Arena site cleanup studied
Creosote contamination could cost $ 300 million to remove
As Calgarians await more details of a massive Flames arena project proposed for land on the western edge of downtown, a city- owned agency is now looking to hire a consultant to study the scope of environmental contamination in the area.
Home to auto dealerships and a Greyhound bus station, the West Village land being touted for a new hockey arena, football stadium and amateur sports fieldhouse has long presented an environmental headache. Much of the area is contaminated from a former creosote plant. Previous estimates have put the cleanup costs at between $ 50 million and $ 300 million.
Calgary Municipal Land Corp. is busy hiring a consultant for an environmental review of the area, but the bigger question — aside from the extent of the creosote damage — is who will pay the multimilliondollar cleanup tab.
“If, in fact, it’s concluded there should be a remediation plan, the cost of all of that has not yet been determined,” corporation spokeswoman Susan Veres said Sunday.
Alberta Environment said in April it’s not in the business of doing remediation work, or helping pay for it.
However, the provincial election shifted the NDP into power in May, and, on Sunday, Premier Rachel Notley said she wasn’t aware of the government being approached about helping to pay for the land’s environmental liability.
“We haven’t had any discussions on that as of yet, or I haven’t been involved in any,” she said.
Coun. Evan Woolley, whose ward includes the West Village area, said it’s not clear who would pay to clean up the contaminated site, but he welcomed the work being done by the land corp.
“They will start a piece of work that really digs into the full range of the challenge that we have, what needs to be done, and what are the problems,” he said.
Earlier this year, the land corporation sought firms with experience in creosote contamination remediation through a request for qualification.
By the end of August, the cityowned agency will choose one consultant from 14 respondents to study the environmental contamination in the West Village, according to Veres.
The firm chosen for environmental consulting services will examine existing reports, and recommend what to do moving forward regarding the West Village’s environmental issues, Veres said.
While reports on the area’s creosote problem have previously been commissioned by the city, the issue hasn’t been recently examined— despite the 2013 floods, stories of creosote seeping across the river into the basements of nearby homes last year, and talk that a potential new Flames mega- complex could be housed on the land.
“The work really constitutes a scan of the previous information that was produced,” Veres said.
“Really what we’re trying to do is update that information ... Not since the flood has the information been updated. We need to do that work first so we can make a determination as to what type of remediation program would be required, if that site was considered a redevelopment site.”
CMLC, the organization tasked with revitalizing the East Village, was asked by the city earlier this year to assess and develop creosote contamination remediation and risk management strategies for the West Village area as part of a pre- existing redevelopment plan.
Woolley said the work is the first step in resolving a problem that’s existed for years.
“There’s an opportunity for us here to fix a longstanding, decadesold issue that we’ve kind of let sit,” he said Sunday.
Creosote is a compound that was once used to preserve wood products such as railway ties and power poles, but it has since been linked to certain cancers and birth defects.
The province conducted a series of site investigation and remediation pilot programs on the West Village lands beginning in the late 1980s.
The city spent $ 3.5 million trying to clean up the site in the 1990s, including the construction of a 650- metre long subsurface retaining wall and the installation of water- pumping wells, in hopes of preventing further seepage into and across the river.
The Flames organization is scheduled to update the media and ticket holders this Tuesday on plans for the project, described by the organization as “one of Calgary’s most transformative projects.”