Town undertaking a large valve replacement job

Workers with Watech Services have been busy at Lake Lisgar repairing the low-flow water valve that can be used to drain the lake. It’s expected the work should be done this week, or shortly after. (Jeff Helsdon Photo)

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

A drain critical to lowering the water level in Lake Lisgar is being replaced.

Workers with Watech Services Inc. have been working on repairing the low-flow valve, which is on top of the cement weir west of the gazebo. The valve is essentially a drain to draw down the lake levels. Council approved $120,000 for the repair last month.

“The crank you see on the top of that has been seized since 1969, they’re rebuilding that,” explained Leo Ferreira, Manager of Engineering for the Town of Tillsonburg.

Watech has been on site for about three weeks, and was expected to be done its work late last week. A temporary dam was put in place around the area so water doesn’t continue to enter the area and allow workers access to the structure. Part of the job is being completed by divers, who are working at the bottom of the drain, six feet down.

Ferreira said the mechanism on the top of the weir will be replaced, and the valve at the bottom will also be replaced if it can’t be repaired.

When the drain is functioning, it allows lowering the lake by six feet so it can be cleaned out. There is a problem with increased siltation in the north end of the lake, and the plan is to draw down the water to allow better access for siltation removal. Ferreira said the earliest dredging of the silt will take place is next year.

Below the valve that is being worked on, the water flows into the gulley on the other side of the road. The function of the jammed valve has nothing to do with flood control or high-water overflows. The separate outflow under the gazebo is responsible for high-water outflow.

Tillsonburg resident and historian Joan Weston has lived beside the lake most of her life. She recalls the last time the lake was emptied was in 1968 as part of a project to rejuvenate the lake and remove coarse fish. She recalls the dead, decaying fish that resulted.

“The stench was horrible. We couldn’t open our windows,” she said.

The valve was also opened another time in the 1960s when a kid opened it illegally. Weston remembers waking up in the morning and the lake was two feet lower. A padlock was put on the valve after that.

She has been pushing for action on the valve and silt removal.

“If they don’t do it next year, we will lose the north end of the lake,” she said of the urgency of the silt control. “It used to be eight feet (deep), now it’s about six inches.”

Weston understands a mud pump will have to be used to remove the silt.

She maintains the other reason the valve needs to be repaired is for flood control. She pointed to six days of torrential rain in 1937 when Lake Lisgar and Lake Joseph both washed out. It’s her understanding that despite both the overflow and the low-flow valve being open, as well as sandbags being put in next to the road, the road still washed out.

Lake Joseph, which was in the Big Otter Creek gulley upstream from Simcoe Street, wasn’t rebuilt. Lake Lisgar, which supplied the town’s water for fire protection, had to be rebuilt.