Where is our Canary? - Fight It Now

Site of the Old Regina Imperial Oil Refinery

Due to the fragility of canaries, miners have used these yellow birds as their early warning method of the mine’s environment regarding safe or dangerous air conditions. Above ground, we have to rely on our governmental institutions as our early warning of dangerous environmental conditions. These institutions are charged with the oversight responsibility regarding the handling of hazardous substances resulting in contamination caused by accident, or in the course of an industrial process. These institutions are expected to give us early warning signals in the form of comprehensive environmental assessments, and to the enacting, and enforcement of environmental laws, addressing the health and safety of our communities.

So where are the canaries gone in Regina, regarding the City of Regina’s ongoing mishandling of the former Imperial Oil Refinery?

In 1916, Imperial Oil constructed an oil refinery in the northeast area of the City of Regina, bordered by Winnipeg Street to the West, First Avenue to the South, MacDonald Street to the East, and today’s Ring Road to the North. After more than 60 years of operation, the refinery was closed down, and the City of Regina purchased the site in 1979. Typical to refineries built in the early century, there was very little environmental oversight, and the handling of hazardous waste often involved the simple burying on site, or dumping in the disposal grounds lying South of the Ring Road between Winnipeg Street and what is now Leon’s Furniture and Global TV, were piezometer pipes can be seen protruding above the ground. It wasn’t until the mid ’80s, after the City had carelessly rezoned the central refinery area for a creamery (Dairy Producers’ Cooperative), that it became known that the area the City constructed the City Transit Center, was extensively saturated with lead and petrochemicals to a depth of 7-10 meters below ground. Regardless, the City not following its regulations, and unnecessarily jeopardizing the health of its employees, went about constructing the Transit Center directly over significantly contaminated soils, without any remediation whatsoever.Interestingly, the City of Regina is currently constructing an addition to the Transit Centre, and again, they have commissioned the general contractor to simply build over the existing contaminated soils. Clearly, the City is attempting to mask over the area, treating it as if there is nothing wrong. In fact, the City is blatantly abusing the property tax system by assessing the value of the Transit Centre, sitting on a massive body of dangerous chemicals, at 38 million dollars pre-factoring in the current edition.

Images of site typical contamination conditions below the City Transit Centre

To date, the City of Regina has failed to do its due diligence, as the former owner of the area property, to soil test and profile the area’s contamination condition. Meanwhile, everyday people in contact with the area are unknowingly being affected by the hazardous substances lingering in the area’s soil.

In stark contrast to the Regina refinery, the Calgary Imperial Oil Refinery was only two-thirds the size and ten years newer. The Calgary refinery was decommissioned during the same time as the Regina refinery. It was not until around the year 2000 the Calgary Refinery, now renamed Lynnview Ridge, was soil tested to find high levels of lead and carcinogenic petrochemicals throughout the area. Imperial Oil was instructed to repurchase the land and commence remediation. As of 2018, the area reopened as a public park.

Closed signs mark the old Calgary Imperial Oil refinery site and Refinery Park on Tuesday, April 25, 2018. The area, closed for years due to contamination is set to re-open as a public park this summer.

In Regina, the Imperial Oil Refinery experience has been significantly different due to the fact the City of Regina purchased the former refinery package, and has since mismanaged the site redevelopment ignoring the hazardous condition of the in situ contamination, buried pipelines, old steel tanks, foundations and cisterns, that still remain below the ground surface.

Certainly, the scale of the contamination in Regina would be proportionally worse than those conditions found in Calgary. Yet, the City of Regina has turned a blind eye to comprehensive testing and remediation, as daily the two underlying aquifers are being fed hazardous substances predominately sourced from this former refinery site, to progressively contaminate the Wascana ecosystem, thereby affecting the entire City of Regina.

Certainly to understand why the City of Regina has been negligent in their duty to the citizen’s health and safety, one must first understand what occurred after the City purchased the former refinery area in 1978/9. The City made a significant error by rezoning and selling the southern portion of the site to Dairy Producers Cooperative Creamery for a creamery facility located squarely within the confines of what was the Imperial Oil Refinery. There were no contractual conditions addressing soil testing or remediation, and later after the Dairy moved to Saskatoon in 2000, a former employee advised that exhaust fans were installed in the basement to deal with the constant inflow of gaseous fumes. The general contractor, who constructed the facility, indicated the foundation had to be constructed within a plastic bag necessary to reduce substance runoff into the excavations.

When the City of Regina commissioned two engineer reports with respect to the construction of the Transit Centre, in the mid-’80s, it became clear the site was completely contaminated. By then, it was too late to initiate a significant remediation project, which would have resulted in discrediting the Dairy’s product reputation. Essentially the City had painted itself into a corner by unconditionally rezoning a heavily contaminated refinery property for creamery purposes. By this time, the Dairy had invested over 10 million in their new “contaminated” facility.

Contaminated soil on the old Regina Imperial Oil Refinery Site. Taken during construction of the Regina Transit Building.

Therefore, the City chose to ignore the problem and effectively swallow the canary.

The City of Regina can easily hide the problem. Environmental conditions, such as soil contamination, can be easily concealed due to the fact soil contamination is not something readily seen by the average person. As a result, we, as a society, must rely on governments to recognize these problems, monitor, and hold those accountable for environmental issues and contamination. However, what happens when the very governments responsible for our health and safety have a conflict of interest in the circumstances, as is the case with the City of Regina.

To date, the City of Regina has turned a blind eye to the problem, has prevented the City Fire Department from investigating the underlying dangers, has ignored common sense, avoided conversations, in order to prevent the incurrence of liability associated to 20-years of Dairy employees and over 30-years of Transit Centre employees, all subject to the probability of health impairment directly connected to their work environment, by an employer that knew the dangers, but chose to do nothing.

Old contaminated pipes dug up from the contaminated site being disposed of by the City.

The Need for a Phase II Environmental Study

The question is not if the area is contaminated, the question is: What is the full extent of the contamination locations within the site, and what types of contamination exist. There have been chlorides tests done throughout the site that suggests PCB contaminates spread out over this site.

What is required is for the City of Regina to take on the responsibility to initiate a Phase II Environmental Site Assessment, which involves soil sampling to various depths across the entire site, to profile the site’s contamination condition.

In early 2008 the Saskatchewan Environment Department has requested Imperial Oil and the City to initiate Phase II across the entire site. However, the City to date has ignored this request because the City does not want to open Pandora’s Box and be confronted with a tsunami of health liabilities. Indeed, any site remediation would be the responsibility of Imperial Oil in respect to the precedent established by Lynnview Ridge in Calgary.

For this to be achieved, all citizens of Regina will need to put pressure on the Mayor and council to order a Phase II assessment of the subject area.