Its good news if you’re a boater as the city will reopen the boat launches at Pioneer Park, McArthur Island, and Thompson Drive tomorrow morning, July 17.

Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman says its as the water level on the Thompson River has gone down significantly in the last two weeks.

“Taking a very cautious approach this time not to open boat launches if we had any suspicion that they may have to be closed again,” he told NL News. “But it does appear that the river is going to continue on the trend it is right now, continue to decrease and that’s why we made the decision to open boat launches again as of Friday morning.”

Boat launches were closed on May 28 and reopened three weeks later on June 19 before being shut again one week later as the water levels on the Thompson River began to rise again.

As it stands the water on the Thompson River west of the Overlanders Bridge was 6.373 metres high and receding, significantly down from the 7.567 metres it was at 9:15 a.m. on June 25, when boat launches were closed a second time.

“The snow melt came down about as perfectly as you could expect and then once we started to get a little bit optimistic, we got into June and it pretty much rained the entire month and that’s what has been driving the river levels,” he added, noting its been a bizarre freshet season this year, with the city not completely out of the woods just yet.

“A storm that right now doesn’t appear say for next week all of a sudden can appear on the forecast and that’s why we’ve been so cautious about opening things back up again.”

While boat launches were closed, the city wasn’t able to regulate boat traffic on the river itself.

“That is completely outside of our jurisdiction. We can’t regulate that, we can’t enforce anything out there. All that we can do is close the city owned boat launches,” Wightman said. “We hope it keeps people off of the river certainly to protect their own safety and we are also of course trying to help out the property owners by limiting the wave action out on the rivers.”

Wightman also notes the section of River’s Trail behind Sandman Centre between Riverside Park and Pioneer Park will reopen tomorrow.

Anyone who is on the water is being asked to be careful and travel at idling speeds to prevent bank erosion. People are also being reminded to be careful when around moving water and to stay as far back as possible.

City staff note that sand and sandbags present at fire stations throughout the city will be collected in the coming weeks.