St. Clair River
(BlackburnNews.com file photo by Dave Dentinger)St. Clair River (BlackburnNews.com file photo by Dave Dentinger)
Sarnia

Engineering mercury cleanup on floor of St. Clair River

A detailed engineering design for the management of three pockets of mercury-contaminated sediment in the St. Clair River will begin early in the new year.

The St. Clair Conservation Authority has been granted $1 million from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservations and Parks and Dow Canada to commission the work.

General Manager Brian McDougall said it's really positive news.

"We are very fortunate to have had a partnership come together between the provincial/federal governments and Dow," said McDougall. "That has brought forth enough funding for us to do the next step, which is the design and documentation of the actual implementation of our sediment remediation project for the St. Clair River."

The sediment, believed to have come from the former Dow Chemical plant in Sarnia, is located along a nine-kilometre stretch of the riverbed from Sarnia to Stag Island.

McDougall said the design phase is expected to take two years.

"It's a fairly detailed process because we want to make sure it's done right. In the early teens we did come up with a plan as to this is the type of remediation that's going to go on, and we're now taking that and really developing it down to the fine steps as to exactly what will happen," said McDougall.

McDougall said once that step is completed, discussions on how to implement the project will begin.

Removing the sediment, estimated to cost more than $28 million in 2014, is one of the remaining obstacles to the delisting of the waterway as an environmental hot spot.

The St. Clair River is one of 43 Areas of Concern (AOC) originally designated in 1987 under the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

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