Category Archives: Speed River

Section 16 Order Request: Allan’s Dam, Spillway and Sluiceway, City of Guelph, Speed River

Infrasture stacked on top of and surrounding Allans Dam and Spillway.

The handling and outcome of the Macdonell and Allan’s Structures MCEA constitute a serious procedural failure that infringes on the constitutionally protected Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Six Nations of the Grand River, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Throughout the five-year MCEA process, the City withheld essential information—including the dam’s true age (155 years), the absence of any structural or subsurface assessment, the deteriorated condition of the spillway, and the 2018 OSIM recommendation for a LRIA-compliant Dam Safety Review. None of this was disclosed to Indigenous rights holders, despite the project’s direct implications for the Speed River, its fish, habitat, water quality, and flood risk.

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Speed River: Macdonell and Allan’s Structures Municipal Class Environmental Assessment

Allan’s Dam & Allan’s Dam Bridge, Guelph, Speed River.

Our own research revealed that Allan’s Dam is a legacy mill dam, originally constructed in the 1830s to power Allan’s Mill—one of Guelph’s founding industrial sites. Sometime later, the structure was adapted for hydroelectric generation, likely in the early to mid-20th century. It is our understanding that this facility has not generated electricity for several decades and now functions only as an aging dam, concrete spillway and sluiceway, impounding a shallow headpond on the Speed River. It appears that this infrastructure no longer serves any useful purpose while continuing to fragment habitat, degrade water quality, and emit copious amounts of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

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Update: Riverside Dam on the Speed River

The City of Cambridge is moving forward on a detailed design plan of the new rebuild of Riverside Dam on the Speed River.  Construction is planned for 2029.  Meanwhile, the price is now estimated at $19,000,000; however, the full price tag won’t be known until the dam is constructed.  This dam has been determined to be at “high risk” and the risk of failing is imminent.

ORA worked extensively towards the decommissioning of this dam.  Removing the dam would have been much cheaper, safer and healthier for the riverine ecosystem.

Articles:

City releases renderings of new Riverside Dam set for construction in 2029, Cambridge Today, 28 November 2024
Riverside Dam rebuild will begin in 2025 with a budget of $19 million, Cambridge Today, 17 February 2023
City of Cambridge puts $15.2M Riverside Dam project on hold indefinitely, City News, 4 December 2020
Riverside Dam construction delayed to 2022 with higher price tag, CBC News, 8 Sept 2020
Cambridge Council gives go-ahead to plan for Riverside repairs, CTV News, 8 Sept 2020


MECP Minister’s Decision on Part II Order Request – Riverside Dam

Updates:

21 May 2020:  Here’s which projects are staying, going or delayed in Cambridge 
3 March 2020:  ‘I don’t see this being a $20-million project, but it’s not going to be a million-dollar project’

On September 28, 2018, you requested, on behalf of the Ontario Rivers Alliance and other partners, that the City be required to prepare an individual environmental assessment for the replacement of Riverside Dam.  I am taking this opportunity to inform you that I have decided that elevating the project to an individual environmental assessment is not required.

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Riverside Dam Class EA – Part II Order Request – ORA & Partners

The full Capital and Life Cycle Costs of Rebuilding Riverside Dam were not realistically represented in the ESR and could well end up costing the taxpayers more than double what was presented to the public and City Council.  A Rebuilt dam would be considered a new dam, not a repair or expansion of an existing weir, with an assessed High Hazard Potential, and is located within the City of Cambridge in a location that could place multiple residences and businesses at risk in the event of severe flooding or a dam breach.  ORA and Partners submit that this Project goes far beyond the screening process provided by a Schedule B, Class EA.  Consequently, we submit that this is a major project that should fall into a higher level of assessment.

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Riverside Dam Class EA – Update to Preliminary Preferred Alternative – Joint Submission

ORA understands the pressure municipalities are under when communities rally to maintain or rebuild their beloved mill ponds.  However, it is up to all authorities and municipalities to take a leadership role that places public safety and landscape scale ecological integrity above local individual or group interests.

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Riverside Dam Class Environmental Assessment – Speed River

Drought conditions could place additional stress on riverine ecosystems, while more extreme rainfall will heighten the risk of dam failures (18 dams were breached in a South Carolina flood in October of 2015) with rapid release of high volumes of water.  There have also been recent dam failures right here in Ontario – the Gorrie Dam failure last year in Wingham was the most recent, putting more than 150 property owners at risk.

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