As city officials anxiously await a decision on a revised safety plan – key to Orillia’s recreation project on a former industrial property – a local environmentalist is calling on Queen’s Park to address onsite contaminants.

“This matter requires strong political leadership to develop solutions for Orillia that will protect human health and the environment,” Kelly Clune wrote in a recent letter to Environment Minister John Gerretsen.

Clune, who likens the West Street site to the infamous Love Canal catastrophe, wants the provincial government to fund a cleanup of the decades-old industrial contaminants in the soil.

She is also requesting the province appoint a commission of inquiry, or pay for a judicial investigator, to address what she says is “a serious breakdown of municipal transparency and responsibility to the citizens.

“We need to find out how we got here,” she added in an interview this week. “We also need to find out how we can avoid getting into this mess again.”

Her letter comes as city officials await word on whether a revised risk assessment for the property will be accepted, and allow the long delayed $60-million project to proceed.

The risk assessment is used to determine the impacts of the underground contaminants and proposes measures to protect human health and the environment.   

Mayor Ron Stevens said he remains confident the document, which underwent further revisions after being twice rejected as inadequate, will pass muster.

“We are looking forward to a very positive assessment from the ministry,” Stevens told Orillia Today.

“We are hoping it will be very minimal in terms of needing to do other work (beyond what is planned).”

An answer could be forthcoming within the next two or three weeks, he added. Coun. Ralph Cipolla, noting that ministry staff reviewed portions of the revised risk assessment prior to the formal submission, appeared equally optimistic.

“I am feeling very positive that the ministry will come back and say it’s a go,” he said.

Clune argues that the current plan to address on-site contaminants falls short of the mark. “It is evident that only provincial leadership can properly deal with the threat to humans and the environment from the city’s determination to continue to develop on this severely polluted site,” she said.

“The planned ‘do-nothing’ approach will only pass environmental and financial costs onto future generations.” The contaminants that flowed to neighbouring properties must be addressed “beyond the planned monitoring,” Clune added.

In a separate submission to the province, filed in mid-December, resident Colleen Cooney recommends the city be prohibited from building on the site. Cooney also wants barriers around the property to prevent migration of chemicals and calls the risk assessment process  inadequate.