The developer will have to pay for the cleanup of a fuel spill that started on its property.
A crew of District of Squamish and Ministry of Environment employees have been responding to a heating fuel spill at the south end of downtown in the vicinity of Third and Main streets that occurred Wednesday, Nov. 15.
Despite their efforts, crews were unable to prevent a small amount of the spill from entering the Squamish Estuary, according to the District.
“There is very little or no evidence of material there,” a District news release stated on Monday.
An underground tank is believed to be the source of the spill.
Officials noted the container is a remnant of old industry on the property located on Main Street and Cleveland that is being developed into a mixed-use housing complex by Solterra.
“Upon being advised of concerns that may have originated from our site, we immediately underwent exploratory excavations where an underground storage tank was located on site and removed,” Solterra’s Mike Bosa told The Chief on Monday.
“We have been working with the District and the Ministry of Environment hand in hand to ensure all proper measures are taken.”
There are always risks on older sites, Bosa added.
“We continue to monitor the situation and a great team of experts are working on this on a continued basis.”
The District will be billing Solterra once the cleanup is complete and its full cost determined.
“The landowner is responsible for all the costs of this clean up, so we will be billing the landowner back, whether it’s our staff time or our equipment, all of that,” Mayor Patricia Heintzman told The Chief.
“They knew what they were buying. Anyone who buys an old industrial site knows this is a possibility.”
Heintzman also said that no inventory was done historically on what was left on industrial sites. “They just buried stuff,” she said.
The leaked contaminants in the Solterra spill appear to be hydrocarbon in nature, and have been diluted with rainwater, the District said in a news release.
Crews have yet to determine the volume of leaked fluid. However, a black tank on the property looked to be 36 inches in diameter by eight feet.
Liquid from the breach travelled from the tank through the storm sewer system to the stormwater pond.
The spill was contained as much as was possible in the stormwater management “stinky” pond with absorbent booms and through the closure of the flap gate into the Squamish Estuary, the District said.
“I think, our staff responded really quickly,” Heintzman said on Monday.
“The landowner got their people out there, MOE was on site. The main thing is we didn’t want this stuff to get into the estuary proper, to try and contain it within that retainer pond. That is the reason we have a retainer pond.”
There was no indication of public safety risk from the spill, but the District said it would continue work to “mitigate as much of an impact as possible.”
A call about the spill originally came into the District at 4:20 p.m. Nov. 15, and other calls from local residents followed, District staff said.
An oil separator would have prevented the contaminants from entering the pond, a District spokesperson acknowledged and added that one is going to be considered as part of the 2018 budget.
“Due to oil and hydrocarbons present on our roads that enter the stormwater system — and notwithstanding this current issue — an oil-grit separator is proposed to be installed on the inlet to this pond,” read an email to The Chief from the District. “The first phase is to install an oil-grit separator in 2018, and $400,000 has been requested in the 2018 Financial Plan for this work.”
Further, $100,000 has been requested in the municipal Financial Plan for 2019 to complete a study and potentially complete some physical work for longer-term improvements.
**Please note, this post has been updated as more information became available.
Photo by John Buchanan
