By Jim Bloch
With costs to repair the Tainter gate and armor the banks of the Black River Canal rising to $4.5 million, the city of Port Huron has halted work on the project.
City Manager James Freed announced the work halt in a Feb. 10 memo to Mayor Anita Ashford, the city council, State Rep. Joe Pavlov and State Sen. Dan Lauwers.
“I regret to inform you that the Black River Canal Project will be paused until state funding is secured,” said Freed in the memo. “The city of Port Huron alone cannot afford the necessary repairs due to the higher than anticipated bid costs. Additionally, the Fort Gratiot and Port Huron township supervisors have declined to cost-share with the city on these repairs even though hundreds of their residents use and rely on the canal.”
The canal has been closed to boaters since last winter when a flood – caused by an ice jam in the Black River – damaged the Tainter gate, the moveable structure used to regulate the flow of water from Lake Huron into the canal. The ice jam triggered a reversal in the direction of the water flow in the canal; the water normally flows into the canal and then into the Black River from the lake; with the blockage, the water flowed toward the lake, carrying with it downed trees and debris that damaged the gate.
“After delay in being able to secure permits from the state, the bid for phase one, which consist(ed) of the installation of a cofferdam to prevent sand from migrating downstream and filling the canal, came in at $255,000,” said Freed. “That work has now been completed.”
The city estimated that phase two, which involved the design and building of a new Tainter gate, would cost $900,000. Instead, the lone bid came in at $1,494,050 with a lead time of 20 months.
Phase three, the armoring of the canal banks between Gratiot Avenue and the lake, is estimated to cost $2.7-3 million.
Flood waters have severely eroded the banks of the canal, creating what Freed called “the probability of catastrophic bank collapse.”
Fabricating the new gate and shoring up the canal banks would bring the total cost of the project to about $4.5 million – a cost far too rich for the city to shoulder on its own. Design costs, staff salaries, debris removal and the cost of the cofferdam have pushed the city’s expenses to date to $437,738.
The canal connects the southwestern shore of Lake Huron to the southeastern reaches of the Black River. The city dredged the canal in 1912 to flush the polluted waters of the Black River into the St. Clair River. Today, in addition to boaters using the canal as a shortcut to the lake, the 10 mile “circle” formed by the canal, the Black River, the St. Clair River and the lake has been recognized and the Island Loop National Water Trail.
On Sept. 23, Freed said, “We will have that canal open next season.”
“The canal project is right on schedule,” Freed said at the Jan. 27 council meeting in response to a resident — and then added a caveat: “One of the concerns I have … is the overwhelming cost of this. It could cost near $5 million. The city of Port Huron does not have $5 million to complete the project.”
The water trail is “a regional driver of tourism and recreation, used by thousands of visitors who are not city residents,” Freed said in his memo. “State funding is appropriate for this project as the city cannot bear these costs alone.”
So far, the city has not been able to land state funding for the project. There is little chance the canal will be open for the 2025 season.
“I recognize that the information in this memo will be disheartening to many in our community,” said Freed. “However, it is my burden to deliver it.”
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
