The mayor doesn’t believe St. Albert has a robust enough policy to prevent future contamination on lands it owns and wasn’t afraid to say so on Monday.
While listening to how the city will remove 2,000 cubic metres of salt-contaminated earth at its former public works site in Riel, Nolan Crouse blasted administration who claimed the one-page policy the city has will prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
“Some day there will be another site and this policy we have in front of us … does not tell us what to do in a stronger way,” Crouse said. “I just don’t think we’re strong enough tonight with this.”
Back in January council had asked for a report on how the city would remediate the old public works site. It also asked administration to consider any necessary policy changes to avoid future problems of a similar nature.
The city used the Riel site as a public works yard from 1972 to 1998. During that time, it mixed road salt with sand for use on roads during winter on site with no precautions taken to prevent the salt from leaching in the soil. Of particular concern is the site’s proximity to the Sturgeon River.
Since it sold the property, the city has been monitoring the site for contamination. To date their data shows the contamination has not decreased in any significant way. In fact, due to the heavy clay structure of the soil, it would take approximately 1,200 years for the salt and chloride contamination to be naturally washed away.
The contamination levels are also significantly higher than national and provincial guidelines. Chloride levels should be approximately 250 parts per million (ppm), but are 8,700 ppm at the old public works site. Sodium levels, which should be around 200 ppm, are 1,500 ppm.
“The highest concentrations are within the area where the sand and salt are mixed,” said Leah Kongsrude, environmental manager for the city. “There’s also a bit of a plume that heads towards the Sturgeon River.”
Even if the city had the roughly $5 million to $15 million to spend on clean-up of every last milligram of contaminated soil, there is no guarantee of success, Kongsrude said. Instead it will simply have to manage its risk and instead remove two of the “hot spots” or areas of highest salt and chloride contamination.
The city will, as a result, spend $800,000 in 2014 to remove 2,000 cubic metres of the most contaminated soil.
“We will be required to monitor that site for the long term,” Kongsrude said, adding it spends roughly $22,000 to $24,000 on monitoring annually.
But the office is planning to conduct a more thorough assessment of city-owned land to identify any other contaminated areas, as well as develop potential remediation plans for them. Kongsrude said its policy, which states St. Albert should follow all existing environmental legislation, should be sufficient.
“If we follow that major principle, it might be just one short sentence, but it has huge implications,” Kongsrude said.
But Crouse disagreed, saying he will be putting forward another motion soon to compel some policy change.
“I don’t believe putting $800,000 in the budget was a policy for us to move forward on all sites,” Crouse said.
