Last of the Domtar Tank Contents Destroyed

The last of the Domtar tank contents have been destroyed.

Clean Harbors Canada notified the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency that the material, consisting mainly of coal tar, was destroyed at two Clean Harbors incinerators in the United States.

The Dominion Tar and Chemical Company left the tank behind in the early 1960s, when the company closed its plant on the grounds of the Sydney Steel coke ovens, then owned by Hawker-Siddley Ltd.

The highly visible, open-top tank, located near the Victoria Road overpass between Sydney and Whitney Pier, was dismantled in the summer of 2005. It originally contained about one million litres of rainwater, 3,000 tonnes of coal tar, and a small amount of fabricated sand and oil mixture used in test burns of an incinerator during cleanup the Tar Ponds effort of the 1990s.

Coal tar is a byproduct of coke production widely used in paints, dyes, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, roofing tar, and driveway sealant.

Clean Harbors treated the rainwater locally. About half the coal tar was destroyed at a Clean Harbors incinerator in Quebec. The company shipped the remaining 2,000 tonnes, which had hardened in the bottom of the tank, to incinerators it operates in Aragonite, Utah, and Kimball, Nebraska.

Clean Harbors has supplied the agency with certificates of destruction verifying its safe disposal.