Understanding The Ice Boom's Role Near Lake Erie

For as long as people have lived near the shores of Lake Erie, they've had to deal with the same thing every single year: the arrival of winter. And, it doesn't seem to matter how much we pray about it and wish it away, winter always arrives, and with it come cold temps and tons of snow.

One of the clearest signs that winter has come to town is upon us as the Ice Boom, which has helped to protect the Niagara River since 1964, is going to be installed at the edge of Lake Erie.

The Ice Boom Is Going In For The 2025/26 Winter Season

Back for its 61st year, the Lake Erie-Niagara River Ice Boom helps to reduce the amount of lake ice that enters the Niagara River from the frozen Great Lakes during the winter. Often, large lake ice chunks can flow up the Niagara River and cause significant damage to the hydroelectric power plants that are along the shores of both New York State and the Province of Ontario. The nearly 2-mile-wide ice boom helps to keep that ice at bay.

Ed Nice Jackson

According to the International Joint Commission, the ice boom isn't just a big wall that goes into the late. It's actually 22 separate pieces, or spans that stretch from the City of Buffalo Harbor, both inner and outer, and then stretch across to Fort Erie, Ontario.

The Buffalo Harbor section uses 15-foot mini steel pontoons, while the rest of the boom is made up of pontoons that are 30 feet long and 30 inches in around. When the pontoons go out into the lake, they are anchored to the lake floor with steel cables in 400-foot intervals.

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The ice boom itself is both operated and owned by The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in a joint venture under rules set by an international treaty. The International Joint Commission's International Niagara Board of Control is the controlling body and helps the two organizations that are responsible for installation, removal, and maintenance.

For the last 26 years, since 1999, the IJC has used a defined plan to decide when the ice boom needs to be installed. Whenever the lake water temperature gets down to 39 degrees Fahrenheit (or 4 degrees Celsius), or by December 16th, whichever comes first. On Wednesday, December 10th, at approx. At 10 am, Lake Erie's temperature reached 39 degrees Fahrenheit, and ICJ officials announced that they would start to install the Ice Boom on Sunday, December 14, 2025.

The installation will take a while to complete due to the fact that the boom itself is two miles long and has to be anchored along the lake floor, plus workers will need to deal with the weather on the lake

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