A leak in the canal gate caused water level to sink. Plus, a quick look at ongoing and future canal maintenance plans.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Those walking the Canal Path in Fredericksburg this past week have likely noticed low water levels in the canal. This is due to a water leak in the canal gate, the City of Fredericksburg noted in a press release issued yesterday.
“The canal was mostly empty earlier this week and on Tuesday, October 29th, the gate was assessed for repairs,” the press release states.
The canal is being refilled “now,” according to the press release, but the public works department will lower the water level at least two more times in the coming weeks so contractors can make repairs.
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“This repair work will be coordinated in conjunction with some other canal maintenance by the City, such as addressing some of the foliage growth and conducting a deeper canal cleanup while the water is lowered,” the press release states.
Cleanup of the canal now occurs twice per year, in the spring and fall, and is a joint effort between the City, Friends of the Rappahannock, and resident volunteers. Kevin Brown, who has advocated for the city’s trails since moving to Fredericksburg in 2015, organizes the volunteers.
“There’s kind of a process we’ve come up with—we have two different areas where we put in [on kayaks] that are safe to access,” Brown told the Advance. “We split the canal up into sections and kind of clean the best we can. It really only takes about three hours or less when you have about 10-12 volunteers.”
The most recent cleanup occurred about a month ago, and Brown said the team collected the least amount of trash they’d ever seen.
“Which was good,” he said. “I’m not sure why that was. We haven’t had a lot of rain and if we have a lot of rain, there’s a lot of storm water that feeds into the canal which brings trash. Wind brings stuff in, too. A lot of it is not necessarily people throwing trash into it.”
Brown said the biannual cleanup should keep trash in the canal to “a reasonable level.”
Fredericksburg became responsible for maintaining the canal when the Embry Dan was removed in 2004, according to the city’s capital improvement plan. Maintenance includes removing debris, sediment, and “biofouling.”
The public works department has $500,000 budgeted in fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1, to dredge the upper canal near Fall Hill Avenue, which has become filled in with silt.
“Work will begin at a point just south of the Fall Hill Avenue bridge at its intersection with the Mary Washington Boulevard traffic circle to a point approximately 1,300 linear feet south of this bridge,” the most recent capital improvement plan states.
Also according to the CIP, the city plans to request assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers to prepare a canal management plan, to address aeration, regrading and revegetating the canal banks, and “bio-management of canal organisms.”
Currently, $3.5 million is budgeted for fiscal year 2028, to be shared 50/50 between the city and the federal government.
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