City Council will not be issuing guidelines for a Health and Safety Plan (HASP) around the demolition of some buildings on the site of Peterborough’s historic General Electrics (now GE Vernova) factory, it voted at a February 23rd city council meeting.

The decision comes after Town Ward Councillor Alex Bierk put forth an amendment motion at the previous general committee meeting, asking for city staff to put together guidelines for a HASP for the demolition of select buildings on GE Vernova’s 107 Park Street North site.

This amendment was motivated by the established presence of contaminants on the site, including carcinogens, asbestos and beryllium. In the ensuing report, however, Commissioner of Municipal Operations Ilmar Simonovskis declined to provide a HASP guideline, arguing that “the City has no legislated authority to require the completion of a HASP” from GE Vernova.

Simonovskis instead provided council with a Health and Safety Approach (HASA) guideline report, a non-binding document which largely outlined the various authorities involved in vetting the health and safety impacts of the demolition.

At the previous general committee meeting, both Bierk and his wardmate Joy Lachica put forth amendment motions to return the report to staff for further review. After a motion failed from Bierk, Lachica proposed that staff create a plan for GE Vernova to publicly release its demolition plans and contract an engineer to weigh that plan against the standards of their practice.

That motion was ultimately deferred to February 23rd’s council meeting, where it met newfound scrutiny from the horseshoe.

“It’s quite a simple motion,” said Councillor Lachica, introducing the motion. “It speaks to the actual articles and evidence that exists in the Building Code, as well as the Professional Engineers Act … We need to be proactive, to use this window to take charge of the narrative.”

“I spoke to someone who does industrial cleanups … for Exxon Mobil, all of the big oil companies. And he said that a contaminant hydrogeologist, that kind of specialist engineer, should be on this, and that it is our job as a municipality to set the bar,” she added.

“Even if it's an oral report or if it's just an outline … we need to know what the hazards are, that it's being done properly for our community, for safety, for health, well being, for the future of this whole area.”

Councillor Bierk spoke in support of Lachica’s motion.

“This is our chance to do whatever we can in this situation to protect our community and our residents,” he said. “I want to know how this is going to be done. I share the concerns of my constituents in not knowing what the plan is or what the extent of the contamination is.”

Monaghan Ward Councillor Matt Crowley was among those now in opposition to the motion, following staff consultation.

“I am of the exact same mind, that we need to know exactly what's going on under the ground there,” Crowley said. “We need to ensure that everything is safe, that our neighborhoods are safe …  My only fear is that this directs a chief building official that is free from political, bureaucratic influence to do a thing from a municipality, which we are not allowed to do. Section 14 of the Municipal Act clearly states we cannot do this.”

Director of Legal Services Alan Barber concurred: “The chief building official is a statutory officer, and as such … operates free of political and bureaucratic influence. Any attempt to fetter his jurisdiction or to influence how he goes about making a decision runs the risk of being seen as, if you're an elected official, malfeasance in office.”

“The Ministry of Labour, through its legislation and its expertise and knowledge, will ensure both worker safety and the safety of the public at large,” Barber added. “The Ministry of Environment will protect the natural environment, and by so doing, protect public health as well.”

Ashburnham Ward Councillor Keith Riel defended Lachica’s motion, reminding his fellow councillors of the public’s distrust for GE.

“What we want to know is what the plan is before it goes forward here,” he said. “The MPP [Dave Smith] said they're going to take the buildings down, and all that's going to be left is the cement floor. Well, it's what I've said from the beginning: General Electric will do the bare minimum. They'll tear the buildings down, they'll fence it off, they'll seed it and plant a couple of trees, and you’re left with a 43-acre brownfield in the City of Peterborough.”

“The legacy of what's happening in these communities, of stillbirths and children's defects is beyond the pale … We should do whatever we can to protect the citizens of Peterborough. I think I, as a city councillor, have a duty to try and do that and keep this company's feet to the fire. That's the only way this company knows that there is a council here,” Riel continued.

Otonabee Ward Councillor Kevin Duguay remained firm in his opposition.

“I understand the spirit and intent of the proposed motion, but I find it to be unnecessary and somewhat superfluous,” he said. “We have a process for building demolition, prescribed through the Building Code … For the city at this point to introduce any language that would suggest we expect more from our Chief Building Official, or more of a process above and beyond the prescribed regulatory framework would be inappropriate.”

Lachica’s amendment then went to a vote, where it was defeated 8-3. In favour were Lachica herself, Bierk and Riel.

As did Lachica the week prior, Bierk followed suit with his own amendment, this one reformulated from his motion the prior week, which had failed after a 5-5 vote.

This amendment sought for staff to return the HASA guideline report to council with information on the extent of environmental contamination around 107 Park (including contamination mapping, affected soils, environmental data, involved organizations and knowledge gaps) to the best of their ability.

“Is it safe? Is it not safe?” Bierk asked about the GE Vernova site. “If a demolition happens, what's going to happen? What's going on with the containment chambers 20 feet underground that are holding toxic chemicals? The fact is that none of us know.” 

“We've just heard tonight from our commissioner, from a very pointed, very pointed question about what happened to all the equipment that was taken out of these 1000s and 1000s of square feet of a factory, and we don't know, we don't have an answer to that.”

“[The motion is] asking for two things,” he explained. “It's asking for our staff to investigate what the contaminants are that we can get information about on the site, and where are the contaminants that are … off site … It's also asking for us at the very end to ask the property owner if they can give their community some information about this.”

Councillor Crowley voiced his support of the motion, calling it “in our lane.”. Ashburnham Ward Councillor Gary Baldwin appeared more skeptical, asking staff about their current capacity to retrieve such information.

“I'm not certain that we have any of the information without starting and doing testing per se … We do not have those [sic] expertise,” replied Infrastructure, Planning and Growth Management Commissioner Blair Nelson.

His wardmate Riel came to the motion’s defense.

“So all that information that's up there,” said Riel, gesturing towards the screens displaying the text of Bierk’s amendment, “how can the chief building official [CBO] make an informed decision to demolish a building if we don't have that?”

Chief Administrative Officer Jasbir Raina replied to Riel’s inquiry.

“This is a private property. We just cannot walk into the backyard and start digging there … The CBO, when the file comes to him, he can request every study to be done, and that technical review comes to him,” Raina said.

Otonabee Ward Councillor Lesley Parnell also took the chance to state her opposition to the motion.

“This is a private company,” she said. “GE owns this land, they are responsible for the cost. They hold the liability for all of it, and they are beholden to the province, who has the jurisdiction to oversee whatever GE Verona does on this property … We cannot interfere in this and assume that liability and cost on the backs of our municipal taxpayers.”

She then asked City staff to “re-emphasize” that this motion represented an attempt to influence the CBO’s decision making.

“I wouldn't say that the debate or the motion itself is definitive evidence that council is interfering with the CBO,” replied Director of Legal Services Alan Barber. “It would raise attention that somebody could conclude that council is seeking to influence the CBO.”

“Exactly,” said Parnell.

In the end, Bierk’s motion also failed 7-4, with the support of only Lachica, Bierk, Crowley and Riel.

Before council could return to discussing the main motion on the floor—accepting staff’s non-binding HASA guideline report on 107 Park demolitions—Coun. Crowley attempted to put forth his own amendment, which was immediately shut down by both Lachica and Mayor Jeff Leal for being substantially identical to her previous motion, which he voted against.

Councillor Bierk concluded discussions on the item with a final plea.

“I’ve had three attempts to devise some sort of transparency around the site, not at all to do with the demolition, just to do with the community understanding what's happening there … I encourage the community to call the city, to call the people that were mentioned that are the oversights for what's happening at GE and find some answers. Because I don't know who to call. I don't know what they're testing for when it rains down the sewer that goes to Little Lake,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with the demolition. This has to do with creating some sort of understanding as to what's happening on that site. I believe that we still don't have that. I think that that's a failure of this council.”

In the end, council voted 9-2 to receive Simonovskis’ HASA guideline report containing no new information on the environmental risks of demolishing buildings inside the former GE campus. 

Opposed were Councillors Lachica and Duguay, who said he had not meant to vote against the motion, and thought he was voting on Crowley’s abandoned amendment.