Restoring ‘weed-choked’ Silver Lake vital to Port Dover’s economy, citizens’ group says

In its heyday, Silver Lake was a place for Port Dover residents to swim and paddle — a well-loved watering hole just up the Lynn River from Lake Erie.

“We boated, we fished, we skated on Silver Lake when it froze over,” said Bruce Schneider, who spent his childhood at the “pristine” lake, originally a mill pond created in the 1850s when a dam was built to power a nearby knitting mill.

Those halcyon days are a far cry from the silty, stagnant puddle Silver Lake became decades later, thanks in part to a crumbling dam that let water rush southward into Lake Erie after stop logs were removed in 2010, leaving thick layers of river sediment behind.

“It’s a weed-choked mess and has been for years,” Schneider said outside town hall in Simcoe on June 13.

A half-dozen Port Dover residents were at council to show their support for the citizen-led Silver Lake Revitalization Project, an initiative of the Port Dover Waterfront Preservation Association that aims to restore the lake as a recreational jewel.

With nine stormwater drains emptying into the Silver Lake basin at the end of the Lynn River watershed, the lake “provides a stormwater management service to the county” by trapping silt and filtering water before it flows into Lake Erie, project chair Jim Dover told councilors .

“Once Silver Lake silts in, if nothing is done, you’re going to have silt flowing down to the lower Lynn River and Port Dover harbour,” disrupting Port Dover’s commercial fishing and boating trades, Dover said.

A portion of the lake is an officially designed provincially significant wetland, and tourists flock to the area to train their binoculars on more than 200 migratory bird species, he added.

Repairs to the dam were completed in 2021, ending a decade-long wait for residents as the county and province batted around responsibility. Since then, the Silver Lake committee has raised $70,000 in cash and in-kind contributions.

Volunteers have installed a floating dock, monitored water quality for sediment contamination from urban and agricultural runoff, removed four hectares of invasive phragmites from the lake basin, and continue to control purple loosestrife, another invasive plant species.

The group is asking council for monetary support to bring life back to the weed-infested lake.

The committee is asking Norfolk County for $125,000 to hire an environmental consulting firm to complete the first phase of what would be a multi-year restoration project, which includes studying the feasibility of dredging the lake and keeping sediment levels low.

The Long Point Region Conservation Authority supports the project and will provide technical assistance, Dover told council.

The question of who owns Silver Lake is as murky as its algae- and silt-clogged water, which has a depth of zero to three feet across roughly 500 meters. With no government taking the lead, passionate residents and the local Lions Club—which owns the adjacent Silver Lake Park and farmers’ market—have stepped in.

But the revitalization committee needs Norfolk’s financial backing and public endorsement to wring funding from senior levels of government and keep the project alive, Dover said.

Councilors directed staff to meet with committee members and prepare a report ahead of capital budget talks in the fall.

“We’re confident staff will confirm our project has significant economic, environmental and social benefits for Norfolk County,” Dover told The Spectator.

JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at The Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.