It will be 2022 before the Lambton Generating Station buildings are gone.
That according to officials from Ontario Power Generation who recently came to St. Clair Council to talk about the now-defunct site.
Arnold says OPG is looking for a tender to remove all of the buildings related to coal generation but that will likely take until 2022 to complete.
An office building which sits on the riverfront site will remain.
But beyond taking down the building, Arnold says OPG is saying little.
Arnold says the company has told the township a number of times it doesn’t plan to remediate the site and remove any environmental problems. Arnold admits it would be costly since there is over 1,000 acres of land and three dumping sites which would have to be cleaned up and closed in the same way landfills are.
But the mayor is concerned about that. Arnold says since OPG and the province announced the closure of the site, he’s lobbied for a clean up so the one-kilometer stretch of waterfront land could be reclaimed and used either by the public or developed.
“It’s council’s position that waterfront land should be housing,” says Arnold.
“But that has to come from OPG and they have said they will hold onto it for now – they have no plans to sell the site.” And he says they have no plans to remediate it either.
“OPG says the land is not worth anything – guess whose fault that its. At $5,000 per foot for waterfront imagine council’s anxiety about this.”
But Arnold says council will keep advocating for a cleanup.
“Every chance we get, we bring it up, but we get no response,” he says.