On Saturday, May 12 Port Union Village resident Michael Marriott had a close-up view of the 'clean-up' when work was taking place in the asbestos-contaminated 'park'. The same 'park' that the City may or may not own; the same 'park' which may or may not have been clean when it was handed over to the city - with or without a Record of Site Condition (nobody knows, or if they know they're not telling); and the same park where it took a resident leading the regulators/inspectors by the hand to find asbestos over an area of several hundred square feet.
In an e-mail message to MPP Steve Gilchrist on May 12, Mr. Marriott wrote in part:
'This morning I watched the "reclamation" of the area behind my house. There was no wetting for dust control; the workmen wore no protective equipment. There was no covered truck, there was no one to wash the truck down as it left the site on its way to a hazardous landfill site, in fact there was no truck. I watched as a spotter directed a backhoe while it scooped material from inside the fence the city had erected weeks ago only to spread it out over a larger area ten feet away. Abracadabra, no more asbestos.'
Mr. Gilchrist sent a long response by e-mail to Mr. Marriott on May 14, claiming that:
' In terms of oversite, let me be clear. The Manson site is THE most inspected site in the history of the Ministry of Environment, with 3-4 site visits, every week. '
' .... I would suggest that, short of actually doing the work for the contractor, I don't know how the MOE or the City could do more to ensure that the work was being done with the greatest possible protection to those downwind from the site. '.
... er, sorry Steve, but the most inspected site in the history of the MOE was when the other half of the property - the Brookfield site - was cleaned up. For that exercise, there was full time inspection by an independent consulting engineer, hired by the Ministry of the Environment, and with the power to stop work. Exactly what the community requested for the Manson site clean-up, and which we all wish had been provided!!
In a second e-mail message to MPP Steve Gilchrist on May 15, Mr. Marriott responded in part:
'Telling me that a staff member from the Ministry of Environment and an engineer hired by the City as a Peer Reviewer were both duped into thinking friable asbestos was gypsum does not inspire confidence in the process. '
