While experts assume coal tar contamination is seeping into the Otonabee River from city-owned properties, the city is tightly controlling the release of information on the issue.

A consultant’s report on the coal tar contamination at the city-owned provincial courthouse property and Millennium Park won’t be released to the public without going through the Freedom of Information process, environmental protection division manager Patrick Devlin said Thursday.

He wouldn’t say why.

The same report is available for viewing by consultants, a city document shows.

Mayor Paul Ayotte said he didn’t know why the city wouldn’t release the report to the public.

“I don’t know anything about that. I’d have to check on that tomorrow and get back to you,” he said. “I’m sure there’d have to be a reason if they didn’t give it to you.”

Utility services director Wayne Jackson said he would like to release the report without forcing the public to go through the Freedom of Information process.

But Jackson wouldn’t release the consultant’s report on Thursday because he said he wanted to talk with other city staff before releasing the report.

The report, entitled Simcoe Street Seep, Mitigation and Investigation, was done by Dillon Consulting Ltd. in February 2010.

It’s available for viewing at the city’s environmental protection services division for consultants that want to bid on a contract to produce a study and action plan for the cleanup of the coal tar contamination, a document that went to city council on June 28 shows.

City council didn’t discuss the issue publicly at either the committee of the whole meeting on June 28 or the regular council session on July 5 when the item was on its agenda.

It quietly pulled $500,000 from a reserve fund to study the coal tar contamination and develop an action plan for remediation.

The coal tar contamination issue has been lurking for decades.

It rose to the surface again in November when Parks Canada lowered the water level of the Otonabee River to repair Lock 19. When the water was lowered, material could be seen seeping from the west bank of the river near Millennium Park and the courthouse property.

The source of the contamination is assumed to be the city-owned site of the former Peterborough Gas Works facility at 70, 72 and 80 Simcoe St., Devlin states in the report that went to council last month.

“For some time, there had been concern regarding the potential for coal tar related seepage from the properties,” he states. “With the river at full height, however, it was difficult to verify that the coal tar impacts had reached the river.”

Several studies have been done over the years. Most recently, consultants studied the situation in 2007, 2001 and 1989.

When a study was done in 2007, city officials stated that the study found the situation was stable and didn’t require any action.

Now the province and federal government are demanding action.

Provincial and federal agencies asked the city in the spring to develop an action plan to “deal with the ongoing environmental issues on the site,” Devlin states in his report to council.

The city is keeping the Ministry of the Environment and Environment Canada informed about the site remediation process, he states.

A coal gasification plant operated at the site for almost 80 years from the mid-1880s to the mid-1950s. The city had bought the property from the province and Ontario Hydro, which operated on the site from 1916 to 1929.

AON Inc., a local landowner and developer, bought the courthouse site from the city for $413,752 in 1982.

The city bought the property back from AON for $2.6 million in November 2001 to deal with a lawsuit the company had filed against the city in 1999. In its more-than-$10-million lawsuit, AON alleged coal tar contaminants buried on city property from the defunct gas works operation leached into the courthouse site.

In 2007, Jagger Hims Ltd. found ground water and soil contamination on the properties exceed Ministry of the Environment guidelines. But it also found the coal tar contamination was stable, with no apparent movement towards the surface or spread to neighbouring properties since studies were done in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Previous studies have attempted to measure the impact of the coal tar contamination on aquatic creatures in the river and to measure the potential impact on humans using water from the Otonabee River for swimming, fishing, etc. However, these studies have not identified a clear link to significant impacts on human health or the aquatic ecosystem,” the consultants stated.

via Consultant’s report on coal tar contamination not being released to the public by city – Peterborough Examiner – Ontario, CA.