You can just glimpse a view of one of Thorold’s biggest toxic cleanups from the bike path along the Welland Canal.

An excavator was busy Tuesday digging out the Beaverdams channel between Lake Gibson and the canal, removing up to 6,000 cubic metres of muck contaminated with PCBs almost half a century ago.

“I think it’s wonderful that we’re getting this stuff out of our creek, out of our potential water supply,” Thorold Coun. Fred Neale said. “PCBs are not a good thing to have in the environment.”

The hidden polychlorinated biphenyls date back to the 1960s, when the Georgia-Pacific plant on Allanburg Rd. recycled carbonless copy paper containing the once-ubiquitous chemical compounds. PCBs are toxic to humans and wildlife and were banned from products in the early 1970s.

A study ordered by the provincial Ministry of the Environment in 2004 found high levels of the dangerous chemicals in Beaverdams Creek.

Georgia-Pacific pitched a remediation plan that began in 2008, with machines dredging about 300 metres of the creek on company property and removing more than 3,200 cubic metres of contaminated sediment.

The second phase of the cleanup is now underway, with another 6,000 cubic metres of sludge scheduled to be excavated from an 800-metre section of the Beaverdams channel, placed in specially lined trucks and transported to a landfill designed to hold hazardous material.

A high-tech mobile treatment plant is being used to clean water separated from the contaminated sludge.

“It’s really something to see,” said Rich Vickers, who heads the local MOE office. “It’s a very significant cleanup…. The company has really stepped up to the plate on this project.”

Vickers said the cleanup is the culmination of a years-long ministry search for historic contamination in Twelve Mile Creek and its feeder waterways.

He said the discovery of high levels of PCBs and other contaminants in Lake Gibson in 2000 “really kickstarted” the search in Beaverdams Creek, which is eventually siphoned under the Welland Canal and pumped into the lake.

Vickers said the ministry is still on the lookout for age-old pollution in the Twelve Mile Creek watershed, but he added the Beaverdams Creek contamination “is one of the more significant sources.”

Thorold Mayor Henry D’Angela said the cleanup ranks among the biggest historic remediation efforts in the history of the city.

But it’s not just Thorold residents who should be eager to keep pollution out of Lake Gibson, Neale added. The man-made lake is the backup source of drinking water for the DeCew treatment plant, which also feeds parts of St. Catharines, Niagara-on- the-Lake and Jordan.

A risk-assessment completed by Ontario Power Generation earlier this year recommended posting signs around the lake warning against boating and wading in the lake, or eating certain types of fish.

“It may say no fishing, but people have been fishing there forever, and they’re not going to stop now,” Neale said. “With this (cleanup), at least we’re ensuring the problem isn’t going to get any worse.”

Most of the digging should be completed by the end of this year, but restoration work like tree planting may happen next spring, said Melodie Ruse, a spokeswoman for Georgia-Pacific.

Ruse said a timeline and question-and-answer pamphlet on the remediation work was mailed to area residents earlier this year.

The pamphlet said area residents might notice an odour associated with the removal of mud from the creek bed, but the work won’t pose a danger to people or wildlife.

Vickers said ministry staff will make regular visits to the site to keep tabs on the cleanup.

via Digging up toxic history in Thorold – St. Catharines Standard – Ontario, CA.