Clean of Harding brownfield property nears completion

04/05/2004

BY MICHAEL-ALLLAN MARION
EXPOSITOR STAFF / BRANTFORD

King and Benton Development Corp. has virtually completed its rapid demolition and cleanup of the Harding Carpets Brownfield property. King and Benton president Steve Charest led another community tour of the former Harding Carpets factory on Morell Street Saturday to show residents and some city councillors what the company has accomplished in the past month in the cleanup and transformation of the property into a warehousing facility.

Environmental engineering consultant Environmental Management Group Inc. also released its fourth letter to the Ministry of the Environment reporting on progress the company has made in cleaning up the site in the past six weeks.

"A tremendous amount of work and organization went into cleaning up and transforming this old Brownfield industrial site in just over four months," Aaron Levine, the consultant's director of environmental engineering, says in his report.

"We are pleased with the level of interest taken by the community including the neighborhood residents in this site cleanup program. We have had very good attendance at all our site meetings open to the public and excellent cooperation to date from all departments at city hall."

In its letter, the consultant reports:

About 95 per cent of the proposed demolition work has been completed in the western portion of the 10 acre, blocklong building and the debris has been taken to the Mohawk Street landfill.

Investigation of the subsurface soil has been completed with no evidence of any chemical contamination found that would have to be remediate to make the site useful for a commercial property.

All remaining asbestos insulation has been removed on overhead heating pipes.

A Ministry of Labor field investigator inspected several times the work done to remove asbestos. Only the fire rated spray on ceiling beams remains to be removed.

In the second week of March, Buckham Transport removed all 203 stockpiled drums and pails of hazardous and nonhazardous product from the property.

A total of seven drums of PCB-containing capacitors were removed for onsite disposal.

Groundwater monitoring wells have been installed in a courtyard area where an environmental assessment discovered trichloroethylene (TCE) that had been dumped years ago when Harding ran the site.

EMG says final groundwater cleanup will begin shortly.