Confederation Basin

Confederation Basin is located along the St. Lawrence River and is in the heart of Downtown Kingston next to Battery Park. This park is a popular spot for tourism and picnicking, and the waterfront trail that spans the length of Confederation Basin is often used by families and dog-walkers during the spring and summer months. There are plenty of green spaces and benches available for visitors to sit and enjoy the basin’s unique shoreline and wildlife presence. Currently the water is not available for public swimming, but the City of Kingston is working on developing the ‘Confederation Basin Promenade’, which will open the area for new water activities in 2025.

This beach is not currently monitored by lifeguards and there are no public showers available. Public washroom facilities are also unavailable, however, washrooms are accessible in nearby downtown shops.

Confederation Basin is one of five sites monitored by the community water monitoring hub in Kingston. Launched in 2020, the Kingston hub is one of six Swim Drink Fish hubs across the country. It is also a Lake Ontario Waterkeeper project. The hubs aim to grow connections between communities and local waterways by providing access to low-cost and accessible water monitoring tools for citizen scientists. Through water monitoring, the hub hopes to help inform community decisions about addressing pollution and protecting and restoring the Great Lakes.

We sample this site every other Thursday and process our samples with TECTA-PDS technology, which provides us with water quality results in less than a day!