Dredging of contaminants at Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour is complete

The last of the contaminated sediments have been dredged from Randle Reef and deposited in a massive steel box as part of a years-long effort to clean up Hamilton Harbour.

It's certainly something that we're quite thrilled about," Mark Bainbridge, the city's director of water and wastewater planning and capital, said Friday.

That stage of the $138.9-million project was completed in March, Bainbridge said, noting some less serious remaining contaminants still have to be capped with sand.

But the vast, vast majority" of the material befouled by more than a 100 years of heavy industry has been placed in the 15-acre steel isolation container built in the southwest corner of the harbour, Bainbridge noted

The so-called reef is roughly 148 acres and contained an estimated 695,000 cubic metres of sediment polluted with toxic chemicals has been the most befouled site on the Canadian Great Lakes.

The effort to build the steel box is a project jointly funded by the federal, provincial and area municipal governments, as well as Stelco was inked in 2015. Hamilton's share is $14 million.

Bainbridge expects the sand-capping" of remaining contaminated sediment - in a channel by the steelmaker that dredging equipment couldn't reach - to be finished in August.

The next stage of the remediation project will involve placing an environmental cover" on the containment box, built with about $10 million in Stelco steel, is expected to start early next year, the federal government says.

Dealing with Randle Reef is considered a major step toward delisting Hamilton Harbour as an area of concern," a status it was given in 1985 under the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

The project is expected to be finished in late 2023, Bainbridge noted in a recent update for city council.

Ambition to remove the toxic legacy of steelmaking, as well as other industries and sources of waste, dates back to the 1980s, eventually leading to a project advisory group in 2002.

The project to contain the toxic sediment at Randle Reef is among the most sophisticated of its kind in Canada," Chris McLaughlin, executive director of the Bay Area Restoration Council, said Friday.

We hope to see signs of renewed life around that area of the harbour, a healthy return of the plants and critters that depend on the cleanup of that toxic material," he added.

And we hope that continued success at Randle Reef and other contaminated spots in the harbour will go a long way to removing the dirty stigma that hangs over our community."

Once it's covered with a multi-layered cap, the steel containment box is to be transformed into additional property for Hamilton-Oshawa Port Authority operations.

At Pier 15, we are pretty squeezed for space," port authority spokesperson Larissa Fenn said.

The newly created space will allow a ship to moor there and will likely be used as a cargo handling area for bulk materials, Fenn said.

One of the really neat opportunities is to be able to connect rail to the new Randle Reef area to allow for cargo transfer direct from vessel to rail."

The port authority, which has about 130 acres of land, is eagerly anticipating" the project's completion, Fenn said.

Teviah Moro is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: tmoro@thespec.com