Aglukkaq: "
...and in the main estimates this year we are committing even more."
Any bets this becomes a 2015 election promise instead of a 2015 budget item?
This was in the Spec letters section yesterday. Might be worth discussing, but I thought there was a risk that dredging into the worst of the sediments could stir and disperse the contamination farther into the harbour? (hence the idea to contain the highest concentrations with the structure first)
Clean up Randle Reef bit by bit
The Hamilton Spectator - June 20, 2014
http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story...ef-bit-by-bit/
Costs puts Randle Reef project at risk (June 18)
There is another option besides tweaking the current engineering proposals and associated costs.
It is a more realistic strategy long advocated by environmental experts and activists, namely proceed incrementally, not all at one go.
This strategy was advanced in the Environmental Assessment done by Environment Canada in 1995 and then nixed by senior bureaucrats.
Incremental cleanup is designed to remove and, ideally, treat the wastes by feasible portions like the 30,000 cubic metres used as a "model" in the 95EA.
Similar portions would be removed on a regular (e.g. annual) basis. The costs would be defrayed removal by removal, ideally by gradually using up the current IOU donations.
If treatment were included, the clean waste could be placed back into the harbour, rather than trucked to an industrial landfill.
It would be sensible to swap the big visible legacy of the current plan for the different strategy of incrementalism.
Let's use our brains to solve this new problem!
Mark Sproule-Jones, Emeritus Professor and Copps Chair, McMaster University