Answer Me This Barrie: Settle the Lawsuit Pretty Please!!

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OOOPSY!!

The city of Barrie continues to spend our money.

They installed a really large storm sewer recently

intended to connect the end of William Street to

Kempenfelt Bay.

However, instead of taking the route most direct, the city, for some reason, took a hard right at the end of William Street, down Gowan to approx ½ way on the Allandale Station Site. They then took a hard 90-degree left turn and ran the large sewer through the contaminated lands.

I don’t get it. I really don’t. The city could have ran

The sewer across Gowan and connected to the short service road that leads to Lakeshore Drive. And thus avoid the contamination. They should have and could have avoided screwing up the site for further development. They could have followed the course I have outlined, and then after the developer who takes over the site starts to build he could run connecting sewers.

Of course that would happen if the city of Barrie finally decides to listen to reason. If the city of Barrie saves the hard working taxpayers a lot of grief and extra money by settling the CGI lawsuit quickly.

The city of Barrie is wrong. There is a bunch of contamination remaining at the site. They should have told all of the prospective developers and the citizens about the contamination a long time ago. If they had we wouldn’t be in such a bad position.

Look, when they installed that big sewer they rested it on a bed of sand and gravel. So now the chemicals and metals and other bad stuff just whoosh towards the lake, into the bay.

The city of Barrie needs to stand up and protect its citizens. Our health is directly at risk. They must check into what the levels of contamination are and figure out a way of cleaning up the bay.

Right now, the city of Barrie has dug up a lot of soil and trucked it away to a company in the Toronto area.

This company, Green Soils, is charged with “cleaning the soil of poisonous/hazardous materials”. Then under MOE guidelines it will dispose of this soil. And this process is very expensive.

Just as soon as the contaminated soil was removed, new soil arrived. Now the city of Barrie is involved in a process of “cover and mitigate”. That means spreading new soil on top of whatever bad stuff remains. Then planting grass and flowers and maybe trees.

I doubt any new contractor will be willing to think about developing this property. Why would they?

Rumour has it that the contractor who installed the storm sewer was not aware of the contamination on site. And was pretty shocked when he found out!

You see, if there is any risk to his employees from say higher than acceptable levels of Mercury, his employees must use respirators when working at the site. And they must dispose of their clothing each day.

Mercury is very serious contamination. A drop the size of the head of a pin will contaminate 25 acres of water.

WOW!! And mercury will pass through the placenta into the fetus. It is the only metal known to be able to do this.

I grew up with many relatives who owned construction companies. I knew when I was as young as 10 to stay away from Mercury.

But Mercury is not all of the bad stuff that contaminated the soil and now I believe has trickled into the Bay and our drinking water. There is lead, benzene, chloride, sodium and that real bady – Chromium.

Erin Brokovitch is a real person and now is an environmental lawyer. Julia Roberts portrayed her in a movie bearing her name. She fought against the establishment who tried in every way to thwart her efforts. Chromium was the culprit and it was having a deleterious affect on the health of a community.

She studied hard and fought hard and even though she had not yet become a lawyer she won. And won big. $300 million dollars.

Yes we have a lawsuit against us the citizens of Barrie. And I wish the city of Barrie would just end it. Meet with the CGI people and work out a settlement. Because if this drags on and the proper remediation is not performed on the Station lands, we the citizens of Barrie could be in for a huge Class Action lawsuit.

Please. Mayor Lehman and Council. Fix this problem. Please!!