Barrels and spilled oil the latest worry for neighbours of Waterdown Garden Supplies

You can add leaky oil barrels to the list of fears neighbours have living beside Mob-linked mountains of polluted soil at the Waterdown Garden Supplies property.

The contaminated property on Highway 5 near Troy has already spurred multiple provincial cleanup orders and legal claims - including an explosive $75-million lawsuit alleging involvement of two Hamilton city staffers and a slain mobster in a soil-dumping scheme.

The city has denied those claims in court documents, but has yet to make public the results of a third-party probe into the allegations. City spokesperson Matthew Grant said there will be a public update Thursday.

In the meantime, concerned neighbours have forwarded photos of trash and unidentified barrels in and around a building on the property - which already hosts a shipping container buried in asphalt waste and three-storey-high piles of dumped mystery dirt.

It's just another thing for us to worry about," said nearby resident Jim Whelan, who did not take the photos but forwarded them to the city. He noted the photos show some barrels have fallen over, while others sit atop ground darkened by unknown liquid.

Whelan said he is also wary about the unexplained arrival last month of a large truck and backhoe at the otherwise shuttered business.

The Spectator asked the provincial Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks about the barrels.

Spokesperson Gary Wheeler said by email the ministry recently inspected the property and building and found multiple barrels" filled with what appeared to be some sort of oil, as well as petroleum hydrocarbon staining" in various areas of the concrete floor.

Wheeler said the ministry has given the property owner, Waterdown Garden Supplies Ltd., until Dec. 20 to provide a plan outlining how the oil barrels will be removed and how any spilled material will be cleaned up."

Given the lack of action on past provincial cleanup orders, Whelan said he is not holding out much hope" for quick action to get rid of the barrels. I'd love to be proved wrong, though," he said.

It's not clear whether the current property owner even has access to the site, however.

Waterdown Garden Supplies president Gary McHale, who is one of several parties facing provincial cleanup orders at the property, previously told The Spectator a mortgage holder got a court order to evict his company in late 2018, leaving him unable to clean up or even legally access the site.

The Spectator could not reach McHale for this story.

The province says the controller" of the property is 1350057 Ontario Ltd. Sukhinder Sandhu, a director of that numbered company, recently confirmed he is a mortgage holder on the property but denied responsibility for any alleged pollution.

McHale and his business associates have launched separate lawsuits against Sandhu, the city and various individuals linked to alleged soil dumper Havana Group Supplies, a construction firm headed by convicted fraudster Steve Sardinha that included Mob boss Pat Musitano as a silent partner.

The city also sent a bylaw inspector to the property in response to the photos of barrels and trash, but ward councillor Lloyd Ferguson said no obvious municipal infractions were noted in visible outdoor areas.

I feel bad for the neighbours, constantly being bounced around on who to talk to about this," he said. But it is the ministry that has to take the lead on this thing."

Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at for The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com