By Pepper Parr
August 17, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
The Rural Burlington Greenbelt Coalition keeps a close watch on anything to do with small air parks and the rules and regulations that apply to them.
They recently passed along some information on a “conditional approval” for a remediation deal to begin cleanup at Greenbank Airways.
Greenbanks Airways is an operation in the Township of Scugog that had what was believed to be contaminated soil being dumped on the land.
RBGC and a number of others felt the same thing had been done at the Burlington Air Park. It took a number of months to get the city to take some action – there was a court case which the city won, an appeal of that decision which the city also won.
When the city took action asking a judge to compel the Air Park to submit a site plan the Air Park managed to find a constitutional issue and the case has been booted back to sometime late in the year.
Sooner or later the Air Park will run out of legal options and they will have to submit to the rules everyone else has to comply with.
Will the Air Park eventually be forced to remove much of the fill they dropped on their property without the required permits?
The clean-up deal at Lake Scugog will see D.L. services remove most of the contaminated soil from 30 areas on the site. It will then be tested and treated. As well, one area that cannot be removed, will be treated with microbes to degrade any gasoline found there.
D.L. Services originally submitted the plan to Scugog in June, and a conditional approval letter was awarded to the company.
“The cleanup won’t take long. What has taken long is just having to deal with all of the politics invloved,” explained Mr. LeBlanc. Those are words the people along Appleby Line would just love to hear – if it can be done at one small air park – it can be done at another.
Mayor Tom Rowett said that the township’s firm stance on Table 2 soil standards is justified. “I think the hardline stance is important because whenever you are dealing with a contract like this, you can’t send a mixed message,” commented Mayor Rowett.
Bore hole testing: were enough holes drilled and were they drilled in the right places?
In March, borehole testing on the site conducted by Golder Associates found that 22 of 45 soil samples exceeded the township’s table 2 standards.
Vanessa Warren, one of the RBGC founders, has argued strenuously in the past that the table 2 standards were critical. Vince Rossi, president of the Air Park has disagreed with her, as have his lawyers. A Superior Court Judge, and an Appeal Court panel sided with the city.
Our day will come.
Bravo to Scugog Township. Now you would think that the “Best Mid-Size City in Canada”, within one of the best-run regions (Halton Region) in Ontario could accomplish as much. We shall have to wait to see. But Scugog certainly creates a template and a precedent.