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Crews expected to pull more vehicles from Detroit River

Several vehicles are being pulled out of the Detroit River in west Windsor, Ont, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024.
Several vehicles are being pulled out of the Detroit River in west Windsor, Ont, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024.

More vehicles are expected to be pulled from the Detroit River today.

Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Port Windsor Harbour Master Peter Berry says a team of divers will be in the water again today.

The team retrieved several vehicles from the water on Tuesday in the area of Mill Street and Russell Street in Old Sandwich Town. 

Berry says it appears the vehicles have been there for years.

"The stories have gone on about cars being dumped there and in our files, I've found some old records even going back 20 years that had photos of cars being dumped there," says Berry.  "At the time when the business was running they were recovered.  At this point, the river is murky so you dump a car in the river and you don't know it's there."     

He says they don't know why the vehicles are in the river.

"We just started the research, grabbing the plates, VINs and some of the vehicles did have some of their VINs plates removed," he says.  "We know of other areas on the vehicle that the VIN is there, so we're able to capture that information on every vehicle that we were able to pick-up yesterday and we'll continue into today to do some more."           

Berry says a team of divers and a safety boat are on site.

"It's magnet fishing," says Berry.  "It's basically just dragging a magnet along and when the magnet grabs hold of something, they stop they go back down, they look at where the rope and the magnet is and determine if there's a vehicle or if it's other type of debris or garbage." 

He says the cars look bad.

"They get pretty crashed when we have to move them around but we are very careful to make certain that there's no contaminants going back into the river as we do this job," he says.  

Berry says the new owner of the private waterfront property has taken the initiative to clean up the site.

He says after talking with the new owner, he was 'very much willing' to do the clean up.

Local News

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