Homeowners living along Lake Erie near Dealtown are on edge, literally, but hoping for the best after chunks of their backyards slid down the bluff into the lake.
Local resident James Kinnear said large chunks of land and several trees behind his home and his neighbours' homes on Talbot Trail at the end of A.D. Shadd Road fell into the lake late last week and the boom was so loud it sounded like an earthquake. Kinnear said it's happened before to a smaller degree but this time the landslide continued into this week and he believes a total of 25 or 30 feet of shore has eroded in just a few days.
"Generally when you have a large 10, 20-ton chunk of clay that's falling into the lake, all of or houses here shake as if it's an earthquake," said Kinnear.
Heidi, Kinnear's wife, said she feels sad for her elderly neighbours, George and Pam Egervari, because they can't afford to walk away from their home.
"They've invested everything they have. They've redone their house and they're very close to the shoreline. They're more affected than we are and they don't know what they're going to do," Mrs. Kinnear added.
Dave Peacock, who has lived next to Kinnear for 12 years, said the lack of ice cover on the lake this year is causing all sorts of soil problems.
"We usually had the freeze on the lake that would protect the shoreline through the winter but now we're not having that and that's escalating the problem. So, now we're losing 10 times more than we would normally have," Peacock said.
Kinnear said there's nothing he or his neighbours can do except wait for the municipality to do something to stop or slow down the accelerated erosion. He added legal action is too premature right now but he and his wife fear they won't be able to sell their home in the future. Kinnear said he feels he can hang on for now but doesn't think he has much time to enjoy his view of the lake as he thought he had five years ago when he and his wife moved in.
Chunks of land are also falling into Lake Erie on Talbot Trail in Wheatley and Rose Beach Line near Morpeth.
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The Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority officials said they wish there was something that could be done in the short term that was cheap and easy, but there just isn’t. LTVCA official Jason Wintermute said the toe of the bluff is being eroded by high lake levels and high waves created by strong wind but there are other factors as well.
"Water can seep out the face of the bluff causing a collapse partway down," Wintermute added. "The solutions are costly and complex."
He said a shoreline study being done will put forth some options but whether solutions to "save" the properties can be implemented and how they would be paid for is another question.