Keating Channel - History

History

In the late 19th century, a public works program was started to straighten the lower part of the Don River south of the Winchester Street Bridge. The project was called the Don Improvement Project. The goal of the project was to alleviate floods on the lower Don that were periodically washing out bridges. It was also done to create additional wharf space for the Toronto harbour. When it was completed, the river was directed south into Ashbridge's Bay.

At the time Ashbridge's Bay was still a lacustrine marsh. It was heavily polluted by local industry. The water from the river was diverted into the bay with the hope that it would flush the bay of the poor water. However the flow of water introduced raw sewage in the river into the bay. The bay water remained stagnant and was increasingly becoming a serious health risk. The Keating Channel was proposed as a method of directing the dirty river water into the harbour thus dispersing it more rapidly.

Initially the channel was planned to go from the northeast corner of the inner harbour east towards Leslie Street and join up with the Coatsworth Cut. However, the portion east of the Don River was never completed and it was closed in 1916. The channel was completed in 1922 after 8 years of construction. The completed channel now runs from the harbour east to the mouth of the river, a distance of about 800 metres.

The original mouth of the Don is now buried under infill near where the Gardiner Expressway meets Cherry Street. The original course from the mouth upstream now lies underneath railway tracks used by GO Transit for storage.

Today it is flanked on the north by the elevated Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Boulevard East. The south side is occupied by a city works yard and the Keating Channel Pub. At the west end Cherry Street crosses the channel over a single sided drawbridge rarely used by ships. At the east end is the start of the Don Valley Parkway.

In the 1940s the watershed further up the Don River became more urbanized. This caused an increasing amount of silt to flow down the river. The silt ends up collecting in the channel where there is very little water flow. Since that time, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) has been dredging the channel. The dredgeate material is barged out to the Leslie Street Spit where it is dumped in a containment area specially built for this purpose. In 2005, the annual amount of silt dredged was about 35,000 cubic metres. The containment area has the capacity to take 50 years of Don River dredgeate .

In 1980 Ontario's Minister of the Environment was asked, during question period, about an exemption from environmental regulations, granted to those who dredged the channel. Member of Provincial Parliament Bryden was quoting Donald Chant's recommendation concerning the Keating Channel, and why the recommendation had been ignored, when she was interrupted by the Minister. Chant was then the "chairman of the Premier's steering committee on environmental assessment". According to the MPP Chant's recommendations had questioned whether dredging the channel was worthwhile:

"That the issue of the need for dredging Keating Channel remains unresolved and that a hearing on this specific issue should be held as soon as possible and before any irrevocable approvals are given.