Senator Bob Runciman’s recent call for action on outdated water-level policy for the St. Lawrence River has no better supporting evidence than right now, many people along the river believe.

Water level advocacy groups, businesses and residents are saying levels on the river are now at a point nearer to the end of fall than spring with little prospect of improving.

“We’re looking at about late October levels, I would say,” said Lynn Goernert of Spencer’s Cottages and Boat Rentals, west of Gananoque.

“Compared to last year and the year before, I would say close to two feet down.”

Although Runciman, the senator for Ontario-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, was speaking more to the governance of water levels in the summer, Goernert and others believe it’s now clearly a year-round problem.

“I believe all of the problems are water management,” said Goernert, who complimented Runciman on his call for change.

“It’s really depressing,” she said. “We had a very strong water year last and they let it all go again.”

The “they” to which Goernert referred is the International St. Lawrence River Board of Control (ISLRBC), established in 1952 by the International Joint Commission (IJC), a Canada-United States organization that governs water policy along the two country’s borders.

Plan 1958-D, more than 50 years after its implementation to regulate outflows from Lake Ontario, is still in place and hamstrung by limitations that do not allow for adjustments during aberrant conditions like this spring, Goernert says.

“It was a weak winter and an early melt-down. We could have all predicted that. Why can’t they? The don’t adjust the numbers they just run on protocol.”

Lake Ontario outflows are regulated, primarily, through the Moses-Saunders power dam near Cornwall. The ISLRBC has stated Lake Ontario water levels are a bit lower than normal, but still within the four-foot range of monthly means.

“It’s certainly well within that four-foot range,” said Bernard Beckoff, public affairs advisor for the IJC, pointing to a recent Lake Ontario water levels report. “Levels are going to go up because that’s the normal cycle.”

The report, which shows water levels from the end of March 2008 to mid-March levels this year, indicates river levels have been below average since late October last year.

Where average levels have gone up in the same period from January to April in 2008 and 2009, the graph this year has remained relatively flat.

A forecast model for rising water levels actually shows levels approaching near average, but that’s hardly what Goernert sees when she looks out at the river.

“The runoff was in January. They could have slowed the flow from February on,” she said.

Goernert said she has seen a similar low-water level in the spring, but this time she’s a little worried about the immediate future.

“We’re concerned,” she said. “We could not, right now, launch our boats. If this is the water level we have at the beginning of May, I’m probably not going to rent boats to people who don’t have them reserved. They can’t get out of my bay, first of all. And I’m going to have to teach them how to get out of the bay with the motor half way down.”

The tourism operator has been outspoken in the past about low river levels in the fall affecting the business -and she doesn’t want to get hit on both ends of the calendar.

“I’m thoroughly discouraged,” she said. “I used to have hope.”

“What people don’t realize, from Brockville to Kingston, is how well this area is known internationally. There are just an amazing amount on international travellers that have come to the 1000 Islands, and I don’t know how many I’ve had to turn away in September and October from renting a boat and going out to see what they had travelled here for.”

Across the river in Clayton, N.Y., Stephanie Weiss, assistant director of Save The River, said the river watch organization has heard from many people concerned about current levels.

“It’s maybe a foot and half lower than last year at this time,” she said. “We’ve heard from a lot of people because, obviously, lower water levels can be inconvenient.”

Weiss, who has a background in environmental chemistry, said such low water this early is not only concerning to residents and water-based businesses.

The impact on the environment, and the reasons behind low water levels, are also alarming.

“One of the other really important things people in the 1000 Islands need to keep an eye on is that the environment needs (alternating) high water and low water. The question is, are we having low water that is good for the environment, or are we having it because it’s good for some other interest?”

Weiss said she has examined the natural reasons for low water levels now and man-made explanations.

“If we didn’t have the (ISLRBC) regulation plan that we have, if we just had natural conditions, we would have a lower water level this year than we did last year. It’s natural,” she said.

“However, (levels) would be about a foot higher than they are right now.”

Weiss is aware of Runciman’s call for action on a new plan and applauded his efforts at a time when, she said, many had given up hope something could be done.

She realizes any effort to change the plan won’t be simple, but has some optimism it will happen.

“This is all about the fact we need a new plan,” she said. “We need a natural flow plan that is going to be better for the river environmentally, and is not going to have an artificial drawdown that is going to cause us to have low spring (levels).

We need to keep people focused on the fact that we have a historic opportunity to change this plan and that’s where we need to go.”

Focus is something the Brockville Power and Sail Squadron stresses all the time in its courses for safe operation on the waters of the St. Lawrence River.

As more and more people head back to the water, especially lately with unseasonably warm weather, lower than average water levels require special attention.

“Absolutely,” said Phil Newsome, commander of the Brockville squadron. “People should probably take a good look at their charts.”

Obstacles normally under more water at this of year may pose a safety threat to unsuspecting boaters. And, with more and more people travelling to the area to take advantage of the river, the “known water” adage doesn’t apply.

“You’re travelling in waters that are unknown,” said Newsome. “It’s not business as usual and we need to take all the precautions we can.”

Business as usual is a practise Dalton Foster hopes changes soon.

The Massena, N. Y resident, a member of the International Water Levels Coalition, knows as much about water levels on the St. Lawrence as anyone.

“Probably the biggest thing that has happened is we set an all-time record for the lowest snowfall in the Great Lakes area this year,” explained Foster, adding the upper Great Lakes area received only 43 per cent of average snowfall for January, February and March this year.

“That led to a problem be-cause the lake (Ontario) was low last fall and then we didn’t get anything during the winter. There was no snow melt in the spring.”

That replenishment of spring runoff, or freshet as it’s known, simply was not available to support water levels.

“This year, the water levels are like they would be in the fall,” he said.

Foster believes projections by the ISLRBC, which have five per cent, 50 per cent and 95 cent variables on high, low and minimum water level, are likely going to be at minimum levels this year.

Unless we get a really rainy April … unless that happens there are going to be really bad low water levels this year.”

Foster also singled out the ISLRBC regulated plan as the culprit for low water levels this spring.

“It’s and outdated plan and the problem is it’s a ‘look-back’ plan,” he said.

“It just looks back into what has happened in the past and says that’s what’s going to happen in the future.”

“It doesn’t take into account such things as the shift in the snowfall,” he added, saying this season’s best snowfall shifted further south of the border.

“That’s not part of plan 1958-D. Anyone could have seen that and said, ‘Wait a minute, because we have no snow cover this year, there is going to be no freshet in the spring.’”

Foster said the adjustment to water levels should have been taken in December, January or February.

“They decided they were going to follow the plan,” he said of Lake Ontario outflow. “The plan does not allow for those types of adjustments, and unless something unusual happens in terms of rainfall, unless we get monsoons or something, we’re going to have a bad year.”