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He too has heard about the low-water levels above a hydroelectric dam at Rapides-des-Joachims, about 70 kilometres west of Pembroke.

“Why are they dry and everybody below them is drowning?”

Pembroke-area resident Dave Smyth has a cottage on Allumettes Island that has been seriously hit by flooding, “in the tens of thousands” in damage. Along his strip of cottages, Smyth said, 10 of 20 buildings look to be destroyed by the surging water and pounding waves.

On Monday, he took a drive upstream to see first-hand the reports of low-water levels.

“It’s just devastation this side of the dam, every little town … as far as des-Joachims,” said Smyth. “Then you drive 500 feet and, on the other side of the dam, the river level is down three to four metres.

“I thought, ‘What the hell?'”

As he drove further upstream, he saw docks high and dry, acres of exposed riverbed and what appeared to be sandbars in the middle of the Ottawa.

“And here we are, just begging for some relief downstream.”

Smyth blames Ontario Power Generation for its handling of levels, noting that the water is low for a stretch of about 80 kilometres, a missing volume of water that, logically, is only adding to woes downstream. OPG is alive to the issue and has issued an explanation on its website, though it is somewhat impenetrable.

Briefly, it says there is a stretch from Mattawa downstream to a tiny hamlet called Klock that has “natural restrictions” that severely limit the amount of water that can safely flow. During peak periods, if too much water is forced through the pinch-point, then it backs up for several kilometres, adding to the flooding of Mattawa.