By battlefordsNOW

More clean up ahead for former Shell station in North Battleford

Aug 5, 2017 | 10:00 AM

The owner of the former Shell Canada gas station on the corner of 100 St. and 19 Ave. in North Battleford is preparing to proceed with further soil clean up efforts on the property shortly.

North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater is pleased to see the cleanup work continue.

“I think that is exactly what we want to see in the city – the reclamation of brownfield properties and the reclamation of contaminated properties,” he said. “We want to see those properties get back into the market.”  

Current owner Environmental Liability Transfer Inc. – based in St. Louis, Missouri – acquired the property from Shell Canada in 2015, according to John Kowalik, the firm’s director of marketing. The company specializes in restoring brownfields and he said clean up work is in its final stages.

The company will now focus on reclaiming the west side of the property for “minor residual impact”, Kowalik wrote in an email to battlefordsNOW.

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“We will be performing an In Situ soil treatment next month (September), which requires months of monitoring. If results are favorable (sic), remedial work will be complete. If not, we will perform additional treatments which could go into mid/late 2018,” he wrote. 

Shell Canada shuttered operations at the site in 2005, after operating since the late 1950s.

“To the best of our knowledge, this former Shell property was first developed as a retail fueling-facility in 1958,” Kowalik added.

After the gas station closed, an automobile service shop leased the property in July 2006. Looking at the site’s history, Kowalik confirmed in 1990 crews removed four underground storage tanks and installed three new tanks. In 2006 workers removed the rest of the underground storage tanks and fueling-station infrastructure.

As part of the environmental reclamation work, in 2014, crews removed 54 metric tons of underground soil from the east side of the property and replaced it with clean soil. 

“Subsequent investigations have indicated that soil beneath this portion of the site is now appropriate for commercial purposes,” the spokesperson said.

Kowalik also confirmed that groundwater-monitoring wells beneath the site indicate “groundwater impact is very limited.” 

“A recent risk evaluation presented to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment indicated that there are no environmental risks that would prevent this portion of the property from being used for commercial purposes,” he said, adding the Ministry has accepted the evaluation.

Environmental Liability Transfer also said it does not have any concerns about the possibility of any contaminants from the site leaking into neighbouring residential properties.

There is no date available as to when the land will be ready for a new business to take over.
 

 angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW