Saying they had no other choice, the owners of the Bluewater Ferry are suing the federal government after ice ripped out the causeway that connects the ferry dock to the Canadian shoreline in January.
Co-owner Morgan Dalgety says he has video from four multi-directional Canada Customs cameras that show the St. Clair River was completely clogged with dense ice from south of Sombra all the way north to Bickford Line at the time.
The icebreaker Samuel J. Risley was escorting four downbound freighters.
"I filed a Freedom of Information request and got their A.I.S, which is an automatic identification system of all ships that shows their speed, their plotted course and where they're at," says Dalgety. "The speed limit in the river just north of the dock is ten knots. Just above lighted buoy 42, they were doing 14. It shows they were doing well over the speed limit. The river's full of ice and it has nowhere to go."
The Coast Guard says northerly winds flushed a large amount of ice from Lake Huron into the river during the week of January 8 but Dalgety says the video shows the winds were out of the south the day the causeway was ripped out.
He says repeated pleas to Ottawa for funding for repairs have fallen on deaf ears so the fifth generation family business had no other choice but to sue.
Dalgety says the cost of repairs has risen from $1.5-million to $3-million.
The Sombra-to-Marine City ferry generates $3.5-million in taxes and duties for Ottawa each year.
He says the family has mortgaged property to try to finance repairs and they're still waiting for permits to begin, although nothing can begin until spawning season is over.
