Lora Bay Park will be closed to the public this summer while it is used as a staging area for a major infrastructure project.
The Town of The Blue Mountains announced the plans to close the afternoon of Friday, March 14. A report about the issue came to council at its committee of the whole meeting on March 18.
The park will be used for assembling the piping needed for the new outfall pipe for the Thornbury sewage plant.
Pipes will be welded together at the park, then floated over to the outfall’s location on Grey Street in Thornbury. The piping will then be sunk to the floor of the bay and pieced together. The total length of the outfall is 1.5 kilometres and it will be assembled in 200-metre sections at the park property.
The outfall pipe puts treated water back into the bay.
Lora Bay Park will be closed temporarily from the beginning of June to September for the work to occur. No part of the outfall project will be permanently located at the park. The property will be used for storage of material and the welding work. When the work is completed, the park will be returned to its original or an upgraded condition.
“Town staff and the town’s consultant reviewed a wide variety of properties from Penetanguishene to Owen Sound looking for a suitable location to use as a temporary staging site,” Allison Kershaw, the town’s manager of water and wastewater services, said in her report, “All town-owned waterfront land in The Blue Mountains was also considered, including parks and unopened road allowances.”
The town used an evaluation process to identify Lora Bay Park as the optimal choice for the temporary staging area.
As part of the report, town staff presented council with a full communications plan for how the plans for the use of the park will be communicated to members of the public. An open house on the situation is being planned in the future. The full communications plan and frequently asked questions can be found online here.
The new outfall will provide additional sewage capacity for approximately 11,600 new homes, which Kershaw estimated to be approximately 100 years of future growth for the community.
“Lora Bay Park includes a boat launch and a small dock that will be ideal for the construction and launch of the pipe into the bay. The bay has a small cove just offshore of the park, allowing for storage until the pipe sections can be relocated to their final location, 400 m offshore of the extension of Grey Street,” Kershaw said in her report.
The existing boat launch and dock at the park are both near the end of their useful life and will be refurbished during the outfall assembly project. Staff told council that other upgrades for the park could be considered after the construction work is completed at the direction of council. Staff said they would work on a plan, with public consultation, for possible park upgrades.
Kershaw called the new outfall “critical infrastructure” for future growth in the community and noted in her report that the project will see the existing outfall, which is located in the Beaver River, removed and replaced by the new outfall at Grey Street, which will be located offshore in much deeper water.