Joe McWilliams
For South Peace News
Alberta Environment was back in Faust last week at a locally-infamous contaminated site, doing some remediation work.
It came as very good news to the Regional Environmental Action Committee (REAC), which has been advocating for years for more and better such work.
Jule Asterisk of REAC says the new signs warning the public of the contamination were “really needed.” Besides that, Environment found some of what she calls “hot spots” near where Big Lakes County built a road, and has been cleaning those up. They’ll be capped with clay.
But the part Asterisk seems most pleased about is testing of the lake near the site, for what she says is “the first time since the plant blew up in 1969.”
That was the event that caused the initial contamination, or at least made it a lot worse. The plant was for treating power poles, using chemicals that may have been good for preserving wood, but were (and are) harmful to living creatures. The company – Faust Osmose – did not rebuild, and the site was never properly cleaned up.
Over the years, questions arose about the contamination – what risks it might be posing to people living nearby. Also, whether it might be seeping into Lesser Slave Lake. And so on.
According to a South Peace News article from 2017, the site was cleaned up in the early 1990s, and was fenced off in 1993. From at least that far back, REAC has been contending that the site was still not clean or safe.
Asterisk says the lake testing will probably be of sediment, which she says is where the contaminants would have settled out. It’s going to be done in nearby Old Man Creek as well, she adds.