Waves eroding tip of Toronto Islands
$14M project proposed to keep Gibraltar Point from turning into a nub
Jan 14, 2008 04:30 AM
Paul Moloney
CITY HALL BUREAU
Gibraltar Point, the southwestern tip of the Toronto Islands, is disappearing from the map.
Exposure to Lake Ontario's wave action is causing the sandy shoreline to wash away, and beachfront will continue to be lost if nothing is done, warns the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.
An environmental assessment is nearing completion and a report on the project – estimated to cost $14.2 million – will go before the city's public works and infrastructure committee this spring.
The vanishing shoreline "hasn't had too much attention and is receding to the point where some of the infrastructure is starting to be threatened," said Brian Denney, the conservation authority's chief administrative officer.
"There's a park building there – a little washroom building – that needs to be protected, not to mention a lot of valuable open space."
A possible fix would be to build an offshore breakwater 750 to 900 metres long, possibly submerged so it wouldn't be visible while still calming the currents. Sand would probably have to be brought in to replace shoreline lost to the waves.
Action is long overdue, said Councillor Pam McConnell, whose ward includes the islands.
"Year after year, the lake gets closer and closer and the beach gets narrower and narrower. It's about time we fixed this problem that we've known about for 20 years."
A water treatment plant, one of four supplying the city, is not far from Gibraltar Point. It isn't under imminent threat, but the water department is working with the conservation authority nonetheless.
Ironically, Gibraltar Point was named by John Graves Simcoe, Ontario's first lieutenant-governor, because he believed it could be as impregnable as the Rock of Gibraltar.
However, the islands were formed as a buildup of sand from the Scarborough Bluffs, Denney said. Over thousands of years, sand, silt and clay were carried west by storms and currents. The amount of sand taken from the bluffs diminished over time and basically ran out by the 1850s, when storms cut a channel through the outcropping to form the Eastern Gap.
The harbour was upgraded by dredging and concrete breakwaters were put in place to control erosion, along with seawalls along the eastern and western gaps.
"Now we're looking at what to do with Gibraltar Point," Denney said. "This is a project that we think really needs to be addressed in the next two to five years."
