New Route Chosen for Coke Ovens Brook

An engineering report on the Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens cleanup recommends rerouting Coke Ovens Brook along two branches.

Previous studies recommended moving the brook to an area where it will not pick up contaminated groundwater as it passes through the Coke Ovens site. Moving the brook will also permit a more thorough cleanup of the stream bed, where contaminants accumulated during a century of coke production.

The full report of the conceptual design by the engineering firms Dillon Consulting Ltd. and Franz Environmental Inc. is available on the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency website at www.gov.ns.ca/STPA/reports/Coke_Ovens_Brook_Realignment_2004.pdf .

The Sydney Tar Ponds Agency will commission a detailed engineering design of the realignment, and conduct an environmental screening. Work on the project will begin in the summer of 2005.

"This is an exciting development," said Richard Morykot, the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency engineer who supervised the project. "It's the first concrete step in the big cleanup."

The newly realigned brook will have two branches.

The south branch will start at the outflow from the MAID Pond, behind the Schwartz building on Vulcan Avenue. It will run along the southern boundary of the Coke Ovens site, parallel to Vulcan Avenue, through an area known as Mullin's Bank. Near the western boundary of the site, the brook will merge with Cagney Brook and run north, parallel to Victoria Road, and then follow the existing channel under the Victoria Road overpass.

The north branch will run along the Whitney Pier side of the Sydney Coal Railway track and the SPAR road, picking up flows from several smaller brooks along the way. It will cross under the tracks and the Spar Road at a point just east of Lingan Road, and follow the rail spur through the Coke Ovens site to join the south branch at the Victoria Road overpass.

Part of the relocated south branch will be piped underground, and portions of both branches will be lined with synthetic material or clay to prevent recontamination.

Engineering work continues on three other projects that have been advanced to prevent environmental damage while the cleanup undergoes mandatory environmental assessment. The projects include the construction of a coffer dam at Battery Point, the clean up of the cooling pond at the southwest corner of the Sysco property, and the relocation of the Victoria Road water main.

The report was funded under the 1999 federal-provincial-municipal cost share agreement for the Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens cleanup.