Tonnes of PCB soil trucked to Quebec from Hamilton plant
A contractor working on a multimillion-dollar upgrade to the Woodward sewage treatment plant has sent about 1,200 tonnes — or 30 dump-truck loads — of PCB-contaminated dirt for disposal in Quebec.
Those hauls are part of an effort to handle 6,000 tonnes of soil tainted with polychlorinated biphenyl found at the construction site of the Woodward Wastewater Treatment Plant.
It’s too early to know how much the unexpected disposal project will cost with excavation still underway, city water director Andrew Grice said Thursday. “Certainly, there will be a premium cost.”
North American Construction holds the contract for $165million worth of tertiary treatment upgrades at the Woodward Avenue plant.
The hazardous dirt was found in the area of the chlorine contact tank, which Grice described as the back end of the sprawling property, not far from the iconic methane “globe” near the QEW.
The contaminated soil that hasn’t yet been trucked to the certified Quebec facility will remain on the construction site.
“It is certainly something that we are taking seriously,” Grice said. “This is nasty material.”
For decades, PCBs were used in industrial products for sealing and caulking agents, as well as oils, inks and paints. They were used in coolants and lubricants for transformers, too.
The Ministry of the Environment says the contamination source is a landfill that closed in the 1970s before current hazardous waste laws were in effect. The ministry says the city has “delineated the extent of the contamination” and there’s “no indication” it migrated from the former landfill.
Grice has said the discovery poses no health risks to residents, but it will set back the schedule of the roughly $380million sewage plant upgrade by about two months.
Before the PCBs and COVID-19, the goal was to finish the project by December 2021.
The ministry says it has not issued any orders to the city, which is undertaking the disposal effort voluntarily.
The plan is to use “lightly contaminated” soil as berms at the Woodward site and capping it so it doesn’t pose risks.
The city says there are “comprehensive segregation and sampling plans” to separate the hazardous soil.
Grice expects the excavation to continue until at least the end of the year.