Toronto 309 Cherry Street | 162.2m | 49s | Castlepoint Numa | SvN

Bioremediation advances mean that much can often be done onsite now, and the soil would not necessarily have to be moved. If it cannot be cleaned enough, another possibility would be what happened at Market Wharf: the site is capped with a veneer of clean fill, and the foundation built pretty much at the surface with only caissons for piles drilled into the ground as opposed to excavation for a garage.

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Yikes. Have we learned nothing from the Love Canal?
 
Love Canal is a whole different story

Love Canal is a different story, but to own land overlaying contamination? If that lens of contamination moves over time into adjacent sites and causes harm, who would be responsible for compensating that harm?

I'm glad to see that a bioremediation process is in place: sound forward thinking. If there are chlorinated compounds involved, microbes to handle them are a home-grown Toronto technology (KB-1, a short form for the inventors nomenclature of kick-butt-1, or so I heard).
 
Is there seriously a place (development?) called "Love Canal"? I'd do a google search of "Love Canal Toronto" but I'm scared of what the IT department would think about the results. ;)
 
Is there seriously a place (development?) called "Love Canal"? I'd do a google search of "Love Canal Toronto" but I'm scared of what the IT department would think about the results. ;)

Read this (don't they teach this in schools anymore?): http://library.buffalo.edu/libraries/specialcollections/lovecanal/about/background.php

I'm sure the soil remediation methods for the Donlands and Portlands are sound, but I don't know the specifics and when I see something like "a veneer of clean fill" over contaminated soil, alarm bells start going off. Considering the history of environmental disasters and the legacy of cancer and birth defects from disasters like this, I think it's worth learning about.
 
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It's still in the flood zone I believe.
I don't believe the regulatory flood plain extends south of Eastern.

Nor have I seen or heard of any flooding there with recent storm events, some of which have been reported to have exceed 100 year events.
 
I don't believe the regulatory flood plain extends south of Eastern.

From the staff report:
The majority of the Port Lands north of the Ship Channel are subject to flood risk. In 1994, the City implemented the Lower Don Special Policy Area (SPA) in the former City of Toronto Official Plan. A large portion of the flood prone lands are included within the Special Policy Area boundary. However, lands in the western portion of the Port Lands, including the subject property, were not included within the SPA boundary. Prior to City Council adopting OPA 388, a one-zone concept under the PPS applied. OPA 388, which included the subject property, introduced a Two Zone Concept for floodplain management, as well as site and environmental planning policies. The Two-Zone Concept proposes a 'Floodway' and 'Flood Fringe', highlighting areas both not capable (floodway) and potentially capable (flood fringe) of accommodating development. Policy D_26 was also introduced and identifies that development will not be permitted until specific criteria, such as the completion of flood protection works, are fulfilled.
(Emphasis mine.) I'm having a bit of trouble parsing all of this, but it sounds like the property is within an area that was identified as part of an area requiring flood protection infrastructure, though it was not in the initial regulatory flood plain area.
 

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