Traffic that is forced to stop on St. Andrew Street, east of St. David Street here for an environmental cleanup will have to put up with those delays for some time to come.
Workers have been coming to the site for many years now, and Ian Macdonald, of Wesa, Inc., of Kitchener, said it could be some time before the contamination under the road and in the area is finally removed.
In this case, the contamination comes from near the Mac’s Milk store at the corner of the two streets, back when it had gasoline pumps and was part of the Becker’s chain of stores.
Macdonald said there had been some work done to clean up the mess from the gasoline, and the tanks themselves were taken out about five years ago, when Mac’s took over the store. That took place about 2006, and it was then his company was hired to do the work of removing the contaminated liquid materials.
He explained his company has placed a recovery well under St. Andrew Street, and it is gradually removing the leaked gasoline from the sight.
“We don’t know the amount” he said of the contamination. When the tanks were removed, they had not been used for the previous five years.
“There’s a history of gas stations in that area,” Macdonald said.
Many old gas stations had tanks that leaked, and the provincial government is determined to avoid contamination in water. Since the Grand River is only a 100 metres or so away from the tanks, Wesa wants to catch contaminants before they reach the river.
The trouble is, “Fractured bedrock is harder to clean up.”
But, Macdonald added, the work is showing some promise, too. “The concentrations [of contaminants] have come down since we started.”
He added there was some affected groundwater under the bank at the corner, but Wesa is attempting to pull all those out. He said the idea behind the work is “to make sure it doesn’t leave our [Mac’s] property.”
Macdonald said of the contamination, “It would take decades to reach the river if we stopped.” But, he hopes the company can catch all the contaminants in its containment wells.
Macdonald said there are similar situations all around the province as old, single tanks are removed and the soil is found to be contaminated. New tanks are double vaults, to prevent that.
He said Wesa does all such work for Mac’s stores.
Wesa staff will visit the site four times per year to remove contaminants – for the foreseeable future.
