One frequent visitor to Peche Island is unhappy with the aftermath of repair work carried out on the island's bridge last year.
Peche Island is a naturalized park with walking trails which can be accessed by boat across from Sand Point Beach.
Sean Hartigan says the City of Windsor repaired the bridge by placing large sand bags to block the flow of water from the east side of the island, flowing under the bridge to the center of the island.
He says the completed work on the bridge itself looks beautiful, but the problem is the leftover of the construction.
"So what has happened now is on the lake side, there used to be about four feet deep of water there. Last summer my 13-year-old was jumping off the break wall into the water, like you could jump right. Now there's about two to three feet out of the water of just a sand pileup," he said.
Hartigan says the sand and gravel piled up is blocking the water from going under the bridge, which is impacting the water flow with the current.
"So it would go through the bridge, it would go into the lagoon, and then it would continue out and head out the west side of the island. Which made that lagoon area a beautiful spot to swim, it was super clear and any night of the week you'd go in there and there would be 10 families sitting there having dinner and swimming. And now with the water being blocked and the flow being blocked it is just a swampy mess in there."
He says the city has been contacted, but nothing is being done about it.
"The only thing we've heard so far is from Parks and Recreation that it's on their radar, which is like, people have told us about it," he continued. "The City has said to a couple of people that this is naturally occurring, which is not the case."
Hartigan believes this should be repaired quickly before the island is unusable. He says so many locals and tourists visit the island daily as the center of the island is a very popular swimming spot and picnic location.
Executive director of parks and recreation for the City of Windsor, James Chacko, says it's just a bad coincidence really that makes it look as if this was somehow related to the works they undertook and it's certainly not.
He says they did block the water from flowing under the bridge so they could restore it in the fall of 2021, but he said all the materials they used were removed when the work was complete.
“That is not the gravel material that we had. Everything was in bags, or in gabion baskets and all of that was removed at the time of completion in December."
Chacko says Mother Nature is to blame for the build-up of soil that has blocked off the canals this spring.
“This is actually the natural sediment within Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River that is now washed up both into the canal and onshore,” he said.
He told CTV News a similar situation happened in 2013 and again in 2016, when water levels were also low.
Chacko said the city is working with ERCA and an engineer to see if there is anything they can do about the situation.
- with files from AM800's The Dan MacDonald show