Sudbury canoe club copes with flooding

Sudbury will have a new $4.6 million water sports complex on its way in July, but the city's canoe club is concerned the state of its current building is driving away membership.

Water levels on Ramsey Lake are causing major damage to the building, the club said.

Gergely Lancy said with the club being so close to the lake, the group often deals with flooding, but added this is the worst he's seen in 15 years.

"All of our gear is unable to dry out," he said. "It promotes mold growth. The walls are getting water logged."

The head coach said the excess water is affecting membership.

"People come down to look at the clubhouse and say 'well, I'm not going through that. This is ridiculous,'' Dan Welch said.

"People are walking away. We're losing membership. It's impacting all of our programs."

'Number of considerations' to balance

 The canoe club wants the city to lower the level of the lake by releasing more water from its dam located near Science North.

But the city's director of water services said it's not that simple.

"A lake is not something you can fine tune like the dial on a radio," Nick Benkovich said.

"This is a water body that we're trying to control and we have a number of considerations we're trying to balance."

If too much water is released from the lake, Benkovich said it could cause flooding with the creek downstream.

He said the water level in the lake could get too low later in the summer, which could affect the drinking water supply.

The city said the lake levels aren't unusual for this time year.