The Alberta government is undertaking a five-year, $1.3M project to continue assessing creosote levels in Calgary’s West Hillhurst community.
The goal of the project is to assess the extent of contamination in the neighbourhood and examine levels throughout the year to determine any seasonal variances.
For more than 40 years, until the mid-1960s, the Canada Creosote Plant operated on the south side of the Bow River in Calgary. In the early 1990s, environmental monitoring determined that contamination had migrated under the Bow River into the community of West Hillhurst. A containment wall was put in place between 1995 and 1996 to prevent further migration of creosote into the Bow River.
“The compounds that are associated with creosote have some health impacts with them that are thought to be potentially risky to humans so we want to make sure that’s not occurring,” said Darren Bourget, Alberta Environment and Parks.
The most recent monitoring, between 2010 and 2014, did not identify risks to human or aquatic and environmental health. However, the province is funding this long-term project to better understand the scope and nature of the creosote in the community and along the Bow River. But the city is urging a more proactive approach.
“We did more core sampling, we did more environmental study of the area and it's become clear that something I've been saying for many years is true, containment isn’t enough, we have to be able to move to cleanup,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “The question is, who pays? I am a strong advocate of the polluter pays principle, that the person who made the mess should have to pay to clean it up, and we're at the beginning of those discussions with the provincial government now."
The first phase of the project will involve taking samples from the various sample sites and testing them.
The results of the report will be available in mid-2018.
