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Hamilton Harbour (formerly known as Burlington Bay) lies on the western tip of Lake Ontario, bounded on the northwest by the City of Burlington, on the south by the City of Hamilton, and on the east by Hamilton Beach (south of the Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway) and Burlington Beach (north of the channel). It is joined to Cootes Paradise by a narrow channel formerly excavated for the Desjardins Canal. Within Hamilton itself, it is referred to as "Hamilton Harbour", "The Harbour" and "The Bay". The bay is naturally separated from Lake Ontario by a sand bar. The opening in the north end was filled in and channel cut in the middle for ships to pass. The Port of Hamilton is on the Hamilton side of the harbour.
Early Settlers to the area called the bay Lake Geneva. The bay was formally renamed Burlington Bay in 1792 by John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, for the former name of the town of Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Rayburn, Alan Place Names of Ontario (University of Toronto Press), Toronto-Buffalo-London,1997, ), pg.48 Prior to this, the bay was also known as Washquarter, notably as a landmark to delineate the extent of the Between the Lakes Treaty No. 3 negotiated between Simcoe and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in 1792.
Access to the bay was important for the early water transportation and industrial development of the area, including Dundas, Ontario, which had an early but ultimately unrealized lead over both Burlington (Brant's Block) and Hamilton. Over the years, the bay was roughly treated by its littoral residents. Constant infilling, particularly in the North End of Hamilton, damaged fresh water streams and the wildlife they supported. Channel dredging tended to stir up natural and unnatural sediments, further disrupting the ecological land balance in the area. Chemical, industrial and thermal pollution, especially as a byproduct of the burgeoning steel industry after the 1890s, continued to degrade the environment.
The waterways in Hamilton have not always been polluted. The north-end of the Harbour used to be a regular swimming spot for working-class families.MacDowell, Laurel Sefton. 2012. An environmental history of Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press. 192. The pollution of Hamilton Harbour waterways is caused by industrialization and, by proxy, urbanization, which came to be a major problem by 1917. Many working-class families were overcome by health hazards when dumping sewage into the inlets and the bay itself became a regular occurrence.Cruikshank, K., and N. B. Bouchier. 1998. "Dirty Spaces: Environment, the State, and Recreational Swimming in Hamilton Harbour, 1870-1946". SPORT HISTORY REVIEW. 29 (1): 59-64 Laurel Sefton MacDowell writes in her book An Environmental History of Canada that, "As early as the 1860s, a fishery inspector at Hamilton Harbour discovered that fish found along the shore tasted of coal oil and that dead ducks and muskrats were coated with oil from two refineries." By the 1950s, city officials had deemed Hamilton Harbour unfit for any recreation use and shut down all beaches.
In 1919, a Federal Order-In-Council changed the name of Burlington Bay to Hamilton Harbour.
By the 1970s, the International Joint Commission, which governs water usage in the Great Lakes Basin, and other agencies began to recognize the need for action. Greater water quality awareness, improved pollution controls, and an economic downturn all served to improve conditions in the 1980s. In the 1990s, beautification and ecological control were well underway. These measures included sealing the Lax Lands, contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants, under a cap of clay; landscaping Bayfront Park and Pier 4 Park; and keeping common carp from entering Cootes Paradise. The visible and measurable improvement in water quality in Burlington Bay was showcased in 1994 by the very public swim of Sheila Copps, a local MP and federal cabinet minister. Access and recreational use of the bayfront has improved, and swimming is now allowed at two beaches in the harbour: Bayfront and Pier 4.
Hamilton Harbour is listed as a Great Lakes Areas of Concern in The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada. Part of the remediation plan is to reclaim the harbour's wetlands.
While most of the carp in the harbour had been eradicated by early 2021, Maclean's reported that numerous goldfish had been found, presumed to have come from the dumping of pet fish by the public. One expert stated that the goldfish "is the ultimate survivor of difficult conditions ... it can feed on blue-green algae blooms that native species cannot—blooms that appear with increasing frequency in Hamilton Harbour".
Burlington Canal Lift Bridge is a lift bridge the spans over the canal.
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