Mountain View County Former Operational Services Yard Environmental Rehabilitation Program

Mountain View County will prepare a Remedial Action Plan (RAP) for the Former Operational Yards, a 0.17 hectare site in the Town of Sundre, in order to redevelop the property as a green space for public use. The site was formerly used for the storage and maintenance of County highway maintenance vehicles, supplies, and materials. The property is located in a prime location, and the green space would greatly enhance the Town’s centre. The site lies within Mountain View County's Environmentally Significant Areas as identified in 2008, as it is close to the Red Deer River. The County completed both a Phase II and a Phase III Environmental Site Assessments which identified that petroleum hydrocarbon constituents (PHCs) were present in the soil and groundwater as a result of Underground storage tanks (USTs) which were removed in the early 1990s. Soil and groundwater investigations were carried out from 2008 through 2016 using monitoring wells. Remediation using chemical injection was performed in 2012, and all on-site structures were removed in the fall of 2015. However, hydrocarbon-impacted soil and groundwater persists in the center of the site. Economic, social, and environmental factors will be used in a Remedial Options Analysis (ROA) to determine which remedial method (or combination of methods) should be selected to remediate the site. The options include: • Chemical oxidation via injection • Chemical oxidation via passive in-situ methods • Soil vapour extraction • Risk assessment • Soil excavation Groundwater sampling using existing monitoring wells, data tabulation, and reporting will be used to undertake the RAP. It is the intention of the County to remediate the site to Alberta Tier 1 criteria for residential land use in the most cost-efficient way possible, and to select a low-impact method such as chemical oxidation, to minimize the environmental footprint. Although low-impact methods may take more time than soil excavation, it will allow concurrent redevelopment to take place during remediation and reduce the overall remediation costs. This initiative will be undertaken with direct consideration of the Mountain View County Municipal Development Plan, and the County has been working in consultation with the Town of Sundre to develop an end-use goal for the land. The ROA with RAP recommendations will be guided by this end-use goal. (Project description from original funding application)