Toxic cleanup bill keeps rising
City asked for another $3 million
Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
(Apr 19, 2010)
Hamilton city council is being asked to put up $3 million more toward the cleanup of Randle Reef -- bringing its contribution to $8 million -- but only if Burlington and Halton Region together ante up $4 million.
Staff say the extra is needed to get to the $30-million minimum local share demanded by the federal and provincial governments, which promised $30 million each when the projected total cost of the harbour project was $90 million.
Jim Harnum, the city's senior director of environment and sustainable infrastructure, says the estimated cost is now up to $105 million and the two senior levels of government are being asked to make up the difference, but they insist community sources still raise at least $30 million.
Randle Reef is a shallow area near U.S. Steel's Hamilton Works, heavily contaminated with toxic coal tar. The cleanup plan involves building a containment structure around the worst sediment, then adding less-contaminated mud from other areas of the harbour and capping it to create a shipping pier.
The work must be done to stop the contamination from spreading and to help get the harbour off the International Joint Commission's list of Great Lakes toxic hot spots.
In a report to go to city council's public works committee today, Harnum says commitments so far include the city's $5 million, $6 million from the Hamilton Port Authority and $7 million from U.S. Steel, for a total of $18 million
The U. S. Steel money would fulfil a commitment made by Stelco Inc. before being bought by the American company. The size of its pledge has not previously been disclosed.
City officials are using a bookkeeping tactic to inflate the local share to $23 million.
They say steel piling that would have cost $12 million at peak prices can now be bought for about $7 million.
They count the $5-million saving as part of the local commitment. With $3 million more from Hamilton and $4 million from Halton, the total comes to $30 million.
Harnum proposes the city takes its extra $3 million from the water and sewer rate budget rather than from property tax revenue.
He said federal and provincial officials are not asking Hamilton to increase its share.
"They said to us, 'You must raise at least the $30 million to which you committed. We can work with that.'"
He said: "The key is to get it going before our share rises to $38 million or $40 million. We have another 10 years to raise funds while the work goes on, but let's get started."
Harnum also said he expects Environment Canada to fill a leadership vacuum created when the port authority backed out.
Hamilton's two Conservative MPs wrote Environment Minister Jim Prentice earlier this year asking the federal government to step in, and Harnum says Environment Canada staff are now asking to be put in charge.