Watch the video above: Canadian, US ships work in tandem to keep ice from shutting down the Niagara power plant
TORONTO – Two ice breakers continued breaking up an ice jam in the Upper Niagara River on Thursday.
The vessels – one from Canada and one from the U.S. – were dispatched on Tuesday to help keep the New York Power Authority power plant running uninterrupted and prevent flooding.
Lou Paonessa from the New York Power Authority said high winds caused ice from Lake Erie to float over the man-made ice boom in the Niagara River.
The ice boom, made of floating steel pontoons, extends about 2,680 metres and has been installed every winter since 1964 at the eastern end of Lake Erie in order to reduce the chance of large ice jams, which can cause flooding and reduce the “flow to the hydro-electric power plant intakes.”
The ice jam is something Paonessa said couldn’t have been prevented.
But New York Congressman Brian Higgins is asking whether the ice boom and ice breakers are enough to prevent jams like this in the future.
Higgins is also asking the International Joint Commission to investigate the cause of the jam, adding that if the power plant had been affected, the situation could have been much worse.
Watch the video below: Beautiful image of partially-frozen Niagara falls
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