Clean Up Duty

Abstract

This article discusses engineering supervision and engineering efforts in remediation of different sites. Public Works and Government Services Canada, which manages many of the military bases in the Ottawa region, commissioned the environmental and geotechnical firm Golder Associates Ltd. to provide engineering supervision and support for remediation of the site. The remediation of the former military landfill site, conducted in February and March 2006, not only cleaned up a polluted part of the Earth, it also pointed to some of the current best practices being used to protect the environment when working on military properties. Once site remediation began, plans had to be changed quickly, because Golder discovered that parts of the landfill site were dotted with holes that indicated it was being used as a turtle nesting site. Through a literature review, bioscientists determined what kind of aggregate would be most acceptable to the turtles as nesting material. The landfill cap is vegetated with grass and shrubs to consolidate the soil cover layers and prevent their erosion. Given that the site is behind the target area for one of the firing ranges, it does not get much human traffic, but its landscape is in keeping with the surrounding area, and the site poses no more threat to the local ecosystem.