Another five monitoring wells have been installed in Canatara Park as part of ongoing efforts to keep tabs on oily waste from a former dump.
The new “sentry wells” are “going in in strategic areas around the animal farm and Lake Chipican,” said Sarnia environmental services manager Joe Boothe.
In 2019, monitoring wells in the park detected floating oil — a mix of diesel, weathered fluids, heavy oil and other hydrocarbons — moving beyond its traditional boundaries from a municipal dump, closed in 1967, that had accepted industrial waste from 1930-44.
City council in 2021 signed off on a plan to reinforce and build new sheet-pile walls to contain the oily waste that was moving closer to bodies of water and private property.
Higher water levels at the time were believed to be the culprit.
They’ve since subsidized, Boothe said.
“There is no oil in those areas, but we wanted to put in monitoring wells just in case. . . we never do have a high water level event like that again,” he said. “Just so we can track it and see where it’s going.”
Direct Environmental Drilling’s recently completed a $27,000 contract to install the new wells, and they and other monitoring wells in the park are checked every week or so, Boothe said.
“As long as there’s no sheen or anything else in that area, we know everything is staying in the containment area,” he said, noting the city’s monitoring plan has the Environment Ministry’s approval.
“If we get oil in those spots, then of course we report it to the ministry” and further remedial work will be needed.
About $300,000 in sheet-pile wall building and repair work has been done since 2021, Boothe said, and a contract for the remaining work – estimated in late 2021 at $250,000 – is expected to come to council this fall.
“Over the next couple of years, we do have to extend some of the sheet pile walls,” Boothe said, noting plans are to build about 30 meters a year to spread out the expense.
Those wall addition projects are targeted for Michigan Avenue and east of the pavilion near Lake Chipican, city officials have said.
The first projects involved creating a wall near the park’s western edge, and improving another near Lake Chipican, where material was seeing through.
“One thing that’s important to know is we haven’t had any off-site impacts” since the site has been monitored, Boothe said. “Everything is working as designed.”