The Saint Lawrence has been much higher than usual this spring in Verdun. Today I walked between the Natatorium and the Marina and there were parts of the lower path already washed out. My first concern is that many trees along the shoreline have already leaned into the river and I wonder if this erosion will put many more at risk?
The polar caps are melting and it would be catastrophically naive to believe that the Saint Lawrence is not going to rise as climate change unfolds and begins to make serious impacts across the world’s topography.
I have no idea what, if any, plans the Ville de Verdun has for this situation. I see zero effort being made to save the shoreline as it is.
It was a weird walk. I saw a dead bird (red winged blackbird, like how would one of those die?) floating near the shoreline, two beavers (I have only ever seen beavers in daylight during high river springtime) and many more people fishing than usual (must be that high water bringing fish closer to the shore).
I think it is important that Verduners know that the lower path of the waterfront is eroding even if some could argue that it is the lower path itself that is causing the erosion. My point here is that if we do nothing the river will take care of the situation for us, erosion will continue until the bike path begins to fall apart, etc, etc, etc, and that’s probably okay too, its all landfill anyway, and the river is bigger than all of us.
There is a lot of debris along the shore, including garbage.
Parts of the path being eaten away.
An interesting thing – the floating marinas were tugboated out from the Marina to their respective spots recently and I will assume that they will be attached to their bases in the the next day or two. In the case of this base if the water were to get a little higher the pier would be literally floating above the base.
Another section going bye bye.
Looking west from the Marina.
And here is what I mean by the problem of the floating piers – you have to walk in the water to get up on the pier, hopefully.
Will update as things progress, either way.
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