PCB mess in Pointe-Claire needs to be cleaned up
Since an illegal PCB stockpile was discovered at the former Reliance Power site on Hymus Blvd. in Pointe-Claire in 2013, about $4 million of provincial taxpayer money and another $435,000 in municipal funds have gone into cleaning the site. But how much peace of mind has it bought?
If you live near the location between St-Jean and Sources Blvds., you cannot be blamed for wondering about the hazard this toxic substance poses as it is still locked in the soil and seeping into the groundwater.
All the containers of contaminated oil and old transformers have been cleared from the property. But as a report commissioned by the provincial Environment Department written earlier this year and finally made public last week shows, the cleanup of this site is far from over.
More than 6,000 square metres of contaminated soil still sits on the former Reliance location, the report states. In some sections on the lot, the contaminated soil extends three feet deep. The groundwater on the property is also contaminated and, as the report shows “probably transgresses the eastern border of the site.”
The report goes on to make a number of recommendations, including the need to study the extent of possible contamination of neighbouring properties and monitoring the quality of groundwater.
Why was this report only made public last week? Why wasn’t it made public in June, when it was completed?
We don’t know the answers. But we do know that something did happen last June. That is when the property was allowed to be sold for unpaid municipal taxes. A Montreal-based holding company paid the city of PointeClaire $182,000 for the property.
The previous owner, listed as the late Max Marshall, was in default for $96,542 in unpaid property taxes for 2014. Marshall died in 2002.
His 83-year-old widow, Birdie Marshall, had been listed at Reliance Power Equipment’s chief officer since his death.
The property has an assessed value of just under $1.8 million, with the land pegged at $926,800 and the building at $860,700.
There is a lot of money on the line here and so far only taxpayers have paid the bills. Action is needed immediately. No more stalling. Another winter is coming, which means another season of spring run-off.