Peche Island’s largest waterway dries up

Kayakers upset with changes on Peche Island and want the city to do something about it. CTV Windsor’s Bob Bellacicco explains.

Peche Island is a popular escape from the city, but some visitors are not happy with what they are seeing. The water no longer flows beneath a legacy bridge creating a pseudo beach at the edge of the island along the Detroit River near the mouth of Lake St. Clair.

“It hurts me a lot to see that it’s being damaged a lot,” said Howard Weeks, who started a Facebook group a few days ago and has a couple of hundred followers. Many would like to see the water flowing once again because that part of the island is suffocating from a lack thereof.

“There’s no water flow and basically, the island is being choked,” Weeks said. He and many others enjoy kayaking to the island. He has heard comments, such as people saying kayakers are being selfish because creating a new flow could benefit their experience at the island like before.

“I don’t know if you’d call it selfish to be concerned about the wildlife and the environment, and damage to the environment, as you can see it, with your own eyes,” Weeks noted.

He points out there are waterways elsewhere on the island, so while it would be nice to continue to kayak through the area at the south end, he’s more interested in the bigger cause.

“I don’t know about you, but I like little animals, I like fish, I like birds and swans and all kinds of things.”

The city completed work on and around the bridge in 2021, which many feel led to the water cut off.

“In water there’s always added layers, like I said, to different agencies, both regional and provincial and federal that are involved so we made sure everything was done properly,” said James Chacko, executive director of Parks.

ERCA CAO Tim Byrne says lake levels have played a factor and explains natural lake processes have pushed material like small polished round cobble into canals and other areas.

“It’s a little canal into the island and there’s no upstream drainage area to have water force its way through or push its way through to erode out this material that’s been pushed in naturally by the lake,” Byrne said. “It’s not actually a river. The water that’s pushed in there by the lake, the only reason it flows back out is when wind events on the lake are favorable to allow flow to occur.”

Byrne says nothing can be done now because federal authorities would never allow a major disruption during fish habitat season.

“Fish habitat is not just fish,” Byrne explains. “It’s amphibians, frogs, it’s the benthic environment. It’s the whole picture. It’s mussels. It’s all of those things. And so then you have to do those assessments before you do this type of work.”

He says he’ll be reaching out to senior levels of government to assess the current situation and then contact city administration to determine next steps.