Marwell tar pit to be cleaned up
The Yukon and federal governments have agreed to spend $6.8 million to clean up the Marwell tar pit in Whitehorse, considered to be the most toxic waste site in the territory.
The federal government has agreed to cover nearly $5 million of the remediation job at the 65-year-old tar pit, which is tucked away in the bushes beside Two Mile Hill.
The 0.2-hectare site contains an estimated 27,000 cubic metres of tar, which is the equivalent of about 2,000 truckloads, according to officials.
The tar pit was established when the Canol oil refinery was built in Whitehorse during the Second World War. After the refinery closed in 1945, Imperial Oil dismantled the facility and shipped it to Alberta.
Attempts to sue Imperial Oil to clean up the remaining tar pit had failed. Governments have since been pondering ways to clean up the waste site.
"Even after the refinery was dismantled, industry or businesses in the Marwell [area] used that site for depositing waste oil," Jon Bowen, the Yukon government's director of environmental programs, told reporters Tuesday.
"I don't have the scientific names of all the products there, but it's a bit of a soup."
Has not been assessed
A padlocked gate and chain-link fence has kept the public out of the Marwell tar pit since a man died there in 1958.
Bowen said while the pit is decades old, it has not been assessed since it was filled in 15 years ago.
"It may have migrated off the site. We don't know that. It's only a matter of time, he said.
"It might not happen immediately but in time it could enter a water course, so now is the time to address it."
Environmental assessments on the remediation project could take up to five years, since officials have not yet determined how best to clean up the site.
"We're quite fortunate in the sense that it's a small site; it's not a Sydney tar ponds," he said, referring to the tar ponds near Sydney, N.S. where a hundred years of waste was dumped into the waters.
Bowen said Yukon government officials hope to have the Marwell tar pit fully cleaned up by the year 2021.