Groundwater is once again being treated for mercury in the Oceanfront following after monitors registered worrisome spikes in levels of mercury early last winter.
Remnants of the Nexen chemical plant are oozing through the ground and into plumes of water 35 feet below. The Squamish Oceanfront Development Corporation (SODC), tasked with overseeing the district-owned 103 acres of land and waterlots, had to make a decision, said former chair Larry Murray.
The district could either rev up "Big Blue," the warehouse-sized facility that had treated groundwater until 2002 at a cost of $1 million a year, or rely on local remediation technicians with 10 years of experience at the site to come up with a better solution.
On Tuesday (Sept. 11) more than a dozen Ministry of Environment employees gathered along with council members to the Oceanfront offices at the former Nexen lands for a presentation on a new, more effective and cheaper method of removing mercury from the area's groundwater.
"This site would still be locked up, and would be for the next 25 to 30 years if it wasn't for the bright people in this room," said Mayor Ian Sutherland following the presentation.
"There's still lots of work to do, but this is a great project for the community."
Dr. Ralph Turner of the ministry has been among the lead authorities on the remediation project for almost a decade, and worked with another local expert, Doug Olmstead of Highlands Remediation, to come up with an answer.
With Turner's ideas and Olmstead's technological prowess, within four months, a unique and homegrown facility was pumping underground plumes of water, removing solids with locally-made poly aluminum chloride, and returning it into the stream only to pump it out again - effectively forming a loop that ensures the contaminated stream does not enter Howe Sound waters.
The work is done at a fraction of the former facility's size and - most importantly to the district - at a fraction of the cost. The trailer-size unit will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week indefinitely for approximately $70,000 a year. Mercury has been leeching down into the ground since the Nexen chemical plant - that made hydrochloric acid, caustic soda and chlorine on the Howe Sound waterfront - was established in 1965. The plant was shut down in 1991 and a massive cleanup began several years later.
"Eventually the liquid mercury we encountered caused some real nightmares," said Turner.
By 2003, a $40-million provincial clean-up project was deemed sufficient, although many criticized the province's numerical standards as too low. In 2004 the province handed over the peninsula to the district for $3 - with a caveat that the municipality bear environmental responsibility.
"Some people didn't think that was a good deal," said Turner. "I think it was a heck of a deal."
Crab is now safe to eat by Health Canada standards, said Turner, as are blue mussels, typically a good indicator of contamination. Rockfish, which can live to be 100, still show signs of mercury, but people "shouldn't be catching and eating rockfish anyway," said Turner.
But lingering issues remain, including groundwater contamination. Cleanup of groundwater was seriously hindered by extreme tidal range and the depth of the groundwater. Excavation to the water's depth would only create a pit for ocean water to fill.
The new technology is specifically designed for the area, said Olmstead, who said that after a week of testing the water comes out "as neutral as you're going to get it."
However it's hard to tell how long it will take for the underground contamination to clear up entirely, he said.
