The Transport Canada-owned lands along the edge of Owen Sound’s waterfront pose no risk of contamination to the public or to the environment.
That is the finding of Dillon Consulting — an Oakville firm who was hired by Transport Canada to conduct an environmental risk assessment.
Its report says the lands have been capped, meaning they’re either cemented or paved over or have been landscaped.
The public has no access to whatever contaminants are in the soil.
The findings of that assessment were presented at a public information session on Tuesday night in Owen Sound.
Boreholes were drilled and sampling was completed at a number of sites on the strips of federal land on both sides of the waterfront, including part of Kelso Beach Park.
Project Manager Tony Windsor says the contaminants found were not unusual given the urban setting and pose no risk to the public, and active remediation will not be necessary.
The public information session was a necessary step under provincial environment ministry regulations.
The ministry will comment on the project and is expected to eventually issue a record of site condition for the properties in question.
But this project has nothing to do with the harbour itself or Transport Canada’s desire to divest itself of the port, something in which the city of Owen Sound may be interested.
That would require an entirely separate risk assessment, and Transport Canada employees who were at Tuesday’s information session say it’s a project that will be far more difficult to complete because the sediment in the harbour is constantly changing due to many different factors.
