Contaminated site poses no risk: Boeing

Posted Feb 9, 2012 By Derek Dunn

---

EMC News - Contamination by a known carcinogen at the former Boeing Arnprior site is being closely monitored and poses no risk, according to company and government officials at a Feb. 2 open house in Arnprior.

As part of the 2005 sale to Arnprior Aerospace, Boeing agreed to retain responsibility for the environmental clean-up of an unknown number of drums containing a degreaser.

The Royal Canadian Air Force opened the site in 1942. In 1953 Piasecki Helicopters of Canada began offering spares and servicing helicopters at the site.

Boeing bought Piasecki in 1960, and supplied precision-machined metal parts for commercial aircraft, eventually buying the 25-acre site in 1983.

Throughout those years, volatile organic compounds - primarily trichloroethylene (TCE) - were used as a degreasing solvent.

TCE was a common cleaner for removing oil used on cutting tools before parts could be primed and painted.

Spills and deliberate dumpings seeped through cracks in the floorboards at the most northerly, oldest part of the building - across from the former emergency services college - and entered the ground.

Almost all the Arnprior Aerospace property boundary is contaminated down six metres to the bedrock.

It wasn't until the sale to Arnprior Aerospace that TCE levels were found to exceed provincial standards in the site's soil and groundwater.

Since that time, the company hired Golder Associates, an international environmental engineering firm, to monitor and clean up the site.

More than 130 wells were dug on the site for testing purposes, a rink-sized excavation project has removed 2,500 tons of contaminated soil, and abandoned underground storage tank and paint sludge were removed, and new storm water drain lines were created.

Two private drinking wells were found to have trace amounts of contamination, well below provincially-acceptable levels, according to Boeing spokesperson Cindy Glickert.

The company installed a filter system on the water supply at two private wells at a farmhouse on Baskin Drive.

Glickert explained that the open house, attended primarily by "rock enthusiasts" from Ottawa, is not meant to worry area residents.

"We're not holding this meeting to release any great, new findings," Glickert said. "This is about explaining what we are doing, to be open and transparent."

Five new wells along with drilling rigs will draw attention this summer, she indicated, so publicizing the work being done should allay any fears.

Boeing's senior manager of environmental remediation and environmental health and safety, Steven Tochko, said the contamination won't seep into the Madawaska River.

"It won't make it to the river," Tochko said. "No one's drinking the water. It's getting deeper than any of the wells in the area."

The town of Arnprior's environmental engineering technologist, Abby Barclay, said she was impressed with the open house, and the commitment Boeing shows to the clean-up.

"I got good reviews across the board (from open house participants)," Barclay said.

Barclay explained that Golder submits site data to the town, the county health unit, and the provincial Ministry of the Environment. However, the government doesn't independently collect data from the site.

Barclay said it would be redundant and that Golder, which was named last week as one of Canada's top 10 companies to work for, is a highly reputable firm. That reputation would be compromised were it found to have reported false information, she noted.

She is not aware of other contaminated sites of this magnitude in Arnprior. There are known brownfields, but typically a property won't be pegged as contaminated until it comes up for sale. That's when the province is alerted.

derek.dunn@metroland.com




blog comments powered by Disqus