Agency Seeks Engineering Firm for Tar Ponds Cleanup

SYDNEY TAR PONDS AGENCY--Agency Seeks Engineering Firm for Tar Ponds Cleanup

The Sydney Tar Ponds Agency has issued the first engineering tender for the major cleanup of the Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens.

The agency, which is charged with managing the $400-million federal-provincial project, is seeking an engineering consultant to provide pre-design services for the job.

"This is the first step in actually carrying out the big cleanup," said project engineer Wilfred Kaiser. "It's a great milestone for Sydney."

The successful bidder will work from the project description released in February to develop a more detailed understanding of each project component and to assign more precise unit cost estimates to each step in the process.

The pre-design engineering work will assist in the production of an environmental impact statement for the project. Last October, AMEC Earth and Environmental won a competitive tender to prepare the impact statement, which will be subject to a thorough environmental review.

Major construction on the cleanup is not expected to begin until 2007, after the assessment is complete. However, the project team has already carried out several key preliminary cleanup tasks, including the capping of an old city dump that had been leaking contaminated groundwater onto the coke ovens, the removal of surface structures and debris, and the construction of an interceptor sewer that will end the daily flow of millions of litres of raw sewage into the Tar Ponds.

Engineering is well underway for several construction projects intended to prevent environmental damage during the environmental assessment. These include the re-routing of Coke Ovens Brook, the cleanup of the Sysco Cooling Pond, the re-routing of the Whitney Pier water main, and the construction of a coffer dam at the mouth of the Tar Ponds.

Construction on the first three preliminary preventative works is expected to begin this summer. The coffer dam will be constructed in 2006.

The tender for the pre-design engineering services contract closes March 24. A complete description of the cleanup project, and an animated video showing how the cleanup will work is available on the website at www.tarpondscleanup.ca .