Westmount Development | 20m | 6s | Anthem | Integra Architecture

Normally I support development anywhere including my own neighborhood, but the Creosote would be a concern for me. For me and my family, I don't want low risk, I want no risk.

How to solve this issue is another matter though. How long of a wait until the creosote natural fades? Maybe it can be treated as a safety issue something can be worked out with the city and the province combined to clean the creosote?
 
Surrealplaces said:
clean the creosote
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We would need to relocate the city or at least open-pit mine-style the west side of the city centre. As far as I know the only realistic is mitigation not elimination. Maybe that's different for the West Village south of the river but as long as the source (south of the river) still exists I think there can still be some seepage that is at least mitigated by what the province did.
 
Remediation is possible but very expensive. Wasn't that one of the reasons the Calgary Next proposal didn't happen, CSEC wanted province to clean it up and they didn't want to fund it? And I can see residents saying if we can't build an event centre with this contamination, that we still have the Greyhound building and multiple car dealership on prime riverfront property, why is it ok to build a condo near their homes.

In these situations, I do think the appeal system makes sense, get another set of eyes on it and where the people opposed can make a comprehensive presentation and retain their own engineering/lawyers. For the approval, while Anthem had time to study the property, the time between it being posted and being approved at CPC, there's not enough time for residents to do the same.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Normally I support development anywhere including my own neighborhood, but the Creosote would be a concern for me. For me and my family, I don't want low risk, I want no risk.

How to solve this issue is another matter though. How long of a wait until the creosote natural fades? Maybe it can be treated as a safety issue something can be worked out with the city and the province combined to clean the creosote?
Click to expand...
One thing that's never been clear to me is what are we actually talking about from a risk perspective on this creosote issue.

From my understanding, currently there's this contamination plume under the soil at some depth just sitting there. What's the risk of doing nothing about it? It's been there 75 years or whatever, have we seen health impacts in the community? Or is the risk more about construction and excavation, that would destabilize and bring up this contamination in a way that is an increased risk somehow?

Thinking about how we did have the CBC building built directly on top of this site before, and I don't recall any issues in the media with it. Did they not have a basement or something? Do houses in the area also not have a basement as a result?

This stuff is way outside of my area of expertise, so I have a hard time wrapping my head around what the actual issue is (1) and why it's a issue for new construction (2), but not enough of an issue to do something about otherwise (3).

I get why neighbours are concerned as it's scary and full of uncertainty, but I don't really know enough to form an opinion on risk relative to any of the other risks that exist out there.
 
One wonders if radon is more of a risk than creosote? I still lean towards the creosote being a convenient reason to keep appealing this.
 
CBBarnett said:
One thing that's never been clear to me is what are we actually talking about from a risk perspective on this creosote issue.

From my understanding, currently there's this contamination plume under the soil at some depth just sitting there. What's the risk of doing nothing about it? It's been there 75 years or whatever, have we seen health impacts in the community? Or is the risk more about construction and excavation, that would destabilize and bring up this contamination in a way that is an increased risk somehow?

Thinking about how we did have the CBC building built directly on top of this site before, and I don't recall any issues in the media with it. Did they not have a basement or something? Do houses in the area also not have a basement as a result?

This stuff is way outside of my area of expertise, so I have a hard time wrapping my head around what the actual issue is (1) and why it's a issue for new construction (2), but not enough of an issue to do something about otherwise (3).

I get why neighbours are concerned as it's scary and full of uncertainty, but I don't really know enough to form an opinion on risk relative to any of the other risks that exist out there.
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I dont really get it either. Like is the river polluted with creosote? Because apparently it has leached under the river, but i haven't heard any mention of it being detected in the river? Is that even possible?
 
potatopizzafan said:
I dont really get it either. Like is the river polluted with creosote? Because apparently it has leached under the river, but i haven't heard any mention of it being detected in the river? Is that even possible?
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It is likley leaking into the river in quantities insufficient to matter. Relative to the aromatic hydrocarbons that enter from runoff, it is likley a rounding error.

Do the surrounding residents realize that construction of their dwellings also stirred up the contamination and didn't cause catastrophe?
 
DougB said:
Why would radon be a bigger risk on this site than any others in Calgary?
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It's not, they are getting worked up about creosote but I wonder how many have bothered to look into radon levels and mitigate? It's why I tend to lean towards this being another nimby excuse.
 
CBBarnett said:
One thing that's never been clear to me is what are we actually talking about from a risk perspective on this creosote issue.

From my understanding, currently there's this contamination plume under the soil at some depth just sitting there. What's the risk of doing nothing about it? It's been there 75 years or whatever, have we seen health impacts in the community? Or is the risk more about construction and excavation, that would destabilize and bring up this contamination in a way that is an increased risk somehow?

Thinking about how we did have the CBC building built directly on top of this site before, and I don't recall any issues in the media with it. Did they not have a basement or something? Do houses in the area also not have a basement as a result?

This stuff is way outside of my area of expertise, so I have a hard time wrapping my head around what the actual issue is (1) and why it's a issue for new construction (2), but not enough of an issue to do something about otherwise (3).

I get why neighbours are concerned as it's scary and full of uncertainty, but I don't really know enough to form an opinion on risk relative to any of the other risks that exist out there.
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The attached article is a good overview from a reliable source, CBC + UofC geoscience prof.

My understanding is that the creosote migrated across the river, and the plume is mainly in this area now. But as it migrates, it also leaves product behind, that's why West Village is still considered contaminated. The contamination is similar to Radon in that it comes through cracks in the basement. I know some comment is going to be well if the residents are complaining they better also have radon vents. I personally do have radon vents, but I also don't think if they don't, it means their concerns are meaningless because there's also exposure from actually digging into the ground, and venting that is required for this development. The two parkade vents for this development are directly facing the lane and a park. It's a bit different from a traditional home radon vent because the volume of air is only under one parcel, this is vents for a massive area with significantly higher air flow and concentration of whatever is there.

I don't live here, but my question would be why is it not ok to do CalgaryNext on the South side without cleaning it up, but it's ok to build this development on the North side without cleaning it up.
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DougB said:
It is likley leaking into the river in quantities insufficient to matter. Relative to the aromatic hydrocarbons that enter from runoff, it is likley a rounding error.

Do the surrounding residents realize that construction of their dwellings also stirred up the contamination and didn't cause catastrophe?
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The size of one dwelling vs the size of this site is not very comparable. Contamination matters in concentration, and the CBC site was identified as having higher concentrations.
Nimbus said:
It's not, they are getting worked up about creosote but I wonder how many have bothered to look into radon levels and mitigate? It's why I tend to lean towards this being another nimby excuse.
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Yes, some people will also complain about parking, but does one person complaining about parking invalidate all other concerns as being NIMBYs? Do we know that everyone that is against the development doesn't have sub slab depressurization? I'm not saying this development should or shouldn't go ahead, but this is one of the cases where an appeal and a full review at SDAB is somewhat warranted. To give residents an ability to argue their case in front of an independent body that can weigh the risks of development with the benefit of the housing units created.
 
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