Environmental work on City of Ottawa property – 185 Hawthorne Avenue

The City of Ottawa’s Environmental Remediation Unit has scheduled environmental work at the city-owned property located at 185 Hawthorne Avenue. The property is currently undeveloped park space located within a residential neighbourhood by the Highway 417 Lees Avenue off-ramp. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment conducted on the property in the mid-2000s identified potential environmental concerns on the site associated with its historical commercial/industrial land use (coal sheds, lumber dealer, etc.). The city also has an older report on file from 1988 which identified a number of buried metallic anomalies at the site that have not been investigated to date according to our records.

The purpose of the current investigation is to confirm soil and groundwater quality on the site, and verify whether the buried metallic objects represent a significant concern. The city has retained an environmental engineering company (Dillon Consulting Limited) to do this work. They will have a backhoe on-site on Friday, June 13 for approximately one day, and a drill rig will be on the property for approximately one to two days beginning on Wednesday, June 25. Field staff will need to return to the site periodically thereafter to collect groundwater samples, etc. Work will be confined to normal business hours.