Comment 43449

By Tartan Triton (anonymous) | Posted July 16, 2010 at 08:33:42

Hamilton Harbour was treated as an open sewer for the better part of the 20th century. Local sewage outflows poured into it, both household and industrial, from every corner: Hamilton, Burlington, Stoney Creek and Dundas all had a go at the old girl. It wasn't without consequence, though. It got to the point that local papers regularly reported ungodly amounts of dead marine and avian life washed up along shorelines, oil-rainbowed ice in the winter and fecal chop in the summer. And of course the delicious waft that one gets from an unflushed toilet.

The most notorious residue of this unenlightened era in our fair city's history is the toxic blob known as Randle Reef. A carcinogenic morass on the harbour bed extending outward from the Sherman North inlet, it ranks as the second-worst coal tar contamination in Canada, trailing only the infamous Sydney Tar Ponds. It's one of the reasons that Hamilton Harbour was recognized as one of the most degraded bodies of water in the Great Lakes 25 years ago. In response, local stakeholders undertook exhaustive studies with an eye to remedial action and the aim of restoring environmental health to the harbour by 2015; the cleanup of Randle Reef became a top priority in order that the harbour be delisted as an Area of Concern. This was long, long before the bid cycle for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

And the process took a long, long time. The debate and negotiation has been much more of a grinder than even the Pan Am sessions. As with any multi-stakeholder, tri-governmental, cross-generational attempt at undoing the sins of the industrial age, it has been an unimaginably complex process, one complete with evasions and spin by dockland profiteers. But it looked as if we were moving toward a resolution after the feds and the province kicked in their respective thirds toward a cap-in-place remediation of the deadly mess. And we were told of the rewards that would come with delisting the harbour: York U researchers pegged potential economic uplift in the local market to be something like $1 billion. There has been just one snag. Three years after the feds and the province came up with their $30 million per, the City of Hamilton has yet to commit its share. In dragging its feet, the project cost has grown from $90 million to $105 million. And (stop me if you've heard this one before) the city is looking to upper government to cover the difference.

Another 2015 storyline is going just as badly in different ways, but we should have no doubt as to which is the priority. Both on grounds of being the better researched of the two and the more universal in its appeal and most egalitarian in distribution of benefits, Randle Reef should be the immediate priority for this city. Let's tackle a legacy project that will profoundly transform the identity and self-esteem of our city, and leave the embattled recreational infrastructure for another day.

Some might argue that there is merit in patience. The Commonwealth Games' centenary is 20 years from now (long enough to do thorough studies and build site consensus), and as birthplace of the Games, Hamilton would be a sentimental favourite. That inaugural event built Ivor Wynne, and it would be poetic if 100 years later the Games built IW's replacement. Failing that, let the diehard private sector boosters who maintain that the Cats are an essential Hamilton brand fund a Stoney Creek stadium. At $150 million, you only need 150 firms willing to commit $1 million. And from what I read, $74 million of that is already on the table. ;)

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