root masses used to help stabilize the new banks – and fish-shocking, to move fish away from areas of activity.
Jonkman said that the huge dragline brought in at the start of the project was being replaced with a smaller machine. Not only did the big dragline need double-matting before it could be moved onto the muck soils, its huge bucket was hard to manipulate, especially at the Hwy 400 bridge.
The new machine will only require one layer of matting, is faster to operate and should, Jonkman said, allow the project to “move ahead more quickly,” even though it has a smaller bucket.
There are 2 “bottlenecks” that have slowed the work. One is difficulty in locating the main Bell fibre optic cable, which has shifted in the canal’s current; the other is the shifting of the sheet metal pilings under the Hwy. 400 bridge, as the ground is excavated. Engineers are working on a solution.
There is a third problem: high water levels in the canals, reflecting water levels in Lake Simcoe. Flooding of woodlands adjacent to the canals has made it difficult to bring in heavy equipment, and the operator of the Trent-Severn system has been asked to lower the lake levels.
Back at Cardinal GC, the 20-year history of the project was recounted, and credit given to former Drainage Superintendent Art Janse, who initially championed the project, and helped design what is now “the largest drainage reconstruction project in Ontario.”
Also thanked were MP Dr. Helena Jaczek, an early proponent of the project; the LSRCA; Ministry of Municipal Affairs; MTO; Joint Municipal Services Board and Councils of both King Twp. and Bradford West Gwillimbury.
BWG Deputy Mayor Dennis Roughley noted that the success of the project “emphasizes the importance of partnerships… making things work.”