Record high water levels on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River flooded homes and businesses, knocked down seawalls and tore up docks. The International Joint Commission, which manages water levels in the region, has set record high out flow rates for more than two months.

This week, though, the IJC slowed those rates to give some relief to commercial shippers.

Lake Ontario reached a new record high at the start of this summer. Two weeks later, the International Joint Commission set a new record high outflow rate, letting more water out of the Moses Saunders Dam in Massena than ever before.

But now, the IJC is dialing it back just a bit.

“We knew that there was always going to be a time when we would have to begin transitioning off the highest sustained outflows in the history of operations," says Tony David.

David is on the IJC’s International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board. While the high outflows gave shoreline residents and business owners a lot of relief over the last two months, David says it’s been tough for the shipping industry.

There have been speed and vessel restrictions imposed during the higher outflows. That is why on Wednesday the IJC dropped the outflow rate by about 3%, from 10,400 cubic feet per minute to 10,110 cfm. It’s still really high, but David says that should give should relief to the shippers.

As for water levels going into the fall and winter, David says it's tough to tell if they’ll return to normal by the time Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River freeze.

“It’s impossible to be able to reliably predict where we’re going to be by the end of the year," says David, "but one thing that we know for sure is that outflows are going to remain high, if not record high, for the foreseeable future.”

Water levels on Lake Ontario have dropped by 10 inches in the last month and are expected to drop by another foot by mid-September.