Environmental Remediation Pilot Project - Former St. Theresa School Site - Corbeil and Adjacent Cenotaph Park

The Municipality of East Ferris intends to pilot a system to capture hydrocarbons from the soil and groundwater, leading to brownfield remediation. The impacted site is located within the core of the Village of Corbeil at Ste. Theresa primary school where an abandoned concrete fuel tank leaked. The contamination plume is migrating towards private properties and a river with aquatic life. The Municipality of East Ferris is proposing to implement a system composed of skimmers and collection trenches to capture the free product (hydrocarbons) presently in the ground. The objective is to remediate the site so that environmental impacts downstream are reduced, groundwater users in the area can use the water safely in the future, and the soil and groundwater on the Municipal properties affected do not impact on the use of the facilities due to health concerns. The remediation will be achieved with the use of a portable belt oil skimmer to evaluate removal rates/efficiency of the hydrocarbons from the subsurface. This portable trailer system will be moved between the seven monitoring wells known to contain free product hydrocarbons. At first, it is proposed to construct a trench collection system equipped with perforated drainage pipe and collection manholes through a portion of the site to assess the effectiveness of a trench collection system. The manholes will be equipped with either belt oil skimmers (depending on the success with the portable system) or floating skimmers. The trench will be developed in phases to confirm subsurface conditions (may vary from sand, till, cobbles, boulders, clay, fill, etc.) and the need for significant contaminated water management (pumping, collection, treatment, etc.). The Municipality of East Ferris expects that the pilot project will protect aquatic life in La Vase River, human health from exposure to contaminants in drinking water wells, and the use of the properties. The property owners within the area who may have been directly affected have already been consulted regarding the work done to date. An open public information session describing the findings of the study was held with the public within proximity of the site. The Municipality of East Ferris will consult with other stakeholders/agencies such as MOECC, MTO, North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority. With the help of monitoring wells, the following will be monitored: • the amount of oil/hydrocarbons recovered/removed from the remediation system; • the thickness of the product; and • groundwater quality. The pilot project will remediate 10,000 litres of groundwater, or 10% of total contaminated groundwater. An estimated area of 6.6 km2 is contaminated. If the pilot is successful, the full-scale project will be to complete the remediation of groundwater and rehabilitation of the site. It will require continuing pumping of the free product, which may require additional trenching and skimmers system and ongoing monitoring. Once the municipality is satisfied with the free product removal, the soil remediation will start as a capital project. At the end of the initiative, the Municipality of East Ferris will hand out the following deliverables: a Pilot Remediation Evaluation Report and the Assessment of Environmental, Social and Economic Impacts. The knowledge value of this initiative can be found in the fact that the remediation pilot program is expected to be well documented and the information on the effectiveness of the approach can be shared with other municipalities. There is very good potential for this type of project to be used in similar communities, as the contaminant to remediate is common to many properties and municipalities. The initiative is built on GMF initiative 15082, a feasibility study which assessed the level of contamination for the same brownfield. (Project description from original funding application)