Digby's people meet with Wilson’s people

By Jonathan Riley

DIGBY COURIER

NovaNewsNow.com

Wilson’s Fuels has asked Digby’s engineers to provide more information about the hydrocarbon spill at the corner of Warwick and Queen.

Digby town clerk Tom Ossinger and other representatives of Digby, both technical and legal, met with their counterparts representing Wilson’s Fuels at the office of Jacques Whitford consulting in Dartmouth on Thursday, Jan. 31.

Ossinger says the information requested was of a very technical nature including copies of Jacques Whitford’s field notes.

Contractors working for the town first discovered oil under Warwick Street when installing a water line and storm drain in June 2006.

The town spent $294,000 cleaning up oil on its property in July 2006 as directed by Nova Scotia’s Dept. of Environment. The town claims there is also oil in the ground under the Esso Go! station property at the intersection.

Town council wrote a letter to Nova Scotia’s minister of Environment, Mark Parent on Nov. 28, 2007, complaining that they have been waiting more than a year for Environment to do something about the remaining oil.

““We can’t just leave it like that,” said councillor Danny Harvieux at the time. “We have a responsibility to our residents. Do we want to go through all this again two or three years down the road?”

Environment spokesperson Jacqueline May said in Dec. 2007 that an investigation was ongoing and that Wilson’s had indicated they needed more information. Hence the recent meeting.

Ossinger hopes that everyone now has all the information they need to get to work.





“We would have liked this taken care of a year ago,” said Ossinger. “But it is all going to take time.”

Meanwhile Ossinger says the town’s lawyer has presented a number of legal options to council.

“So far they have just taken all that information under advisement and have made no decisions about those options. When a decision is made then we will be able to talk about that publicly.”