“I know that’s going to be years from now but this is a good start,” Brown said of the announcement from Environment Minister Iain Rankin on Tuesday morning that the province will take a first step toward remediating a former construction and demolition site in Harrietsfield that has been contaminating the water.
“There is contamination from the former RDM Recycling plant in Harrietsfield and there were two ministerial orders issued in 2016 which ordered the companies that were involved to do a site assessment and then report and monitor groundwater and submit a remediation plan,” Rankin said.
“Those orders were not yet complied with.” The minister said his department has exercised its authority under the Environment Act to take the actions that are listed in the ministerial order, the first of which is the site assessment.
Shortly after that we will look at the options provided in that assessment so that we know the extent of the contamination and then we will able to prepare the appropriate plan to remediate.” Stephen MacIsaac, president and CEO of Nova Scotia Lands, said there are a number of questions to be answered in the initial assessment, including the size of the contaminated area.
“The first step is really to go in and do an inventory of the site and collect the information that’s available,” MacIsaac said.
The report said the leaching collection system has not been emptied for 13 years.
In April 2017, Brown filed for a private prosecution under the Environment Act against the two numbered companies that operated the defunct recycling site between 2002 and 2013, citing their failure to comply with ministerial orders.
“They are numbered companies and we know they are before the court and we decided that we are going to take action regardless of what happens there.” Rankin said Tuesday that the initial $225,000 for the assessment will be a fraction of the remediation cost.
“There is an expectation that we will recoup those costs.” MacIsaac said Nova Scotia Lands will collect data, then follow up with a request for proposals to determine the scope of the assessment.
It really depends on what the issues are on site, which we don’t know yet.” Right now, that’s good enough for Brown, who says she’s been battling for clean drinking water for nearly a decade.