Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Over the years 'everything' was discarded into the river ! back in the 50's I saw cars, cables, oil barrels, garbage, human waste, and more dumped into the river. I had a friend who had a summer home on the south end of Harsens island. if you lifted his toilet seat - there was the river just below. boats of all types pumped their raw sewage overboard. yes, we have come a long way from those days but, when the sun goes down - we still pump into our rivers ! the cancer rate of folks along the river is almost twice the national average- why ?

Was there an old dumping ground off Harsens Island in the South Channel? I ask because years ago (early 2000s) I was out in my boat near the shore of north end of the island and the water was exceptionally clear and below the surface I could see what looked like some old debris include what appeared to be an old bed frame and other miscellaneous metal items.
Owning a boat for about 5 years while I lived in the area I can say that there must be quite a bit of debris on the river bottom as I pulled up an old wooden skid on one occasion and an old tire on another day with my small anchor. Both of these were located in the river roughly between the DTE St. Clair Plant and Lambton Generating. On another outing, we retrieved a large push broom out of the water south of Marine City so someone else wouldn't run it over and possibly damage their prop or hull. Although I never found out what I had snagged near St. Clair one evening, I felt a heavy object on my anchor that dropped off after I had recovered about 10 feet of line. I was pulling it up slowly with my flash light aimed at the water hoping it wasn't a body.