The Port Lands Co-Owners hire Jacobs Consultancy Canada Inc. to conduct an Updated Phase 2 Environmental Site Assessment of the Port Lands
The Co-Owners of the Port Lands Development have hired Jacobs Consultancy Canada Inc. to conduct an update to the Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) work that they conducted on behalf of Transport Canada/Public Works Canada in 2014 and 2015. Jacobs is a premier global consulting, design, engineering, construction, and operations and maintenance (O&M) firm providing innovative solutions for a more connected, sustainable world and has been involved in similar projects across Ontario including the Toronto Port Lands.
This updated ESA will help the Co-Owners identify, predict, and evaluate the next phase for the Port Lands under the Ontario Brownfields Regulation. This is a necessary step in the development of the project as it will help the Co-Owners determine a suitable end-use of the former industrial harbour property and further refine conceptual design options. Making the Port Lands a safe, public space that is in line with what people from Akwesasne, Cornwall, and the entire region want, is crucial to this project.
An ESA is a study, which assesses the soil and groundwater quality at a property and determines what parts of the site may need to be remediated or treated differently from a risk perspective, to ensure the future users of the site are not exposed to unacceptable concentrations of contaminants. This is a key step under the Ontario Brownfields Regulation in order to file a Record of Site Condition (RSC) for a property, allowing redevelopment and revitalization of former industrial lands to proceed. An RSC establishes the environmental condition of a property at a particular point in time-based on these assessments and is required before the property can be transitioned to a more sensitive use (i.e. recreational or community use).
Once this ESA is complete, the co-owners will have a clear picture of the what the next steps for the project may be and allow development plans to be refined. Based on a community survey conducted in 2021, many community members feel that the space should be used for retail shopping, restaurants, bars, and as a public market space among others. The ESA will be used to confirm that the Port Lands parcel is suited for these kinds of developments.
This is a large and important step in the development process of the Port Lands. The Co-Owners look forward to learning what comes from this environmental assessment and moving forward with one of the biggest economic opportunities in this region in a very long time.
