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Old Posted Nov 10, 2009, 7:32 PM
jsbertram jsbertram is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,245
With the site being situated next to the Bow River, I was thinking that as the ground water was removed for treatment, it would be replenished by river water.

However, if a berm was placed along the river's edge during the original cleanup to prevent creosote from leaching into the river, that berm would also prevent water from leaching into the site.

In any case, someone's (Mr. & Ms. Taxpayer) on the hook for the cleanup so it can be upgraded from industrial to residential.

I'm reminded of Vancouver's Expo 86 site. When the site was first cleaned up for Expo, they realised that all the industrial waste that was dumped into False Creek didn't actually get flushed out with the tides, but instead just sloshed around & settled to the bottom of False Creek. It was going to be hugely expensive to dredge the bottom & clean up the sludge, so instead a thick layer of clay was laid over the toxic mess to cap it off. You'll see many 'No Anchorage' signs along False Creek, as you don't want the anchor to drag & peel open the clay layer & reveal the industrial sludge.

When the post-Expo cleanup needed to be done before the sale to Concord Pacific, there were some areas near chinatown that were too expensive to clean up for residential use, so they had minimal treatment - scrape off the top layer of soil that had most of the contamination, lay down a thick layer of clay to cover up the remaining contaminants & turn it into a sports field. You can see this as you zooom by on the Skytrain heading into Stadium Stn.
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