The Canadian National Capital Commission recently award contracts to a number of environmental consulting firms to conduct environmental assessment of contaminated sites in Ottawa.  A number of firms were awarded contracts of $833,333 for providing contaminated site assessment services.  The firms were DST Consulting Engineers Inc., Geofirma Engineering Ltd., GHD Ltd., Golder Associates Ltd., SNC-Lavelin Inc., and Terrapex Environmental Ltd.

Under the contracts, the NCC may request as part of the purchase order process, but is not necessarily limited to the following consultant services under the resulting Agreements:

  • Provide environmental reports (either English or French);
  • Contaminated Site Identification and characterization associated with various sources of contamination;
  • Historical review of site activities, including consultation with municipal, provincial and federal regulatory agencies;
  • Field surveys;
  • Site investigations (sampling of contaminated or potentially contaminated media);
  • All parameters analyzed should be compared to both the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Federal Guidelines as well as the applicable provincial criteria;
  • Interpretation of laboratory analyses;
  • Contaminated area delineation for soil and groundwater, which includes coloured maps that clearly identify and illustrate the testing locations, the contaminants found, the dimensions of the contaminated volumes and the affected area;
  • Recommendations of further investigations, if required, with all the associated costs;
  • Provide guidance and expertise with Federal Regulation compliance;
  • Provide maintenance and repair services for existing monitoring infrastructure;
  • Evaluation of remediation technologies, which includes, identifying the different remediation options and the costs associated;
  • Evaluation of strategies to optimize recycling of material during remediation projects;
  • Completion of risk assessments (human health and ecological) under federal and provincial guidelines;
  • Provide Engineering Plans and Specification documents for remediation and construction projects (French & English);
  • Provide site surveillance during remediation and construction activities;
  • Provide project management and construction management services;
  • Provide landfill engineering and management services; and,
  • Provide long-term management strategies for complex contaminated sites.

The NCC has a number of development and rehabilitation projects underway in Ottawa including the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats, a property just west of Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  The property is contaminated from historical industrial activity and must be remediated before it can be redeveloped into a commercial and residential community.

In the past, the NCC spent $6.7 million to decontaminate the soil on a 5.7-hectare site. The process involved removing and remediating 110,000 cubic metres of soil.

With the current area awaiting remediation being just over three times that size at 21 hectares, RendezVous LeBreton, the development company that is partnering with the NCC to develop the site, has a considerably larger and undoubtedly more expensive amount of soil to remediate.

As of the Spring of 2018, the total cost of the soil decontamination at LeBreton Flats is undetermined at this time, but is estimated to be around $170 million, according to RendezVous LeBreton Group.

The empty land in LeBreton Flats awaits its redevelopment, but the soil that lies beneath its surface is in need of a cleanup, as well. Photo By: Meaghan Richens, Centretown News