Guysborough demands Irving clean site

Guysborough County council is calling out Irving Oil as being a poor neighbour.

“You see their advertisements where Irving is supposed to be so community minded,” said Vernon Pitts, warden of the Municipality of Guysborough.

“Well, clean up your mess.” That “mess” is the site of a former service station on Main Street in Guysborough that has been leaking hydrocarbon contamination onto neighbouring properties.

Irving Oil decommissioned the pumps and demolished the building associated with the service station back in 2006. It has held onto the property ever since.

“The council of the Municipality of the District of Guysborough has exhausted its efforts in trying to work with Irving Oil in an attempt to resolve the issues resulting from their inaction on their own property located at 121 Main Street,” reads a letter sent by Pitts to provincial environment minister Gordon Wilson.

“The inaction of Irving Oil to not carry out a complete remediation of all affected properties is unacceptable and hypocritical when they make statements on their website to say ‘We strive to raise the bar for responsible operations and are constantly working to reduce our environmental footprint.’”

In the letter, Pitts asks Wilson to order Irving Oil to do a “complete remediation” of its property at 121 Main Street, two neighbouring residential properties and of the soil under part of Main Street.

A site assessment done by Dillon Consulting on behalf of Irving Oil in 2019 found that hydrocarbon contamination was migrating from the former service station property through the two residential properties toward Guysborough Harbour.

Those residential properties are on private wells.

The Chronicle Herald was only able to reach the owners of one of those properties — they declined to make public comment.

For its part, Irving Oil did not respond to a request for comment.

“We recently received the site report, and will be reviewing the data in accordance with the Contaminated Sites Regulations,” reads a written response from the provincial Environment Department.

“That will determine any next steps, including if remediation is required and who would be responsible for the work. It is too early to speak to timelines.”