Lisa Keller, Contaminated Sites Division, Environment Canada

This presentation will provide an update on progress and key accomplishments of the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan (FCSAP) since the 2nd National Workshop on Federal Contaminated Sites held in Vancouver in 2008. A paper will not be produced to support this presentation.

Details will be provided on the following key program aspects: 1) recent program improvements/adjustments; 2) progress on remediation and assessment project activities across Canada; 3) program challenges; 4) lessons learned; and, 5) looking forward.

Marianna Gee, Treasury Board of Canada, Secretariat

The presentation will highlight the accounting and reporting requirements relating to contaminated sites for custodian departments in the federal government. The accounting and reporting requirements are based on the new chapter on environmental liabilities related to contaminated sites that is included in the Financial Information Strategy (FIS) Manual. The session may also highlight the new recommendation on Liability for Remediation and Mitigation of Contaminated Sites issued from the Canadian Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB) if it is available at that time.

Clayton Truax, Public Works and Government Services Canada

The Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan (FCSAP) will require $3.5 billion in funding over fifteen years to establish measures for Federal Contaminated Sites. As part of its mandate to provide specialized support to the FCSAP, Public Works and Government Services Canada must provide forecasts of planned spending to the environmental protection sector to allow it to properly prepare to meet the demand generated for such services.

One the initiatives consists of performing a predictive analysis of the demand for specialized support in managing contaminated sites based on existing sources of information related to FCSAP projects, and other data sources on Federal Contaminated Sites. The results for the requests included in this report were extracted from the Environment Canada IDEA data base and are intended to provide readers with pertinent general information on quantities, project types, contaminant types, project distribution and the value of FCSAP FY2009-2011 projects.

Clayton Truax and Anne Thompson
Public Works and Government Services Canada

The Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan (FCSAP) was established in 2005 as a 15-year program with a commitment of $3.5 billion by the Government of Canada. This program provides assistance to federal departments, agencies, and consolidated Crown Corporations that are custodians of known or suspected contaminated sites to evaluate, address and reduce the environmental and health risks these sites might pose.FCSAP supports site assessments, remediation, risk management, and care and maintenance of federal sites identified under this program, and contributes to training and promoting innovative technologies to address and/or remediate contaminated sites.

FCSAP aims to promote the use of innovative technologies. While research and development activities are not specifically eligible for FCSAP funds, as these activities do not reduce liabilities, demonstration/feasibility studies involving innovative technologies are eligible for FCSAP funds. A federal department with a contaminated site under this program (a custodian department) may where no proven technology/process exists or is applicable or, an innovative remediation technology/process claims that it can on its own or through enhancement of a proven technology, equal or exceed the performance of a proven technology, undertake a demonstration/feasibility study to verify this performance using FCSAP funds. If the performance claim proves accurate, the innovative technology/process would be eligible for FCSAP funding.

Although there had been innovative technologies/processes used at contaminated federal sites, awareness of these and innovative remediation technologies in general, as well as, the opportunity to use innovative technologies on contaminated federal sites, was not well known or understood by custodian departments. For these reasons and a general attitude of risk aversion, an attitude by no means limited to government, consideration and use of innovative technologies was generally avoided.

This presentation is intended to highlight a very successful initiative undertaken to address the need to promote the use of and the opportunity to use innovative technologies to clean up, remediate and generally deal with contaminated federal sites. The initiative was targeted primarily at both federal custodians and vendors/contractors of remediation technology, particularly innovative technologies/processes. The approach taken was a collaborative one, initiated by Industry Canada with Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and Environment Canada (EC), which engaged the FCSAP Interdepartmental Regional Working Groups (IRWGs) representing federal custodians in each region, and relevant environmental industry associations to communicate with the Canadian remediation community at large.

This initiative undertook to develop and deliver a series of Innovative Remediation Solution Workshops. The first of these workshops, piloted in February 2007 in the Atlantic Region, was initiated by Industry Canada with PWGSC and EC in collaboration with the Atlantic IRWG and the Environmental Services Association of Nova Scotia. Following the success of this pilot and in recognition of the PWGSC’s FCSAP mandate for promoting the use of innovative technologies, PWGSC assumed the lead in developing and scheduling similarly successful workshops in Quebec Region in November 2007, Prairies and Northern Region in October 2008 at the RemTECH Conference, Ontario Region in February 2009, and the Pacific and Yukon Region Workshop in October 2009.

This presentation will further highlight these workshops, the workshop activities, benefits, accomplishments, recommendations and ongoing follow-up actions, as well as, actual innovative remediation solution case studies at federal sites, including those that resulted from the awareness, discussions and follow-ups initiated at these Innovative Remediation Solution Workshops.