Ausenco’s cooperative approach to managing and undertaking the work allowed the project to progress smoothly for over a decade.
Overview
Our team has provided environmental services to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) for more than 13 years on various projects at and around Toronto Pearson International Airport. One prominent project conducted for the GTAA involved providing environmental peer review services during the purchase of a property and subsequent transfer to federal lands.
Approach
This peer review project was conducted on a site where a former aircraft and aircraft parts manufacturing facility operated for more than 60 years. The work was undertaken in preparation for the purchase and subsequent transfer to federal lands for airport use and was conducted as a joint undertaking by the property seller and GTAA. A component of the project involved peer reviewing the site owner’s work to ensure conformance with the requirements of work plans.
The property was approximately 46ha in size and was divided into three parcels under a program to facilitate the assessment, remediation, and transfer of ownership while the facility continued to operate. A Phase I ESA was conducted which identified more than 120 potential areas of concern and over a period of approximately ten years more than 400 boreholes, test pits and monitoring wells were advanced at the site as the property was decommissioned in stages. Contaminants of concern included petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Remediation was undertaken by excavation, in situ chemical oxidation, risk assessment and monitored natural attenuation depending on the contaminant and the location on the site. This work was logistically challenging as the seller was assessing and remediating to provincial criteria while we were assessing and remediating to Federal standards (CCME).
Results
Ausenco’s cooperative approach to managing and undertaking the work allowed the project to progress smoothly for over a decade.