Proposed arena site toxic
Creosote contamination could hamper plans for West Village facility
City officials are concerned about environmental contamination on land being touted for a new Flames arena, a football stadium and an amateur sports fieldhouse west of downtown.
And while recently- found creosote in basements across the river is increasing the urgency with which a cleanup is needed, Alberta Environment says it is not in the business of doing remediation work or helping pay for it.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi stressed Thursday that while there is no official proposal before him, lands just west of GSL GM City and the Greyhound bus terminal, between Bow Trail S. W. and the Bow River, have been contaminated with creosote for decades, and no development can occur without a massive remediation first.
“There’s a reason there’s nothing built on that site. It is deeply, environmentally contaminated. I’ve been concerned for some time about the creosote contamination on that site and how the province, the city and the former owner are not doing enough to clean it up.
“But if this leads us to have a broader conversation about the need to clean up this site, that’s a good thing.”
Nenshi added he’s especially concerned about reports as recently as last year that homes across the river were found to have creosote in their basements, and that creosote may still be leaking from the land into the river basin and travelling across.
“This has increasingly shown up on my radar over the course of the last year, ever since we heard about the creosote potentially travelling across the river.”
Herald sources have confirmed the Calgary Flames’ vision for a new arena project includes several blocks’ worth of these city- owned lands west of downtown — bringing together a new hockey arena plus a football stadium and an amateur sports fieldhouse.
The project is estimated at more than half a billion dollars and features a component more likely to draw in civic funding support than if it were merely new stand- alone homes for the Flames and Stampeders.
By putting together a fieldhouse designed for track meets, indoor soccer and other amateur sports, the Flames are proposing to build something at the top of the city’s own project wish list.
This potentially gives the proposal the sort of public benefit that Nenshi has said is essential if city hall is to become a project partner.
But Nenshi said Thursday that before any development can occur, it’s time all three levels of government have a broader conversation about how to clean up the contamination.
“The cleanup costs of that site would be enormous, so we have to figure out how to pay for it.
“We need to have a national conversation around brownfield sites and figure out what’s the role of the industry that caused the pollution, what’s the role of the federal and provincial governments. But certainly dumping it on municipalities is not going to work.”
Coun. Evan Wooley, whose ward includes the lands in question, said he remembers riding through the area on his bike as a kid.
“We knew even back then it was a contaminated site. It was urban legend.”
Wooley added that the West Village Area Redevelopment Plan identifies serious concerns around contamination and, like Nenshi, he wants to see remediation occur as quickly as possible.
“We are owners of this site and if we’re liable, we need a plan and we need to partner with other levels of government.”
But officials with Alberta Environment said the ministry does not participate in the cleanup of a site until a developer comes forward with a remediation plan and then the ministry simply monitors it.
“Our role would only be regulatory,” said Katrina Bluetchen, spokeswoman with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.
“We don’t help with cleanup, we just ensure it meets environmental standards.”
But in the mid- 1990s, the province did embark on a $ 3.5- million effort to clean up the site, including the construction of a 650- metrelong subsurface retaining wall and the installation of water- pumping wells in hopes of preventing further seepage into and across the river.
Between 1920 and 1960, Canada Creosote Co. treated millions of telephone poles, railway ties and fence posts with creosote, a coal oil used to preserve wood against rot. As lumber was stacked, creosote dripped off, seeping into the ground.
Medical research has since linked creosote exposure to certain cancers and birth defects.
Officials with the Calgary Stampeders and the University of Calgary referred all questions about the arena and stadium projects to Flames CEO Ken King.
When reached by the Herald on Thursday, King said he was still not yet prepared to speak about the project publicly.