The mayor of Belleville is not impressed with the response from the International Joint Commission to Quinte region mayors’ demands that it immediately lower the water levels in Lake Ontario.
In a letter to the mayors, the commission, an American/Canadian organization that controls water flows in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, says that the extremely wet spring caused the record high inflows into Lake Ontario from Lake Erie and that no system could have handled it.
Belleville Mayor Mitch Panciuk scoffed at that assertion on CJBQ’s Lorne Brooker Show saying that the Commission has been purposely allowing the lake’s water levels to rise in the past few years saying the recent serious flooding is simply a man-made problem that has a man-made solution.
Panciuk says every candidate in the federal election should be asked if they support a change in how the system is operated adding the International Joint Commission seems to have its head buried in the sand.
For its part, the Commission is expediting a review of its water control systems and looking at other options to lower water levels ahead of the spring.
