Abstracts

190 - Integrating Risk Management into Redevelopment of an
Urban Brownfield Site
Bradley Carew & Sandra Pilgrim
City of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
J. David Miller
Department of Chemistry – Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Kevin Hicks
AMEC Foster Wheeler, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Stuart Bailey
AMEC Foster Wheeler, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Lansdowne Park is owned by the City of Ottawa. The 16 ha site has been used since
1888 as a fairground and for sports events. The lands were also used as staging areas for
the military during the Boer War and WWI and WWII. The redevelopment plan included
a new underground parking garage, residential, retail, a stadium, and recreational
areas. Bounded on one side by the historic Rideau Canal, the site is surrounded by mature
residential housing, shops and restaurants. As portions of the site were being changed to
a more sensitive land use, Records of Site Condition (RSC) under Ontario Regulation
153/04 were required.
During the early development of the site, portions of inlets adjacent to the Rideau Canal
were filled with landfill waste. Coal heating was used to heat some of the buildings dating
back to 1896. Unsurprisingly, the environmental investigations identified soil contaminated
by PAHs and metals. To minimize the environmental impact, all contaminated soils
were kept on-site and appropriate risk management measures developed to ensure no impacts
to human health or the environment.
To facilitate the redevelopment, the site was split into three distinct zones. Zone A consisted
of the new parking garage, retail and residential buildings. Zone B consisted of the existing
hockey arena and football stadium and two existing buildings. Zone C encompassed
a new municipal park including an orchard, large open greenspace, skating rink, public art
pieces and pathways.
In total, 30,000 m 3 of contaminated soils were excavated from the new parking structure and
used construct an earthen berm. This strategy eliminated the environmental costs and public
nuisance of transporting the contaminated soil off site. To address community concerns, air
monitoring was conducted to document the management of dusts during the remedial work.
The future parkland portion of the site (Zone C) contained the historic landfill which was
approximately 50,000 m 3 in size. Park features were designed to allow this to remain in
place and also accommodate the relocated contaminated soils from Zone A. This resulted
in savings of >$8 million. Innovative risk management strategies for the future park included
selection of shallow rooting tree species and hard and soft caps above the contaminated
soils. In 2014, a risk-based RSC was filed for the parkland portion of the site (Zone C).
The innovative soil management strategy, risk assessment and staged development were
keys factors that lead to a successful brownfield redevelopment project.
IAH-CNC 2015 WATERLOO CONFERENCE
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