Thornbury residents are annoyed they'll be losing the town's hottest summer spot.
The Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM) council has approved closing the Thornbury pier for the remainder of 2020 in order to give the facility a facelift.
However, town residents are asking why now, in peak pier season, is the town choosing to repair the popular summer hangout.
“There has already been nine months that have passed when this could have been resurfaced,” wrote Brittney Knight, a Thornbury resident to the TBM council. “Why is this process being neglected and why do taxpaying residents have to further sacrifice their health, wellbeing and opportunities to socialize and build community, while this pier remains an unusable eyesore?”
The Thornbury pier, which was closed at the end of the season last year, remains in disrepair with missing tiles and an uneven surface.
“The materials used to resurface the pier last summer were highly inefficient and had very poor durability,” Knight said. “I can only assume the council has examined cost-effective solutions, but ultimately, this became an unsatisfactory expense lacking longevity.”
According to the TBM CAO, Shawn Everitt, the Thornbury pier was resurfaced with the mats nine years ago, which have been replaced as needed since that time.
“The mats were originally installed in 2011, and they worked extremely well,” Everitt said.
Ryan Gibbons, the director of community services adds the mats were originally installed because the damage to the pier base, which is concrete, was significant.
“There are a lot of significant holes that people can trip in and have tripped in in the past,” Gibbons said.
Knight, who is the mother of a child that uses a wheelchair, says while the mats may have been used to cover up the damaged surface, they created their own set of problems.
“The slightest wind or ongoing wear and tear would warp the tiles so my young son, who is fully independent in his mobility, was forced to be dependent on others to push him across the pier. This is not acceptable,” Knight said.
Everitt says TBM staff have been struggling to keep the pier surface covered and safe due to the high-water levels.
“Quite frankly, with the level of the water right now it doesn’t take much of a wind storm to overtake the break wall,” he said. “Without the ability to keep the mats on the pier to open it, it really does create safety concerns.”
Local resident and environmental activist, Kim Harris says the town’s choice to use these mats was just altogether a bad decision.
“Thornbury has not had a good record of environmental stewardship,” said Harris, who is also a member of the local Climate Action Now group. “The pier is a concrete pier and a few years ago it was covered in a material that is fossil-fuel based. Within the first few months of it being on the pier, the first big storm and high wind, it pulled all of the tiles into Georgian Bay.”
Harris says she would like to see the town something more environmentally friendly, instead of resorting to another concrete surface that may also require mats to cover cracks and damage in a few years.
“For a town that has declared a climate emergency, I really don’t see how they are dealing with it,” she said.
Ultimately, TBM council voted in favour of closing the pier until the 2021 season in order to ensure COVID-19 safety protocol, and undertake the resurfacing project.
“The ultimate recommendation for this is to have the resurfacing work done in 2020, so that in 2021, we can hit the ground running and things can go back to normal,” said Everitt.
Deputy Mayor Rob Potter and other council members sympathized with the public and say they understand the frustration of not being able to use all of the town's facilities this summer.
“We are all going to have to get used to things being a little different than in other years,” Potter said. “We may not have all of the conveniences that we normally had. We just need to make do.”
The TBM Pier Resurfacing Project was outlined and approved in the 2020 town budget, which states that staff are looking into having the pier re-surfaced with concrete to reduce the amount of annual maintenance and provide a smoother surface.
The project is budgeted at $412,200, with $35,000 coming from a federal grant and $377,200 from the TBM’s capital replacement reserve.
Gibbons notes that the pier is also owned by the federal government, and TBM has begun consultation with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
“What staff are looking at proceeding with will be a smaller skiff of concrete, to put a nice accessible surface on it and get away from the use of the rubber mats that essentially get washed away after every wind storm,” Everitt said.
However, both Harris and Knight think the TBM can do better.
“To resurface the pier with concrete again will just generate the same cracks over time, and also impede accessibility,” said Knight, who recommended TBM consider Ruberrock, a rubber-like surface that is resilient and non-skid.
Knight also pointed out to council members that there is also a local resident who installs Ruberrock, and though the product may differ in price compared to concrete, it has a longer shelf life and keeps in line with the TBM’s recent push to shop and support local businesses.
Everitt said, at this point, he has not looked into Ruberrock as an option, but he will.
As noted in the 2020 budget, a final solution for the Thornbury pier will not be chosen for the resurfacing, “until community consultation can take place.” There is currently no timeline for this consultation.
“We will be looking at this through the accessibility committee,” said Gibbons. “Both the municipality and Grey County have an accessibility committee and we will be running this project by both of them.”
The Thornbury pier is now closed until Spring 2021 and the TBM will be proceeding the with the resurfacing project, which will include a tender process.
