BANFF – A $600,000 price tag to remediate contaminated soils at the Banff recreation grounds has led to the suspension of some projects this fall in order to stay within budget.
After some contentious moments about escalating costs for the rec grounds redevelopment, council voted 5-1 to spend $1.5 million on a new dog park, picnic areas, ball diamond irrigation and upgrade to the sports field, including removal of the running track, known as the “black ring of death.”
But Councillor Peter Poole argued the $600,000 budget to deal with the contaminated soil shouldn’t come at the expense of Banff taxpayers, noting the rec grounds redevelopment should be put on hold.
“The bottom line issue for me is who’s responsible for leaving a toxic waste dump under what was created as a playing field,” he said during the Sept. 8 council meeting.
“The polluter in this case is Parks Canada, which approved and oversaw the playing field back when it was first done.”
Town Manager Kelly Gibson said it is possible to have that conversation with Parks Canada.
“I don’t believe it’s a cut and dried answer; we would definitely have to look a bit further,” he said.
Poole acknowledged that may be so, however noted the legal terrain has changed over the past 20 years in that polluters have responsibility for the duration of their existence.
“Parks Canada still exists, and unfortunately, they left toxic waste underneath our playing field and that troubles me, and I would like the polluter to clean that up,” he said.
“That’s a worthwhile argument at the federal level. They’re the ones who are arguing that with the companies in Alberta, so it’s an argument that they’ve already swallowed.”
Michael Hay, the Town of Banff’s environmental manager, said the health risks associated with the sports field are relatively minor, but significant enough to be addressed.
“The level of risk to the public is low, but it’s long-term risk … low levels of exposure over a person’s lifetime could cumulatively be bad for their health,” he said.
“It’s not an acute issue that we need to get in there and dig that material out immediately, but if we expect the public to use these facilities and to feel safe using these facilities for many, many years, we don’t want to ask them to do that on the fields the way they are right now.”
The Town has been working with a variety of consultants and Parks Canada to help come up with a remediation plan. In the end, a decision was made to cap the site, which is less expensive than removing the contaminated soil.
“We don’t have an accurate history of where all that fill came from that the rec grounds is actually sitting on, but we know it is at least partially made up of what is basically coal-sourced material,” said Hay.
“We do know there’s large amount of coal material buried in the subsurface there that likely originated from coal mines in the Bow Valley in late 19th century, early 20th century.”
In 2015, ISL Land Services provided budget estimates for construction of each project proposed for the Banff recreation grounds, however, at that time it was unknown there was contaminated soil within the sports field.
Not knowing about the contamination and associated costs to manage it responsibly, administration tendered a smaller group of projects this summer that included the dog park, sports field, ball diamond irrigation and picnic areas.
“The tendered projects – totalling $1.497 million – have come within the overall approved budget for 2020 of $1.553 million,” said Amanda Arbuckle, the Town of Banff’s recreation services manager.
“The tendered values are greater than the budgeted values for the individual projects by $632,000 with approximately $600,000 of this overage being attributed to mitigation costs for the sports field and surrounding cinder track.”
Some councillors took aim at the budget increase and budget process.
Although initially voicing concern about the high costs associated with the sports field, Coun. Brian Standish ended up voting in support of moving forward with the smaller number of projects this fall as tendered.
“I too am struggling with some of these numbers,” he said, noting the $600,000 remediation work coupled with the $400,000 worth of work already budgeted to repair the sports field totals $1 million.
“That seems awfully excessive. If that is the truth, I think council should readdress this. I can’t in all honestly spend $1 million to basically bury the track.”
Coun. Poole also had serious concerns about increased costs associated with the rec grounds redevelopment.
“This is just rearranging some things. I think we have left out eight projects for a sum of about $450,000,” he said. “I cannot stomach a 70 per cent increase from what we were told before.”
Adrian Field, the Town of Banff’s director of engineering, said the costs are more associated with a change of scope in the project rather than a budget over-run.
“There are sometimes changes in scope, and to call them budget overruns I think is disingenuous to the process and a bit insulting to what we do for a living,” he said.
“We try our best to provide budget numbers which are consistent with the known facts when we put together budgets … generally speaking we get it pretty close.”
Mayor Karen Sorensen voiced support for moving ahead with the smaller number of projects this fall, but said she understands the concerns expressed by other councillors.
“Yes, it’s disappointing, but this is what it is … but there is money to do this and it’s not going to get cheaper,” she said.
“Knowledge continues to be expensive. The more we learn and understanding what the right thing to do is in these situations, of course, continues to add up.”
At 2021 service review later this year, administration will return with a plan for the other projects now on hold, such as construction of horse trail, north trail rehabilitation and basketball court improvements, and potential site fencing to keep elk off grassy areas.
In the meantime, administration is also trying to get grant funding in partnership with groups that could offset costs, similar to support obtained previously for the second greenhouse ($45,000 grant) and skatepark ($100,000 grant).
“I expect there’s a team working really hard in looking at grants etcetera,” said Mayor Sorensen.
Parks Canada did not get back to the Outlook.
