A spokesman for the elevator’s owner Parrish & Heimbecker Ltd says that unless the harbor is dredged it is likely that delivering and retrieving of cargo at Owen Sound’s waterfront grain elevator will cease.
“It’s hard enough right now finding ships that can come into the shallow draft but if you start getting shallower and shallower than it just gets to where you just can’t afford freight, ” Rob Bryson , the firm’s director for eastern Canada, said in an interview.
Ships that unload and load grain, road salt and other products at the Owen Sound Harbor face deposits of silt, coupled with lower water levels, resulting in reduced water depth.
In order to request a dredging of the main shipping channel of the federally owned Owen Sound Harbor, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry Miller asked for a meeting with MP Denis Lebel, federal minister of transport, infrastructure and communities.
Miller’s efforts have been supported by Owen Sound Mayor Deb Haswell, Grey County Warden and city Coun. Arlene Wright.
Miller expects that the dredging work could cost $2 million, considering the fact that the Owen Sound harbor has not been dredged for at least 25 years. His efforts have been directed towards providing at least a maintenance dredge of the harbor what would mean returning the depth of the main shipping channel to common levels.
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Dredging Today Staff, November 23, 2011;