Sydney Tar Ponds

The Sydney Tar Ponds, also referred to simply as the Tar Ponds, is a hazardous waste site on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Located on the eastern shore of Sydney Harbour in the former city of Sydney (now amalgamated into the Cape Breton Regional Municipality), the Tar Ponds form a tidal estuary at the mouth of Muggah Creek, a freshwater stream that empties into the harbour. Over the last century, runoff from coke ovens associated with a now-decommissioned steel mill [1] filled the estuary with a variety of coal-based contaminants and sludge. Efforts to clean up the waterway have been dogged by false starts, delays, and political controversy. After extensive public consultation and technical study, a CDN$400-million cleanup plan, jointly funded by the Government of Canada and Nova Scotia, awaits further environmental assessment.

Contents

1 Geography

2 History

3 Cleanup

4 Controversy

5 Next steps

6 Environmental Impact Assessment

7 Notes

8 References

9 External Links

Geography

The Tar Ponds are located at (46�08′ 45” N 60�11′ 20” W). The North Pond and the South Pond have a combined area of 31 hectares (77 acres), and contain 700,000 metric tonnes of contaminated sediments.

Missing image
Gulls_in_south_pond_4.jpg

Herring gulls resting on a mud flat in the South Pond of the Sydney Tar Ponds, September 2004.

The nearby coke ovens site spans 68 hectares (168 acres) on a sloping field overlooking the estuary. It contains an estimated 560,000 tonnes of contaminated soil.

A small stream, the Coke Ovens Brook Connector, connects the coke ovens with the Tar Ponds. It served as the main pathway for contaminants migrating from the coke ovens to the Tar Ponds. To the east of the coke ovens, and uphill from them, an abandoned municipal dump served as an additional source of contaminated groundwater, or leachate.

The polluted sites lie in the middle of the former city of Sydney (estimated population 25,000), now part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) (2001 population 105,968).

Almost all of the contaminants derive from coal, but the Tar Ponds include two pockets containing an estimated total of 3.8 metric tonnes of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Although often described as such, the Tar Ponds are not Canada’s largest or worst contaminated waste site. Hamilton Harbour is larger, as are several sites in the Canadian Arctic. The contaminants in the Tar Ponds and coke ovens are not unusual. Almost all result from coke production, one of the most common industrial processes of the 19th and 20th centuries.

History

In 1901, investors from Boston opened a major steel works on Sydney Harbour. Sydney had everything needed for steelmaking, including locally mined coal, nearby iron ore from Bell Island in Newfoundland, a good harbour for shipping, and plenty of cooling water. By 1912, the mill was turning out nearly half of Canada’s steel production.

The steel mill and the nearby coal mines that fueled it operated for nearly a century under a variety of owners. In 1967, the Hawker-Siddley Corp. announced plans to close the mill. The Dominion Steel and Coal Company had already begun phasing out the coal mines. In response to the threatened loss of thousands of jobs in a region with poor economic prospects, the government of Nova Scotia purchased the steel mill, renaming it the "Sydney Steel Corporation" (SYSCO). The government of Canada took over the coal mines, as well as the coke ovens that that produced the pollution flowing into the Tar Ponds. SYSCO bought the coke ovens from the federal government in 1973.

By the mid-1970s, the environmental movement was gaining headway in North America, and concern about pollution from the steel mill and coke ovens was rising. In 1982, scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans discovered polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a family of chemicals produced by incomplete combustion of organic material, in lobster caught in Sydney Harbour near Muggah Creek. They ordered the South Arm of the harbour closed to lobster fishing, and fingered the Tar Ponds as the likely source of contamination.

The discovery increased pressure to close the decrepit coke ovens, which finally ceased production in 1988. SYSCO converted to an electric arc manufacturing process two years later, and stopped production altogether in 2000. The mill is now dismantled.

In 1986, Canada and Nova Scotia signed a $34-million agreement to dredge the Tar Ponds and pump the sediments through a mile-long pipeline to a temporary incinerator and power plant. After many delays, the incinerator was completed, and passed required air emissions tests, in 1994. However, the pipeline system proved unable to handle the thick, lumpy, Tar Ponds sludge, and the project was abandoned in 1995.

In 1996, the Nova Scotia government proposed a plan to bury the Tar Ponds under slag procured from the steel mill. By this time, the project had attracted local critics, who condemned the plan.

In 1999, the federal, provincial, and municipal governments jointly funded a community organization, the Joint Action Group (JAG), with a mandate to seek community consensus on cleanup options. The three governments also embarked on detailed environmental site assessments, and a variety of preliminary cleanup projects. JAG eventually sponsored more than 950 public meetings. No clear consensus on cleanup technologies emerged. Governments, meanwhile, generated more than 620 technical and scientific reports on the problem, and possible solutions.

Cleanup

On May 12, 2004, the Governments of Canada and Nova Scotia announced a 10-year, CDN$400-million plan to clean up the Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens. The official Project Description Document ⁽¹⁾ calls for PCB-contaminated sediments to be destroyed in an approved PCB incinerator to be set up temporarily at a decommissioned industrial facility five kilometers east of the coke ovens. Remaining materials would be treated in place and then contained within an engineered containment system.

Missing image
Road_into_site2.jpg

Byproducts from coke ovens that operated on this property for 88 years contaminated the Sydney Tar Ponds. The site will be cleaned up as part of the Tar Ponds project.

At the Tar Ponds, treatment will consist of solidification and stabilization, a process by which contaminated sediments are mixed with Portland cement powder or similar hardening agents. At the coke ovens, contaminated soils will be treated with a form of bioremediation known as land farming, in which hydrocarbon-eating bacteria and nutrients are tilled into the upper surface of the soils. The sites will then be contained within a layered cap and impermeable sidewalls, and then landscaped for as yet undetermined future use.

A special operating agency of the Nova Scotia government, the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency, will manage the cleanup on behalf of the two governments, in partnership with the Department of Public Works and Government Services which is the lead federal agency. Fifteen community groups in such fields as environment, health, business, labour, religion, recreation, municipal government, environment, and higher education, will contribute delegates to a Community Liaison Committee that will serve as a sounding board for project managers during the cleanup.

Controversy

Establishing a cleanup plan for the Tar Ponds and coke ovens site has taken more than 22 years. Hundreds of volunteers contributed more than 100,000 hours to the Joint Action Group's search for acceptable cleanup options. JAG and its government partners have attracted vocal critics, most prominently the Sierra Club of Canada. Delays in getting the project started have left many residents frustrated.

Opinions divide on the best cleanup method. Some residents favour digging up and destroying all of the contaminants. Others prefer not to disturb the contaminated material at all. The Sierra Club of Canada opposes plans to incinerate the PCB materials in favour of novel destruction technologies such as hydrogen reduction and soil washing. Project managers say the community has asked that only proven technologies be used.

Next steps

In 2005 and 2006, the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency will undertake four preliminary cleanup projects, including the re-routing of the Coke Ovens Brook Connector to a less contaminated area, and the construction of a coffer dam at the boundary between the Tar Ponds and Sydney Harbour. The preliminary projects are all intended to prevent further environmental damage while the larger cleanup is assessed.

Environmental Impact Assessment

Through the winter of 2005, controversy raged as to the type of environmental impact assessment the Government of Canada should require for the Tar Ponds cleanup. The choice boiled down to the two most rigorous forms of assessment allowed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act⁽²⁾: a comprehensive study, conducted by remediation experts within Public Works and Government Services Canada, and a panel review, conducted by a group of experts from outside government, who would hold formal public hearings.

The Government of Nova Scotia, the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, and a broad coalition of local business, labor, and health organizations favored a comprehensive study, which has half as many steps as a panel review. They argued that after 950 public meetings and 620 technical reports, the issue had been studied and debated enough, and it was time to get on with the cleanup.

The Sierra Club of Canada favored a panel review as the only way to ensure necessary scrutiny of plans to incinerate PCB contaminated material, and to guarantee consideration of alternative technologies.

On May 2, 2005, federal Environment Minister St�phane Dion and Pubic Works Minister Scott Brison sided with the Sierra Club, ordering a panel review. In the face of predictions that the decision would delay the cleanup and add to its cost, Dion directed the panel to complete its work by July, 2006, and not to make recommendations that would drive cleanup costs beyond the $400 million Ottawa and Nova Scotia had already committed.

"Because it is the right decision, because we're able to do it in a timely manner, and because we are confident the cost will be kept under control, I am confident that we will all be together again... a year from now to receive the report of the successful panel process we are announcing here today," Dion told a Sydney news conference.

Ron Russell, the provincial minister responsible for the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency, called the decision “disappointing and disheartening.” He said the timelines announced by Dion were not “realistic, achievable, or enforceable.” The decision, he said, “risks significant delay, and in the worst case, could derail the project altogether.”⁽³⁾

As the two governments began negotiations agree on terms for the panel review, the first deadline in the federal timetable passed without action.