St. Marys looks to partner with Ontario Aggregate Resources Corporation on cleanup of west quarry

Pictured are the six, 20-foot-tall concrete structures along the fence line at the west quarry in St. Marys.

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town of St. Marys is working toward a potential partnership with the Ontario Aggregate Resources Corporation (TOARC) on the cleanup of industrial waste at the town’s west quarry, part of an overall effort to rehabilitate the site for recreational use.

At the town’s special priorities committee meeting, director of public works Jed Kelly and infrastructure services manager Jeff Wolfe presented an update to council on the progress made at the west quarry, also known as the fishing quarry. The plan to clean up the quarry was approved by council back in February and includes the removal of large concrete pillars and other waste and debris left behind by limestone mining at a cost estimated at nearly $70,000.

“One of the big concerns we had was the estimated cost of the rehabilitation of the waste material at the site,” Wolfe said. “We were able to find an industry partner, they’re called TOARC. … They’re a trustee of the Ontario Resource Trust that is used to help abandoned sites restore their site. Typically, they’re working on agricultural sites, they’re restoring embankments, rehabilitating grasslands and things like that.

“So, this project is a little bit different than what they’re typically used to doing, but they said it could potentially be a good candidate.”

This year, town staff have been collecting data at the west quarry that will allow the TOARC board of directors to make a decision at its meeting in December as to whether the organization will partner with the town and spend a portion of its annual budget to help clean up the site. Previous and ongoing data collection this year includes water sampling to determine water quality, a land survey to determine the extent of the waste and debris on land and depth scanning to identify underwater hazards and conditions.

“It’s not necessarily a funding opportunity; it is more of a partnership,” Wolfe said. “If we are successful and they were to come in and do the removals of the existing waste, we would essentially hand the site over to them for a period of time, they would have their contractors doing the work, removing the waste. We would give them an opportunity to probably dispose of the concrete material and the steel at our (landfill), where we would then recycle it into aggregate. That would probably allow us to accomplish more work with them than if they had to pay for disposal at a site further away.”

Due to high traffic in the area of the west quarry during the summer, Wolfe said the work would likely be done in the spring or fall. The work would involve removing the fencing along the trail side of the quarry and replacing any removed waste material with fill, which would then be seeded with grasses and other native plants, something Wolfe said has been requested by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA) because the site is in a flood plain.

In early conversations with the UTRCA, Wolfe said conservation authority staff are tentatively on board with the project and are excited about the removal of the chain-link fence because it collects branches and other debris during flooding of the adjacent Thames River.

“Eventually, there will be a fence there, will there not?” Coun. Marg Luna asked. “There would have to be for safety reasons.”

“Our expectation is that the chain-link fence will be removed,” Wolfe responded. “The site is 300 metres long; there are different opportunities along that 300 metres where there’s the potential for a gradual slope down to the water in some spots, and then in other areas, there’s a sheer face where there’s less opportunity for those at-water improvements. So, we expect there could potentially be a mixture of improvements that you make along the side of the water. Some could include handrails very similar to the outlook one of the community groups built that the fishermen fish off of. We could have more aspects like that along sections of the water, and we may look at potentially naturalizing some areas with shrubbery people don’t like to walk through like buckthorn or something.”

While Wolfe said TOARC is considering removing the waste and debris along the shores of the quarry and restoring those areas, he told council there was some hesitancy about removing the concrete pillars because of the public controversy around council’s decision to have them removed.

“That was just an off-the-cuff comment where they said, ‘Oh, we saw that in the paper,’ or whatever,” Wolfe said. “They weren’t sure exactly which direction they wanted to go with that, so we’ll explore that further. It could potentially be where we do it immediately following; we have them do their work, we clean up all around them and then we contract ourselves, maybe, to do some of that if they’re not willing to do it. Or it could potentially be where we phase that in when we’re doing work sort of in that area. … When we go to tackle those improvements, we would potentially do that work at that time.

“There’s a couple different options that we don’t have good detail on yet, but I can probably bring that back to you early in the new year after we hear back from (TOARC).”

While town staff await a response from TOARC, the town will continue collecting data on the property and begin work on a landscape design. Assuming restoration work can be completed next year, Kelly said the actual landscape work and construction of amenities at the quarry could begin in 2027, though he suggested the potential for building amenities as they’re requested and the funding is in place to make the project more manageable from a financial standpoint.