Alberta orders cleanup at former creosote treatment plant in Edmonton

The province is ordering Domtar, Cherokee Canada Inc. and the numbered company to submit an independent sampling and remediation plan for the site of the disposed materials.

Cherokee Canada and the numbered company must also take the same steps for the berm.

“First, we have to determine the nature of the contamination, and that would provide direction for how those sites would need to be remediated,” Alberta Environment spokesman Jamie Hanlon said Friday.

“Our concern is that the contamination on those sites be addressed.”

In the 1990s, Domtar cleaned up contaminated soil in the backyards of four existing homes next to the former site, but residents were concerned at that time about the lack of action on the site itself.

Dr. David Schindler, a water expert at the University of Alberta, said at the time that the arsenic, creosote compounds and pentachlorophenol left in the soil and groundwater when Domtar closed its plant in 1987 were “pretty nasty chemicals.”

He said pentachlorophenol is particularly dangerous and has been associated with developmental abnormalities and birth defects.

Alberta Environment said the site is proposed for a residential development.

The department said the current site approval holders have failed to act upon numerous requests since last year for soil sampling results on the berm.

The remedial action plans for the disposal sites are due by July 30. The remediation plan for the berm and any contamination that’s found near it is due June 1.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Alberta orders cleanup at former creosote treatment plant in Edmonton

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