Several years after the snapping of bolts on the multi-million dollar gates of the Springbank Dam led to legal claims and counter-claims, the City of London has announced an out of court settlement has been reached.
The settlement will see the city recieve a total of $3.775-million. It will also see all lawsuits related to the dam dismissed, while no party will admit liability.
“After eight long years, I am so pleased to see this positive conclusion,” says Mayor Matt Brown.
The settlement comes after city officials met with mediators at the beginning of September. The amount of the settlement was then approved by city council as a confidential legal matter on September 29.
The city took legal action in 2009 against designers and engineers of the refurbished dam after one of the four gates that were meant to move up and down to control water flow became locked in place when bolts snapped during testing in 2008. The civil case was to be heard in the new year.
While the settlement brings a measure of closure to the legal battles over the dam, what is less clear is what the future holds for the structure. Mayor Brown made fixing the dam a priority in his election platform, and during testing of the three other gates that was done in the summer in preparation for the civil case, the city's Manager of Wastewater and Drainage Engineering pointed out there is a constituency of Londoners that wants to see the dam fixed.
“The dam serves no purpose other than recreation,” said Tom Copeland at the time. “A large contingent of the population that does canoeing and kayaking in the river would like to see it back.”
But many environmentalists say the health of the river is better off without the dam gates in operation.