The Developers have been working on the Ottawa River since 1975. They know the Ottawa River at Voyageur Bay cannot flood. The reason is simple. Voyageur Bay is part of Rocher-Fendu Lake which is also known as the Cheneaux Forebay which is used to describe the wide expanse of the Ottawa River above OPG’s Cheneaux Dam.

The operating range for the dam is very small from a minimum level of 84.73 to a maximum level of 86.87 meters above sea level. It means that the Ottawa River at Voyageur Bay will never be too low or too high. While the range between max and min is 2 meters, the range most of the time is just a meter.

How, you might ask? Simple, the downstream dam’s ability to spill excess water is 9,177 cubic meter per second, much greater than the 1979 flood of 5,000 cms or the 2019 flood of 4,500 cms. The highest recorded flow for the entire river since 1915 was measured at Chat’s Falls downstream at 5,971 cms in 1960.

We did have a few skeptical owners come check on their lots this spring and were surprised to see no sign of flooding. Of course, the developers knew that all along.