Former arena and pool sites in Mount Pearl require further environmental assessment
City council recently voted to approve $49,154.85 to WSP E&I Canada Ltd., the company that completed the first two phases of the assessment, for additional investigation to identify the full extent of the contamination of the site.
Mount Pearl is proceeding with further environmental assessment of the potential future site of its new community centre at the Team Gushue Sports Complex.
City council recently voted to approve $49,154.85 to WSP E&I Canada Ltd., the company that completed the first two phases of the assessment, for additional investigation to identify the full extent of the contamination of the site.
Coun. Isabelle Fry asked in the meeting if the contaminants on the site, which formerly housed the Smallwood Arena, could just be removed and the soil replaced.
Gerard Antle, director of planning, engineering and development for the city, said they would need to first determine how much of the site is contaminated before proceeding with remediation.
“We’ve identified the contamination that’s there and this proposal is to determine the full extent and delineate the boundaries of where the contamination is to,” Antle said.
“Once we know that, once we know the extent of the contamination, we determine if removal is an option or if it’s a different form of mitigation.”
'FAIR AMOUNT' OF LAND
When asked by Mayor Dave Aker how big the grid is that's being looked at, Antle said it covers the building site of the former arena and a “fair amount” of land in front of the site, related to materials on the site associated with the old arena.
Antle said this material can be quite costly to remove and bring to a treatment facility, so this assessment is to ensure the city knows the extent of the contamination and determine what the next step is to manage that.
The cost includes completing up to nine boreholes and two monitoring wells, but the motion states that depending on the test results, there is a possibility fewer boreholes and monitoring wells would be required, and, in that case, the total cost would be reduced.
FUTURE OF FACILITY UNKNOWN
Aker said in 2023 the future of the proposed 18,000-square-foot community centre was still up in the air until the city gets more updated quotes for the cost.
When it was first announced in 2021, the projected price tag was around $9 million, but inflation since that time may have driven the number much higher. “Our challenge is that since the original numbers were done just at the end of COVID we've seen significant inflation, especially on any capital purchases,” Aker said at the time. “We're reluctant, at this point in time, to say we've made a final commitment.”
FORMER POOL SITE
A motion to move to a Phase 2 environmental assessment for the site of the former Mount Pearl Swimming Pool off Park Avenue was also passed in that meeting, for $21,318.
Pinchin Ltd., the company that was awarded the contract for hazardous building materials assessment and oil tank assessment/supervision at the former pool on Stapleton Road, collected and analyzed soil samples at the site and recommended to council that a Phase 2 assessment be done. In 2023, Aker told Saltwire that council hoped there would be interest in redeveloping the site into high-density housing and that council plans to put out an expression of interest for the property in 2024.