By Staff
May 18th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
The City of Burlington has closed the beach at Burlington Beach Regional Waterfront Park—the Beachway—until further notice due to high water levels.
Significant erosion due to high water levels in Lake Ontario. Wednesday afternoon it looked like this.
The closure takes place to protect public safety. There is significant sand erosion and debris at the shoreline.
This is what the Beachway looked like in the summer of 2013. This is what climate change gets you.
The playground, concessions, washrooms, parking and recreational trail will remain open.
Hi Dave, maybe it’s you that needs to pull your head out of the sand. Yes, I agree the lake level is up, but the above two pictures were taken at much different locations on the beach and although the beach is gone, it’s not quite apples to apples. The lake level is not as high as it was in 1918, although getting close. That being the case, your climate change must have started in the late 1800’s for this extreme event to happen. But alas the water subsided slowly to reveal a nice plentiful beach. Until 34 years later (1952) when the levels again rose to your claim, extreme levels. But nature recovered and let us play in the sand. Then 21 years later the storm of 1973 hit and many residents needed evacuation as their homes were beginning to wash away. As we so often do, our short term memory only let’s us remember the good beaches and plenty of sand we have enjoyed for the last 44 years. Now, as your climate change strikes again the lake is once again on the rise. As it was seen fit to remove all the houses and much of the trees to plant (natural vegetation) there is nothing holding back the rush of water. Once again we panic. Well Dave, I guess only time will tell if your climate change will continue to impact Lake Ontario levels, washing out the Hospital, DOT & Treatment plant ( all built on a flood plane ) or if nature will once again give us back the beach for another 40 years or so.
Just saying.
I can’t quite understand why The Beachway would be closed due to high water levels?
I was there yesterday and agree the water level is very high – but saw lots of people walking the sidewalk, rollerblading, bike riding & jogging.
Listening to the birds and smelling the lilacs.
Public safety first.
It’s better for folks to rollerblade on the streets in traffic anyway.
Thank you for drawing attention to climate change in the photo caption. We don’t hear it mentioned very much on the broader news across the country in relation to the recent flooding and high water levels. People seem to regard it as just an unusual occurrence, rather than the cumulative result of our lifestyles hitting home. Or, they acknowledge it, but speak of mitigation measures to cope with it, rather than prevention.
One event is perhaps a freak occurrence, but extreme weather events year after year reveal a pattern. El Nino and La Nina are over. This is climate change and we will have to get used to seeing more weather extremes — flooding sometimes, drought other times (plus the financial costs associated with them). Better yet, let’s take personal action to reduce our use of fossil fuels to lessen the impact while we still can. The writing is on the wall; we just have to choose to read it (and take our heads out of the sand, as it were).