Quote:
Originally Posted by Aegis
Is the land actually cleaned up now? What function does all of the equipment (tanks, etc, near the Pumphouse Theatre) have?
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From how I'm understanding what I've been able to find out, the land was cleaned up to an acceptable level at the time that it was done in the late 80's, however that level was likely no where near what would be currently required today to do anything but pave it over and use it as a parking lot. To do any actual redevelopment of the affected land for residential uses it will need to be analyzed and likely a further cleanup completed using modern cleanup techniques, with a potential cost of tens of millions of dollars.
As for the equipment that is there, I'd suspect its part of the current cleanup system, I know for the creosote cleanup on the former Domtar site in Cochrane they put in a system that pumped groundwater from the affected area up and through a treatment facility then returned it to the ground, so I'd suspect that may be a similar type of system. It does work, but its slow and becomes less effective over time as the contamination becomes less concentrated in the area. The cleanup plan for Cochrane (which is only to commercial uses allowed, not to residential) pretty much involves them digging out all the soil something like 20m down in the worst area, and cleaning it all, replacing some of it that can be cleaned and a lot of the rest will be used either for asphalt or sent to Swan Hills, so I'd suspect we may see something like that as well.