Central Avenue residents win over council

Central Avenue residents sat united in the front row of the Civic Centre on Monday night as CN sought approval from council to dig a third trench under the sidewalk to expedite the clean-up of groundwater contaminated with diesel fuel.
And they swayed council to delay giving the go-ahead–at least for now.
CN’s proposal includes digging four trenches–three on its property (two to catch the groundwater and one to pump clean groundwater back in) and another under the sidewalk along Central Avenue.
CN said the third ditch would take about one week to build, and would be filled in after construction.
The whole clean-up project will take at least two years. There is no guarantee it will work although a similar project in Sioux Lookout has had positive results.
The residents are concerned about access to their property during construction, the noise, and the potential diesel fume odours a third trench near their property could create.
George Drazenovich, a long-time resident and former English teacher, acted as a spokesman for the residents.
“What I’m very unhappy with is with all this disruption,” said long-time resident George Drazenovich, who acted as a spokesman for his neighbours.
“CN has not approached [us] and said, ‘Look, while this awful gargantuan thing is being put in, we’re going to take you folks and we’re going to tell you to go to the Rendez-Vous or the Red Dog for X-amount of time,’” he told council.
“First of all, there’s going to be a smell. Then you have a hole. You have a huge giant machine operating with noise that is probably unbearable. Then you’re going to have services disrupted,” he stressed.
Harri Liivamagi, a CN environmental engineer who attended Monday night’s council meeting, said their contractor–KGS–would employ huge industrial fans to minimize the diesel fuel stench.
But he referred all financial matters to his company’s claims people, who were not at the meeting.
Jim Feeny, director of public affairs for CN in Winnipeg, was not at the meeting, either, but backed up Liivamagi yesterday.
“[The residents] can make a request and we’ll consider it but I’m a homeowner as well and at various times the city has done work that affected access to my property,” he countered.
“This is not unprecedented.
“I invite them to put in the claim and we’ll examine it. I can’t make a commitment on it one way or another,” he remarked.
During the meeting, councillors repeatedly bombarded Liivamagi with questions, including one sequence where Coun. Roy Avis stated, “Their life is on hold because their investment in their homes is worth nothing yet they’re supposed to wait two years with no commitment from CN?”
Drazenovich still had questions after the meeting.
“Nobody has definitively stated what the urgency is! When the MoE tells us at a meeting [that] ‘Your grass grows, the trees grow, the system [under the ground works properly],’ what’s the urgency?
“Why don’t we wait? Why don’t we discuss more? Why doesn’t CN sit down and tell us more? Why don’t we wait for some of the health data?” he wondered.
“[CN] seemed to minimize to the impact of the soil [contamination] yet they seem to be in a rush to get this free diesel off [the water table] so they almost contradict themselves,” echoed Drazenovich’s wife, June.
“We don’t see any added benefit to delaying it,” said Feeny. “We know the [diesel fuel] is there, we know that it has to be cleaned up and, as a good corporate citizen, we will do that.
“We will clean it up in the most efficient, least disruptive way that we can,” he pledged.
“It’s a matter of convenience to the people involved. Our reasoning is that the quicker this can be done, the better off for everyone concerned,” he continued.
Council, at the request of the residents, decided to delay its approval for the third trench until after the first two are completed on CN property. This will allow it to see what will happen, and provide more information to base a decision on.
“I think it’s the solution [the residents wanted],” Mayor Glenn Witherspoon said. “Before they are inconvenienced to any greater degree, they want to see the results of the first two trenches and monitor them to see that they [are working properly].
“If [council] could see that a third trench would indeed expedite the issue, I’m sure that at that time a decision will be made,” he added.
Testing will begin tomorrow on the site set for the “infiltration trench” (the groundwater collection trench), with digging slated to start Monday.
The other trenches will follow at one-week intervals.