Huntsville Council is scheduled to meet tonight at 5:30 p.m. On their agenda is a bylaw for the purchase of 37 Centre Street North, the former tannery and later KWH property now being leased to Infra Pipe Solutions, as well as a lot at 25 North Dufferin Street (by the fire hall) for the total sum of $1,000.
The bylaw speaks to the creation of a Centre Street Environmental Reserve “for the sole purpose of potential remediation costs on the property.” It also states that all revenue generated from the lease of the property be directed to the reserve.
Contamination at the former tannery property has been an ongoing concern for many years. Former Huntsville mayor Scott Aitchison, during the 2018 municipal election, said that when the tannery operation closed they “buried the dangerous chemicals from their operation in concrete vats in the ground on the edge of the Muskoka River and even though Huntsville still has the environmental liability for these lands we have never been able to bring any attention to this critical issue.”
The operation was sold to Canada Packers in 1953 and closed in the early 1960s. In 1962, a fire gutted the plant.
Stay tuned for more on this story following the council meeting.
Council meetings are being held electronically and can be watched via webcast here.
The property is at 37 Centre Street North, to the northwest of the intersection of Centre Street North and Payne Drive. (Image: muskoka.on.ca)
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This is a great idea. This is thinking about everyone’s future. There will be cost associated with a clean up effort and all taxpayers hope that they are not to be fronting the money for it. The bigger picture is that the issue is being talked about with a plan to better our downtown community. Hopefully one day we can move this plant and use the prime real estate for some more downtown greenspace and affordable housing/rental unit like the town so needs. In the meantime if they can use the land to make money for the future clean up. Good direction!
i BELIEVE THAT THE FIREHALL IS BUILT ON COTAMINATED LANDS
I believe that the firehall was built on contaminated land in that area.
Here we go again Huntsville, take on another liability.
My class at Pine Glen and I studied this issue with the tannery property many years ago. We did research, wrote letters and addressed council asking for an investigation into the contamination. The council at the time clearly stated there was no contamination on that property. We knew better. There was no proof that the vats of some of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to man had ever been emptied. How long before cement vats begin to leak? I think we can assume they have leaked onto the property and into the river. At one point, as a teacher, I received a threatening phone call from a local company at that time telling me to stop the research the kids were doing immediately. So glad something may finally being done. Bravo.
I think you should are the company who ran the tannery pay to clean it up if its still.. a company. And I think there should be a plaque to the men who died there.
I dont know how true it is, my mom said they dumped the fleshing from the hides into the river. She threatened us with grounding forever if we swam at the bridge pilings, and she said that’s why the blood suckers over there were enormous.
Sure and the company that created the dangerouis mess gets off scott free.
The taxpayer always ends up footing the bill.