Mountain View County councillors have been presented with details of a proposed remediation project to clean up contaminated groundwater at the former county shop site on Main Avenue south in Sundre.“The consultant recommends injecting a chemical called RegenOx into the contaminated groundwater,” operational services director Michael MacLean said in a note presented to council at the recent policies and priorities meeting. “The proposal is to pump several of the monitoring wells to extract impacted groundwater.“This process should have the desired effect of rapidly removing impacted groundwater from a large area over a short period of time and create cones of influence whereby impacted groundwater would be drawn to points of extraction.”Following the extraction, sampling and monitoring would take place over the following 18 months.“If an elimination of impacted groundwater is reported during this period, then the remedial strategy would be considered a success,” he said.“If impacted groundwater remains during this period, but shows a reduction from pre-remediation conditions, the chemical would be injected for a second time and the response monitored until groundwater conditions meet the (required) guideline values.”Testing conducted several years ago identified groundwater contamination at the site, he said.“There was an assessment that identified some levels that exceeded the guidelines and now we are going through the process to identify the remediation needed,” he said.The total cost of the proposed groundwater cleanup project is $156,500.That cost would include $110,000 for fieldwork (including the chemical injection) and $17,000 for groundwater monitoring.Councillors are expected to consider the request for funding at this week's Nov. 20 policies and priorities meeting, said Reeve Bruce Beattie.Remediation planning for the site has been underway for several years.“That's been in progress for quite some time in terms of issues around any contamination that might be there from years ago,” said Beattie. “That's been an ongoing project.”
