Skeezix
Senior Member
Yep, I'm blocking him too.
This is a fair point, but as with most deposited silt contaminants (heavy metals, phenols, PCBs, etc of the tank farms and industries located there, including smelters and even a pulp and paper mill active until the early sixties, what's in the soil and groundwater is sometimes best left there. This is the status of Hamilton Harbour at this time, even some rivers like the Hudson. But even if the polluted soils were dug out (remediation was tried for years some twenty five years ago on Cherry south of Commissioners, to questionable effect), the greatest pollution in the Don is coming from *upstream* not seepage from the silt.
First off, please itemize this "affordable housing component". Seems to me that Toronto's claims to relegating development to mandating "affordable housing has been, errr...'somewhat remiss'.
Even the UN has commented on Toronto's failure in that regard, don't want to linger on this point. I have a ream of references here on the matter, Toronto has a pathetic record with only a few examples (almost all government and NGO agencies) where that has been achieved. So I welcome your examples. From all I can find searching for your claim, there are no detailed plans of the three distinct residential areas proposed.
Attention News Editors:
Waterfront Corporation officially launches international design competition for Lower Don Lands
TORONTO, Feb. 2 /CNW/ - The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation
today announced the names of teams that will be competing in the design
competition for the Lower Don Lands, a 40 hectare area located at the Mouth of
the Don River and the entrance to the Port Lands.
<<
The teams are:
- Stoss, Boston; Brown + Storey Architects, Toronto; Zas Architects,
Toronto
- Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, New York; Behnisch Architects, Los
Angeles; Greenberg Consultants, Toronto; Great Eastern Ecology, New
York
- Weiss/Manfredi, New York; du Toit Allsopp Hillier, Toronto
- Atelier Girot, Zurich; Office of Landscape Morphology, Paris; ReK
Productions, Toronto
- Hargreaves Associates, New York; Polshek Partnership, New York;
ENVision - The Hough Group, Toronto; Dillon Consulting Ltd., Toronto
>>
"The quality of the teams is outstanding," said John Campbell, TWRC's
President and CEO. "The Lower Don Lands is a complex ecological, urban area
and we are confident that each of the teams has the expertise and the
experience to create something truly magnificent."
The Lower Don Lands area, which runs from the Parliament Street Slip east
to the Don Roadway and from the rail corridor south to Commissioners Street,
is a critical connection between the three emerging waterfront communities in
the East Bayfront, West Don Lands and the Port Lands.
There are a number of infrastructure, urban design and transportation
initiatives in this area that are required for waterfront revitalization - the
naturalization of the mouth of the Don River, flood protection for the Port
Lands, precinct planning for the area between Parliament Street and Cherry
Street and extending Queens Quay from Parliament to Cherry.
Until now, there has not been a comprehensive process to produce an
overall vision for integrating these various waterfront revitalization
projects and addressing the complicated infrastructure challenges this area
presents.
The goal of the Innovative Design Competition is to produce a unifying
and inspiring concept for this long-neglected area that can provide common
ground for three concurrent Environmental Assessments (EA's), including the
Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection EA; the Queens Quay
Boulevard Extension EA; and the Lower Don Transportation Infrastructure EA.
The intent is to produce a bold and compelling concept for the Lower Don
Lands that makes the river a central feature while at the same time providing
for new development and new linkages to the rest of the city.
<<
The objectives of the design competition include:
- Promoting Sustainable Development
- Naturalizing the mouth of the Don River
- Creating a continuous riverfront park system
- Enhancing the Martin Goodman Trail
- Providing for harmonious new development
- Making transit a priority
- Developing a gateway into the Port lands
>>
Following an on-site briefing on February 9, the teams will have eight
weeks to complete their designs. At the February briefing, the teams will
receive input from a number of stakeholders including the Toronto and Region
Conservation (TRCA), City of Toronto planning, parks and transportation staff,
the Toronto Port Authority and a community advisory committee established by
TWRC specifically for the competition.
The final designs will be on display from April 16 - 24, 2007 at the BCE
Place Galleria. A jury to be appointed by TWRC will select the winning design.
TWRC will announce the winner in early-May.
TWRC was created by the federal and provincial governments and the City
of Toronto to lead the $17 billion renewal of Toronto's Central Waterfront.
The development of the first new waterfront community, West Don Lands, is
scheduled to start in 2007.
For more information on the Lower Don Lands Design Competition, please
visit www.towaterfront.ca
Extending Queen's Quay further east - through the "Home Depot Lands" to Cherry Street (which is also supposed to be 'straightened' so that there will not be a jog at Lake Shore Blvd.What is the "Queens Quay Boulevard Extension"?
The recent City Report http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-97559.pdf advising against the proposal to host the Olympics in the Lower Donlands itemizes that. It is a very serious concern, and a number of other posters refused to read my posts and points pertaining to exactly that.Hopefully the persons involved in rerouting the Don River access to Lake Ontario will address the resulting problem of increased flow of pollutants and toxins from upriver the Don River directly into Lake Ontario which will be facilitated by removal of the crook in the flow at the Keating Channel. These pollutants will wash back up onto Cherry Beach and Ashbridges Bay whenever we get a southerly wind. The current configuration of the Don via Keating Channel inhibits flow into Lake Ontario. This will be gone if the Don is straightened. Any claim that pollution will be addressed upstream in the Don River lacks credibility based on past history.
The City itself has yet to fully assay the pockets of contaminants. In some areas, they have little to no idea of what's there, the nature of it, the stasis of migration, and basically, whether it's best to leave it en situ and ostensibly freeze it there with polymer injection, solid trench barrier and/or reactive trenching. Needless to say, that precludes the affected land use for residential, perhaps even commercial use. It may even preclude capping it with clean fill and using it for parkland. Some US jurisdictions have pioneered land-use zoning categories to allow commercial above concrete entombing in cases where plumes are contained. Vancouver has featured a few of these in the False Creek area, and New York City has a whole chapter in a report released about a year back. I'll link it later.Hopefully the persons involved in rerouting the Don River access to Lake Ontario will address the resulting problem of increased flow of pollutants and toxins from upriver the Don River directly into Lake Ontario which will be facilitated by removal of the crook in the flow at the Keating Channel.
I'm glad I'm not alone in my observations. Most in this string are nothing more than starry-eyed. I suggest you read back to see what I mean.Any claim that pollution will be addressed upstream in the Don River lacks credibility based on past history.
Pg 17 http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-97559.pdfUnknown soil and groundwater conditions in the Port Lands will impact remediation
activities and overall project completion timelines. While substantial environmental
investigation and due diligence has occurred recently as part of the
Port Lands
Flood
Protection project, less detail is available on the properties in the rest of the proposed
Expo site.
Sorry to have to 'pull rank' on that line of argument, but I am. Until it is known what's there, and what to do about it....and not taking persons like myself to dig out "hidden reports" (as stated by Globe and Mail, Macleans and six other Cdn media pubs, NDP party, MPP Evelyn Gigantes, doctors, lawyers) and daylight them, then caution is counselled by logic alone.Sorry, to argue that keep it there is better for the environment when one's basis for it is continued non-use of land close to the core is a little perverse - not to mention, guess where development is going to go and what impact THAT will have on greenfield and the watershed?
Hopefully the persons involved in rerouting the Don River access to Lake Ontario will address the resulting problem of increased flow of pollutants and toxins from upriver the Don River directly into Lake Ontario which will be facilitated by removal of the crook in the flow at the Keating Channel. These pollutants will wash back up onto Cherry Beach and Ashbridges Bay whenever we get a southerly wind. The current configuration of the Don via Keating Channel inhibits flow into Lake Ontario. This will be gone if the Don is straightened. Any claim that pollution will be addressed upstream in the Don River lacks credibility based on past history.
This is crucial, as a recurring theme in these instances is often involved agencies *using* their ignorance of unpleasant details to gloss over the issue. (See no evil, etc). I even wonder if there are departments at City Hall trying to get the attention of executive on this, to no avail. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, no need to list even the recent events of that happening. (Judson Street ring a bell?)The persons involved are the City, and I don't think WaterfrontTO are really part of it - altho they oversaw the major stormwater infrastructure in the West Don Lands.
Can we assume that everyone knows about the extensive petroleum facilities that once covered these lands ? (attached photo - 1972)
I was holding my breath expecting another slew of denials and 'sunny ways', perhaps even getting banned for a week again...the press has been very remiss on this issue, and many are oblivious to the history of land use there. That might have to change. Perhaps the press and plebs need to be nudged? I'm getting a bit old for that, but I still have a temper. And a few connections left in the media.
It's got to be considered a distinct possibility. When riverbeds are remediated, and the silt/soil/muck is dug up, extreme measures must be taken to contain it. What if those measures are so extreme as to be impossible? In the case of GE and the Hudson, the dialog is now about whether to leave the pools of PCBs in place rather than spreading them and destroying what Nature herself should and would clean-up given time and respect:b) we put those plans on hold and go with a temporary concrete-walled un-naturalized Don mouth (that will serve many flood-mitigation measures and allow development north of the Keating Channel).
http://www.thecanadianpress.com/eng...EY2008111300&newsitemid=38526794&languageid=1
New York challenges effectiveness of cleanup in Hudson River
Michael Virtanen, The Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. - The state's conservation chief is challenging the effectiveness of recently completed dredging of contaminated sediment from the upper Hudson River, saying unacceptably high levels of industrial waste were left behind.
Commissioner Basil Seggos said dredging improved the Hudson but the federal Environmental Protection Agency needs to re-evaluate the six-year project and get objective analyses in its ongoing review of fish, water and sediment data.
"I think it's absolutely clear the job is not yet done," Seggos said.
At least 136 acres of river bottom and 35 per cent of the PCBs, an oil-like substance discharged from factories in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, about 40 miles north of Albany, weren't removed, he said.
Seggos said Monday the state has requested permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Champlain Canal, which runs into and at times is a channel of the upper Hudson.
"We intend to dredge that canal, and all of our legal options are on the table as to who pays for it," he said.
Ned Sullivan, president of the environmental group Scenic Hudson, said that's a major breakthrough in the PCB cleanup aimed at removing contaminants and health threats.
"This is New York stepping up to do the job that (the Environmental Protection Agency) should have mandated," he said.
Seggos' letter to EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck comes a year after Boston-based General Electric finished dredging a 40-mile stretch of the river for PCBs in the federal Superfund project. Until 1977, GE factories discharged into the river more than 1 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, considered a probable carcinogen.
The EPA said it will review Seggos' letter and respond in detail but noted the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which he now leads, had agreed with the cleanup plan.
"If New York State has additional information, the EPA is happy to consider it during the five-year review process, which is currently underway," EPA spokeswoman Mary Mears said.
Studies show PCBs pose a risk to wildlife, including fish, frogs, waterfowl and mink. Though banned in 1977, the compounds once used widely as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment remain a problem because they don't readily break down in the environment and persist over long periods of time.
The EPA has been collecting samples from fish, water and sediment this year for the review. It is also engaged in a 10-year project to remove contaminated soil from the river's flood plain.
The federal agency acknowledged in a review five years ago that initial dredging left a significant amount of contaminated sediment still in the river, more than the EPA had anticipated when it decided on project parameters, Seggos wrote.
If the review shows the project failed to meet its goals, there should be more dredging, Seggos said.
New York's conservation agency has also been taking samples since the dredging stopped last year but doesn't have those results yet, Seggos said. Advisories to limit or avoid consumption of fish caught in the river are insufficient protections, he said.
GE last year finished removing 2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment as part of a 2006 legal agreement with the EPA, which the agency has estimated cost GE about $1.5 billion. Calls by environmental groups to dredge beyond the agreed-to areas grew louder before barges left the river.
GE addressed all the PCBs targeted by federal authorities, removing twice the volume that had been anticipated, a spokesman said.
"GE is confident that EPA's review will demonstrate that the project achieved the agency's goals of protecting human health and the environment," spokesman Mark Behan said Monday.
The responsibility for maintaining the Champlain Canal belongs to the state Canal Corp., which is capable of doing that, Behan said.
"The responsibility is not GE's," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/nyregion/general-electric-pcbs-hudson-river.html?_r=0G.E. Spent Years Cleaning Up the Hudson. Was It Enough?
By JESSE McKINLEY SEPT. 8, 2016
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — Ask Matthew Traver, the mayor of this village north of Albany, his opinion of General Electric and its two closed factories that spilled PCBs into the Hudson River for decades, and his words could not be clearer.
“G.E.,” he said, “has done a lot of damage to this community.”
But ask Mr. Traver if he and other residents believe that the industrial giant should continue dredging the Hudson to remove more of the chemical poison — as G.E. did for years before finishing last year — and his answer is equally firm, if surprising.
“I’d say the general consensus in this community is, ‘You’ve dredged, you’re done,’” he said. “It’s over.”
That sense of resignation, shared by some others on the Upper Hudson, is the direct opposite of a position taken recently by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which is pushing the federal government to closely consider the issue of whether G.E.’s cleanup efforts have been enough.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has said that the company fulfilled its promises under a 2005 order, resulting in the removal of nearly three million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. But Basil Seggos, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, in a recent letter to the E.P.A.’s top official in New York, challenged the federal remedy, saying “unacceptably high levels of PCB-contaminated sediment remain in large portions of the Upper Hudson.”
[...feature article continues at length...]
http://nypost.com/2013/11/02/love-canal-still-oozing-poison-35-years-later/NIAGARA FALLS — Thirty-five years after Love Canal’s oozing toxic waste scared away a neighborhood and became a symbol of environmental catastrophe, history could be repeating itself.
New residents, attracted by promises of cleaned-up land and affordable homes, say in lawsuits that they are being sickened by the same buried chemicals from the disaster in the Niagara Falls neighborhood in the 1970s.
[...]
The Hearn Generating station was coal fueled until '71, one year before that pic. I would have guessed coal, but on a quick search, realized it's the probably clinker left from burning that coal. There were extensive rail spurs and the port owned and operated (albeit it might have been switched by TTR) a rail shuttle from the ships to industries in the port, including the Hearn station.What are those piles of black stuff south of the ship channel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearn_Generating_StationThe last three 200 MW units at the plant resumed burning coal along with natural gas but they were phased out of operation in July 1983, due to concerns about increased air pollution in Toronto and an abundant energy supply in the province.
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=13776&p=0What type of sites might be affected by contamination?
The Government considers that there is a very high probability that all land, which has been subject to the eight uses set out below, is contaminated unless previously treated.
Manufacture of gas, coke or bituminous material from coal.
Manufacture of refining of lead or
steel or an alloy of lead or steel.
Manufacture of asbestos or asbestos products.
Manufacture, refining or recovery of petroleum
or its derivatives, other than extraction from
petroleum bearing ground.
Manufacture, refining or recovery of other chemicals, excluding minerals.
Final deposits in or on land of household, commercial or industrial waste other than waste
consisting of ash, slag, clinker, rock, wood, gypsum, railway ballast, peat, bricks, tiles, concrete, glass, other minerals or dredging spoil;
or where waste is used as a fertiliser or in order to condition the land in some other beneficial manner.
Treatment at a fixed installation of household, commercial or industrial waste by chemical or
thermal means.
Use as a scrap metal store, within the meaning of section 9(2) of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act
1964(a).