Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
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This article is from July 8, 2003
$115,000 machine will get rid off the unsightly debris
By EMILY BOWERS
The Hamilton Spectator
The sand is smoothed into clean, parallel grooves on the Burlington side, winding around a hydro tower along the shore of the lake.
Cross over the lift bridge and it's a different story. It's the rotting, silvery bodies of scores of tiny fish. It's pop cans, cigarette butts, scattered piles of driftwood and other debris washed up from Lake Ontario.
Every morning around 7 a.m., City of Burlington staff are out with their beach cleaner, towed behind a tractor, sifting through grains of sand along Beachway Park. It filters debris that, on the ungroomed Hamilton side, clutters the waterfront.
Today at Hamilton city hall, staff are recommending that councillors buy a cleaner for the city's beaches. Ward 5 Councillor Chad Collins said the project is two years in the making, inspired by a renewed interest in the beach area.
"Everything washes ashore," Collins said. "That area's really been neglected."
He wants the city to buy a cleaner that sifts through the sand, separating debris in one compartment and tossing the sand back on the beach.
While Burlington's sweeper is towed behind a tractor, the one Hamilton has its eye on is self-contained. Collins compared it in size with street sweeping machines.
The machine is estimated to cost $115,000, including more than $11,000 in taxes.
"I think it's a small investment to make, considering what we get out of it," he said. "You won't find anything in the sand after the beach rake's been through."
Residents along the strip yesterday were looking forward to a cleaner shore.
" (The beach) should be looked after, that's for sure," said resident Faith Reid.
With the new Hamilton Beach Recreational Trail just beyond her back yard fence, Reid said she's not worried that a cleaner beach will bring out more people. It's already swamped, especially on weekends. But it was in anticipation of the trail's opening that city council asked staff to look at cleaning up the beach. Apart from esthetics, the city is worried about shards of glass, hypodermic needles and other harmful things that find their way ashore.
Over in Burlington, Manfred Jansen wades a few metres into the lake, unfolds a canvas chair and sits down, dangling his feet in the water.
The Dundas resident comes to the beach a few times a week with his wife and grandchildren, always to the Burlington side.
Hamilton's just too dirty, he said.
"People will come (to the Hamilton side) if it's like this," he said. "This beach has really improved."
Jansen said he remembers when those dead fish and other trash used to wash up on the Burlington shoreline.
If councillors do approve the purchase today, it will takeseveral weeks for it to be shipped from Cherrington beach cleaners, a company based in Minnesota. Collins hopes to have it out on the shore by September.
It will be used every day, year-round.
Earlier this spring, the city bought a second-hand cleaner that has been used occasionally in recent weeks.
But it's not suited to groom what Collins estimates as about eight kilometres of shoreline every morning. The beach-cleaning plan also encompasses the Bayfront and Pier 4 parks, so the second-hand cleaner will likely be used for that area with the new one taking care of the beach strip.
ebowcrs@thespcc.com or 905-526-3404.
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