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A government landfill beside Parliament Hill is contaminated with carcinogenic chemical compounds and toxic metals in concentrations up to 140 times higher than national and provincial standards for protection of the environment and human health, an internal government report says.
The report also shows laboratory testing found traces of carcinogenic chemicals in groundwater running through the landfill, into the Ottawa River, exceeding national standards for surface water contamination established by the federal government and the provinces to protect fish and other forms of aquatic life.
Despite the findings, a senior Public Works and Government Services department official described the water as “clean” in a brief the department prepared for distribution to mid-level officials in the House of Commons administration.
The contamination has prompted the government to commission a more detailed environmental assessment and could derail Parliament’s plan to construct a new building for senators and Commons committee rooms on the site.
When the Citizen first learned from a government source last September the massive landfill was contaminated, the Public Works and Government Services department confirmed only that some of the soil had traces of mercury, lead and toxic chemical compounds that come from burning wood, coal, tar and other materials.
The department did not disclose the groundwater contamination. One official said the groundwater did not appear to be affected, while another, spokesman Pierre Teotonio, said in an e-mail water sampling “will be done” to ensure there is no impact on the groundwater.
The department, in this instance represented by a spokeswoman, refused to release a report on the contamination and the specific levels of toxic metal and chemical contamination in the soil. Officials suggested contamination exceeding federal and provincial standards was limited to a few spots.
But a 211-page final environmental assessment report the Public Works and Government Services department received from the engineering firm Trow Associates Inc. last year shows the contamination is spread throughout the site and, in several spots, is concentrated to an extent far surpassing acceptable environmental standards.
The Citizen obtained the report through the Access to Information Act. The report, along with other records about the site, reveals that as the federal government submerged an entire Ottawa River bay under refuse, charred debris and fill for more than a century, it was creating a toxic dump on Parliament’s doorstep.
The report designated the landfill as a medium- to low-risk contaminated site because it is zoned as commercial property and its paved parking lots are containing the soil.
Laboratory testing disclosed all soil samples from nine boreholes Trow Associates commissioned on the site were contaminated to some degree with toxic chemical compounds and metals. All nine boreholes produced at least one soil sample that exceeded provincial or national standards for lead, mercury or a toxic chemical compound.
Soil from one of the boreholes was contaminated with traces of lead that were 15 times higher—at 4,080 millionths of a gram per gram—than federal standards for human health. Mercury levels in several holes were between 10 and 20 times higher than Ontario background levels for soil. One of the boreholes at the river’s edge also contained mercury levels above natural background levels.
Soil samples from one borehole drilled at the fill’s lower level near the river contained concentrations of one of the most toxic cancer-causing compounds, benzo(a)pyrene, that far exceeded national standards for human health protection and Ontario environmental background levels. Laboratory results registered the toxin at 98.4 micrograms (millionths of a gram) per gram of soil. This level compares with the human health criteria of 0.7 micrograms per gram, set by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, and background levels of of 0.49 micrograms per gram, set by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, as a maximum criteria for contaminated sites. Of three water monitoring wells that were drilled at the bottom of the landfill closer to the river’s edge, one showed groundwater was contaminated with traces of three carcinogenic chemical compounds—anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene—that slightly exceeded standards for the protection of aquatic life.
Duplicate tests in another riverside well found slightly higher levels of toxic contaminants, but they were discarded because the chemicals were found in suspended soil particles floating in the water. Scientists who supervised the testing said suspended particles were the result of disturbing soil while drilling the borehole and would not be carried into the river by the groundwater.
The contaminant traces are minuscule—as low as .042 millionths of a gram per litre of water—and barely exceed Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment criteria for surface water. But the chemicals can nonetheless be highly toxic to fish and aquatic life as they accumulate in the river’s food chain through the years. Since the City of Ottawa does not draw water for drinking from anywhere near the site, the investigation did not compare water samples with Ontario standards for potable water. Trow Associates compared the groundwater samples with national surface water standards for aquatic life for “discussion purposes.”
The nearest community that draws water downriver from the site to purify for drinking is Rockland. Department officials said they had not checked with the City of Ottawa to confirm whether drinking water was extracted downriver from the landfill.
Don Nixon, project manager of the site for public works, described the groundwater as “clean” in a diagram he prepared for a briefing with parliamentary officials.
“Maybe I should have said it’s not an issue,” Mr. Dixon said during an interview with departmental officials and Trow Associates engineers. “Clean is not inconsistent with the message we were trying to convey.”
Chris Kimmerly, Trow’s manager of environmental and kinetic science divisions, told a reporter “you can drink it, it’s safe.” The public works officials and Trow engineers say the contamination is not a public health hazard if the soil remains contained under pavement. Trow has subsequently tested surface soil samples from an escarpment leading to the river, but a report is not expected until March. Officials say 26 new monitoring wells have been drilled on the site since the Trow studies, and tests will be conducted for another three to five years.
The report outlines health and safety measures that construction workers, technicians and supervisors would have to take if the site is either excavated for a new building or disturbed in any way. The federal government began the landfill in 1900, after the site had served as a public and government garbage dump on the banks of the Ottawa River from the mid-1800s onward. Upon the landfill’s completion in 1950, it became two vast tiers of parking lots—one of which is nearly at river water level—for parliamentary employees. The area, once known as Brewer’s Bay, was filled with truckloads of refuse, construction debris from the parliamentary buildings in the 1860s, demolition debris from early factories and houses, charred remains from the 1916 fire that destroyed the first Centre Block and undetermined garbage.
Attempts to obtain other information related to the contamination discovery revealed the Public Works and Government Services Department is highly sensitive about public relations over the site. The department did not issue a public statement about the contamination after it is was discovered through test drilling in 2003—or even inform a parliamentary day-care centre located 40 metres from where the landfill begins—until after the contamination was publicized in a CanWest News report last October.
Yet, an access to information official says the department has generated up to 300 internal documents related to media and communications strategies and ministerial briefings for the Commons question period.