MORE INFORMATION ON THE POSSIBLE VAPOUR INTRUSION ISSUE IN GUELPH

I posted here both last Thursday and Friday about recent information and soil vapour data I had received from the neighbourhood near Victoria and York Rd just north of the Eramosa River. Yesterday while looking for information on-line about other nearby industries I stumbled across two announcements/bulletins on the City of Guelph's website. The first from March 13, 2020 was titled "Updated: Update on environmental testing on Menzie, Audrey, Lawrence Avenues". The second date April 3, 2020 was titled "Second round of soil vapour testing on Menzie, Audrey, Lawrence and laneway starts April 6". Firstly the City are to be commended for putting this information out there. That's the good news. The bad news is that the March 13 bulletin suggests that the Ministry of Environment (MECP) "...out of an abundance of caution..." used a threshold of 250 ug/m3 to evaluate the need for taking indoor air sampling. Well let me advise you that in my experience the only time the Ontario MOE/MECP uses an abundance of caution is when they have been caught redhanded gilding the lily and they've made the decision not to get caught again right away.

So soil vapour testing was done last November and ten homes have already been advised that the MOE/MECP are offering to do indoor air monitoring inside their homes looking for trichloeorethylene (TCE) vapours. Meanwhile this past Monday to Wednesday another round of outdoor soil vapour testing was done.

A quick look around the neighbourhood is not encouraging. I am now aware of exactly how close to this residential neighbourhood were/are other industries. On-line it appears that both Hart Chemical and Huntsman Corp. were/are both located at 256 Victoria Rd. Presumably the one company purchased the site from the other. I am aware that major environmental remediation has been either completed or underway for many years at that location. I suspect some sort of hydraulic containment was involved to stop the flow of chemicals into the Eramosa River. I'd be interested to know what if anything was done to stop soil vapours from migrating. Between the former IMICO, north and west of the neighbourhood and these two companies to the east it makes it clear that heavy industry located in the neighbourhood never has been compatible with residential homes.