Nenshi supports province’s creosote monitoring, pushes for cleanup

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is welcoming the province’s announcement Tuesday it will spend $1.3 million over five years to continue assessing creosote levels in Calgary’s West Hillhurst community.

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 West Hillhurst. A containment wall was put in place between 1995 and 1996 to prevent further migration of creosote into the Bow River.

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The most recent monitoring, between 2010 and 2014, did not identify risks to human or aquatic and environmental health. However, the province said it will be funding the project to better understand the “scope and nature” of the creosote in the community and along the Bow River.

“We’ve had people in West Hillhurst very concerned that the creosote is migrating underneath the Bow River into their neighbourhood,” Nenshi said. “This will help us determine whether that’s happening or not.”

Nenshi said the time has come to think about cleaning up the site of the creosote plant.

“It’s like an old math problem. How many dump trucks nose-to-tail does it take working how many hours a day to actually clean it up? The answer is many, many years-worth of dump trucks. But regardless, you’ve got to get started,” he said.

“I think the real argument is, how long are we willing to wait to determine what the right funding sources are before we start lining up the dump trucks?”

“I don’t want to be tied up in court for decades before actually doing something.”

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Canada Creosote was sold to Domtar decades ago. The mayor said he is still optimistic the company will be involved in funding the contamination cleanup.

“I think it’s really important. I don’t want to set a dangerous precedent of polluters being able to get away without paying,” Nenshi said.

With files from News Talk 770’s Aurelio Perri