The type of cleanup option depends upon cost, amount to be cleaned up, effects on the environment, and public concerns.

Let's list the complex parts of the problem first.

1. Ninety years of steel production at Sydney, Nova Scotia resulted in contamination of ground water, surface water and 700,000 tonnes of soil by coal tar compounds, mainly PAH's or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

2. Also, another problem complicates matters. The Tar Ponds themselves have over thirty untreated sewage outfall sites from the surrounding community polluting the Muggah Creek or Tar Pond area with human, domestic, and industrial wastes.

3. Then there's the PCB or polychlorinated biphenyl matter. This by product of the Sydney Steel Corporation's coke ovens which were closed in 1988 has been found in 50,000 tonnes of material in the ponds at higher than normal levels.

4. Finally, there are unacceptable levels of heavy metals. The steel plant still manufactures steel rails from mountains of scrap metal piled near the ponds. Some of it probably also leaches from the unlined old municipal landfill located at the top of the watershed.

So Sydney is home to Canada's worst hazardous waste site - the Tar Ponds and associated Coke Ovens property, contained within the Muggah Creek Watershed.

What to do with the poison potions.

Over the years many ideas have been forwarded about what to do with the Tar Pond sludge. Twenty-five potential remediation technologies in the following categories were identified:

• in situ and off-site containment (land filling, solidification/stabilization)
• on-site volume reduction with off-site destruction (soil washing, solvent extraction, thermal desorption) and
• on-site destruction (incineration, thermo-chemical, biological and others)

(Another idea that has been suggested locally by citizens is to truck the sludge in the ponds to an abandoned coal mine and bury it kilometers underground.)

Clean up Attempts So Far

First Try

In 1986, the original clean up concept consisted of damming the South Pond, dredging with a horizontal cutterhead hydraulic dredge, transporting the sludge 1.3 kilometers through a pipeline, getting excess water out of the sludge and treating this water, burning the sludge in two revolving fluidized bed incinerators and energy recovery for electrical production and sale. It took from 1987 to 1993 to build the combustion complex. In early 1995 it was shut down because of operational problems. (They couldn't get the sludge through the pipeline in large enough quantities to keep the incinerators going.)

Second Try

In 1995, a private company, was awarded a contract by the government for in situ (on location) containment of Muggah Creek PAH sediments. This would protect the environment and human health and be less costly than incineration. The natural streams would be channeled, the PCB contaminated sediment would be trucked out of province, a water control structure would be built at the mouth of Muggah Creek and the PAH contaminated sediment would be covered with 1.3 meters of slag-- a by product of the steel plant -- and 0.3 meters of till or soil to be seeded in.

Before this project was started more testing was done and guess what? They found 45, 000 more tonnes of PCB contaminated soil when they originally estimated 5, 000 tonnes. This pushed the cost of clean-up through the roof. Also there was public opposition to in situ containment and the contract was put on hold in August 1996.

The above attempts represent only work done on the Muggah Creek (Tar Ponds) themselves. The other problems have not been tackled yet.

Where do things stand now?

Since August 1996, there has been a different approach to remediation. Instead of the government almost unilaterally making decisions without input from all affected groups, a citizen based committee was formed to lead the latest cleanup effort. This Joint Action Group (JAG) consists of representatives of the public, First Nations People, advocacy groups, the business sector, and the Municipal, Provincial and Federal governments. JAG will have the following mandate:

• a review of existing health studies;
• an update of the cancer registry;
• development of a study of priority diseases;
• monitoring of the movement of the leachate from the municipal landfill;
• pre-design of a sewage collector system;
• sampling for contamination on the site of the former coke ovens; and,
• administration of the JAG office

JAG will eventually recommend remedial technologies for the entire Muggah Creek watershed area. They estimate that remediation may take ten or more years and cost a billion dollars. The entire community wants something done but arriving at a unanimous consensus will be no small feat in itself.

[Tar Ponds]