LEWISTON — Residents spoke at a City Council workshop Tuesday on the pros and cons  of buying the city’s canals and the water that flows through them for recreational activities.

The canals, dug in the mid-1800s to power Lewiston’s mills, changed owners over the years before ending up in the hands of a Canadian company, Brookfield Renewable Power.

With two main canals and two cross canals, the system runs for 1½ miles from the Great Falls on the Androscoggin River before reconnecting with the river before Locust Street.

Under a proposed deal with Brookfield, the city would take ownership of the canals and generating stations along them in exchange for accepting 70 cubic feet per second moving through the canals, as opposed to the 150 cubic feet per second currently running through the system.

As part of the city’s Riverfront Island Master Plan adopted in 2012, the canals play a part in future recreational and aesthetic visions for the area.

Peter Rubins of Grow L+A asked councilors what they plan to do with the canals.

“Is it something that we’re just going to walk along the canal and look at or sit on benches and look at?” he asked.

Rubins asked if a professional feasibility study had been done in regard to the canals being used for recreational purposes. “This is being done in Westbrook, as you’ve probably heard,” he said, “as well as in Providence, R.I., Massachusetts, Idaho and Georgia.”

According to Rubins, kayaking and other recreational possibilities would draw young people into an area “where not only do they have people doing these things, but there’s lots of people coming to observe.”

Rubins asked the council not to bargain away water rights before doing a study that would determine just what kind of water flow would be necessary for recreational purposes. He recommended partnering with Brookfield to create the outcome the council wants before relicensing in 2026.

Grow L+A President Peter Flanders said he wanted to speak simply as a “community member” about the proposed canal purchase.

“One of the concerns that I see and have with the current process is that I feel like we haven’t answered a particular question,” Flanders said. “How do you know what we need if you haven’t answered the question: What are we going to do?”

Flanders added, “It feels like there are a lot of unknowns and I feel like it’s too early to make the decision.” He said the canals could be an “economic driver” for the community.

“I was a little surprised that we haven’t reached out outside of our own community to people who have done this before and to really get some support,” he said.

Not all members were supportive of the prospect of ice-skaters performing graceful spins on the frozen canals. Dan Deschenes said he worked in the mills powered by the canals and had seen their destructive side.

“I think what bothered me at first was I heard that people thought that they could use a canal for recreational purposes,” Deschenes said, “and all this time I thought that’s not the proper thing to do.”

He added, “We have a history of our canals for generating electricity. We also have a history with that canal; people have died from drowning in the canal.”

Deschenes said he remembered a time when there were wooden fences along the canal and a woman lost control of her car and drowned.

“So what happened after that was the city decided to put some barriers along the canal with fencing to protect the citizens,” Deschenes said, “and that worked for a while — and then people forgot.”

Deschenes said, “Then someone had the idea that they wanted to beautify the canal; they wanted people to have a better view of it.” He said the fencing was replaced with a cheaper alternative and yet another motorist perished in the canal.

“If you go that route, you can live with the liability that you’re going to create with access to the canals,” he said. “We don’t want to lose any more children — we don’t want to lose any more lives in the canal.”

Councilors did not comment.

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