Hundreds of barrels being cleaned up at future site of Labrador Wellness Centre
Some garbage being unearthed under the site for a future wellness centre in Happy Valley Goose Bay is creating a barrelful of concerns for people in the town.
Hundreds of rusty old barrels have been found buried beneath the site, and a crew is working to dig them out.
"There's stuff dumped throughout Goose Bay so the fact that we actually found something on this site is not a surprise," said Tom Lyall, general manager of Nunatsiavut Construction.
"All we can do is deal with it," he said. "It's part of our final cleanup of this property."
The barrels were found during an electromagnetic survey of the land. Stantec, an environmental consulting firm, has been on site taken samples to determine what might have been in the barrels — speculation ranges from military waste or material used to maintain an old road in the area — and if there's any reason to be concerned about the soil.
Similar waste was found when preparations were being made for a gym to be constructed across the street from the wellness centre site. In that case, samples showed no cause for concern and were deemed safe, according to the Nunatsiavut Group of Companies.
"I wouldn't be concerned at all, because these are not full barrels. There's no markings on them that says it's diesel or if it's PCBs," Lyall said.
"These are inert barrels which have been opened historically and been used somewhere else. So all we can do it wait until the sampling comes back."
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