For more context about the redevelopment of much of Hamilton's former Stelco complex, the
local news story has an aerial view of much of the lower city showing how the proposal fits in. The image covers roughly 12 km side to side and more than 8 km top to bottom. Much of the operation of Dofasco (now owned by Arcelor-Mittal) is in that other large dark rectangle just to the left of the redevelopment area (in this view, east is to the left and north to the bottom) -- it will still be there as a working steel-making plant, so there should be no illusions that what's proposed won't have to be compatible with surrounding industrial lands. Incidentally, Dofasco aims to stop using coke and begin making steel with natural gas before switching to hydrogen eventually... this is also ambitious but will do a lot to "clean up" pollution issues.
Slate must have a reasonable case or knows it can get government funding to help with remediation where it's needed, unless this is just window-dressing.
From the story:
Quote:
Due to its long history as a steel manufacturing hub, much of the land will to be remediated before anything new can built. However, Dejonckheere said because much of the area is proposed to be home to advanced manufacturing facilities, the requirements for clean up are less severe than they would be if a residential project was being built there.
Even so, he said Slate identified 20 to 40 acres of the property that are being designed as “hot spots” that will need intensive clean up. Depending how the remediation is done, the process could take years.
“You can do everything from what is conventionally called a 'dig and dump,'” Dejonckheere said. “You can do that in a couple of months. Or there are several versions of land farming which can take much longer. Five to seven years.”
Dejonckheere said Slate assumes it will bear much of the cost of the cleanup, but the company will also seek to take advantage of funding for environmental cleanup available from the City of Hamilton and other levels of government.
The areas that may become public access zones are not located in these hot spots, he said.
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What's buried within the fill that the steel facilities were later built upon is definitely a big unknown, and there will be surprises. This was all done in a time when environmental regulations were not stringent and there was probably little oversight.
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