Cleaning up Canada one step
at a time
By Jennifer Young

OTTAWA — Ken Reimer’s goal is to clean up Canada, one contaminated site at a time. Reimer is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston and he also teaches at Queen’s University.

One of the more obvious comtaminated sites in need of remediation.

When Reimer is not teaching students, he is working towards cleaning up and assessing Canada’s contaminated sites. He is the director of the Environmental Science Group, an organization which he founded 16 years ago.

The group is now 70 full-time members strong. The members of the team each vary in their scientific expertise. "To look at the environment, you need a very multi-disciplined approach," said Reimer.

The group is currently working on a number of projects. Its main focus is cleaning up the sites of the Distant Early Warning or DEW Line. These sites are no longer in use but need remediation in order to keep contaminates, currently in the soil, from affecting the people and the area around the sites. "We're looking at what impact the chemicals might be having," said Reimer.

Working challenges

His biggest challenge in this line of study is logistical. Everything has to be airlifted to remote locations in Canada’s far north. "Every year we bring 15 to 20 thousand samples back here," said Reimer.

The group also does risk assessments of land to determine if it poses health problems for the inhabitants. "We're looking at sites in the new land claim area," said Reimer, whose group is currently testing the soil on Labrador Inuit lands.

One of the less obvious contaminated sites.

This assessment is necessary because sites can range from old gas stations to former industrial plants and beyond. "A contaminated site is not always so obvious," said Reimer which is why a piece of land, like the one in Labrador, has to be assessed. He said that a contaminated site could seem fine, but be just down stream from an industrial plant.

Assessing risk

He also said that the amount of a chemical in the soil does not necessarily make it a danger to those around it. "The mere presence of chemicals does not mean it poses a risk."

For example, Yellowknife has natural deposits of arsenic in its soil that are more than ten times the acceptable limit. Reimer says, that level is normal for that area and actually not as threatening as other sites with lower, unnatural levels.

Reimer also said that in order for a site to be a risk, it must contain three things: the chemical, then a receptor, usually humans, and finally a way for the receptor to come in contact with the chemicals.

Reimer says that the most effective way to determine the risk posed by a site is to test the bioaccessibility of the chemicals in the soil.

"I would like to see bioaccessibility included in environmental regulations," said Reimer. He believes this will happen soon.

Bioaccessability is the measure of how much of a chemical from the soil makes it into the gastrointestinal tract. Its presence in the gastrointestinal tract, however, does not mean that the chemical will make its way into the blood stream. This would be the bioavailability of a chemical, but science cannot test for this just yet.

"In many cases the two terms are equivalent," said Reimer, using arsenic as an example. If soil containing arsenic is ingested, almost 100 per cent of the chemical that gets into the gastrointestinal tract is absorbed into the blood stream. In contrast, only 30 per cent of nickel makes it into the blood stream.

Any amount of chemical in the soil is often perceived as a threat to the public. Reimer said that this is one of the biggest challenges with his work. He said that most provincial and municipal officials are leery of notifying the public about contaminated sites.

Reimer said that the key to risk management is communicating the risk to the stakeholders as early as possible. "When you build trust, people will be more able to accept the site," said Reimer.

Plans for the future

Reimer plans to continue with his work in the future. "I just want to do more of the same," said Reimer.

This plan is plausible since, as of 2003, there are officially 4325 federal contaminated sites. The government is planning to spend approximately $3.5 billion over the next 10 to 15 years to clean them up. Reimer expects the DEW Line project alone will take at least 10 more years to complete.

He also expressed the pride he feels when he flies over a radar site that was part of the DEW Line and is now clean. "You hardly know it was there," said Reimer.