What lurks beneath? St. Catharines residents will finally learn the state of former GM site

If all goes according to the orders of Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, next week the City of St. Catharines will release the Environmental Site Assessment for the former General Motors site on Ontario Street. 

The documents will provide a detailed description of the contaminants beneath the 55-acre site, pinpointing not only their exact locations, but also concentration levels. For the first time, residents, many who live mere metres from the site, will have access to comprehensive and objective data regarding the subterranean contaminants on this former heavy industrial site in the heart of the city. We already know toxic chemicals have been leaching through the ground and contaminating surrounding lands and waterways. 

The overdue release of these documents—the City admits to withholding them from the public since at least 2020—is not because local officials are suddenly concerned for public safety, a sense of environmental responsibility or a commitment to transparency with residents. The municipal government is releasing the documents because it has been ordered to do so, after a prolonged and determined effort to suppress the information, the City’s decision makers no longer have a choice.

As reported by The Pointer, an adjudicator at the office of the IPC has ordered the City of St. Catharines to release the Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) documents between December 13 and 17. The decision marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year legal effort by the City—at the expense of taxpayers—to keep the documents hidden and underscores glaring failures in its duty to residents. 

Throughout the adjudication process, the City argued that releasing the documents would damage GM’s reputation and threaten its competitive position in the marketplace. In adopting a position in support of the corporation, the City portrayed citizens as being unable to understand the data or use it objectively, an alarming claim to justify shielding information that could have serious public health implications.

The tactics contradicted the City’s vision statement: “For St. Catharines to be a safe, innovative, sustainable, and caring city today and for future generations.”  

Developers want to build homes on the former GM site in St. Catharines despite the presence of harmful cancer-causing chemicals.

(Ed Smith/The Pointer)

In 2014, Bayshore Group purchased the site amid great fanfare. The company's principal, Robert Megna, was a developer with a checkered past, including a criminal conviction for extortion a decade earlier. Megna swept into the city with promises of a new future for the brownfield site, unveiling a “breathtaking” $250 million development plan for the vacant former industrial lands.

The mayor at the time, Walter Sendzik, who had campaigned on a platform of leveraging his business experience to deliver solutions for the site, was reportedly "giddy" with excitement over the proposal. However, warning signs were already apparent. Local Councillor Mark Elliot publicly voiced concerns that Megna might strip the property of its valuable assets and abandon any real development. Despite these concerns, Sendzik remained an enthusiastic supporter of Megna, eventually being photographed with him on a boat during a fishing excursion in the Dominican Republic in April 2015. Sendzik later claimed the meeting was a chance encounter and insisted he reimbursed Megna for his share of the expenses upon returning to Canada. The optics added fuel to the skepticism regarding the sincerity of the development plans and the city's objective oversight. 

An investigation by The Pointer later revealed that Sendzik had private conversations with officials at Movengo—the company that held the mortgage for the property on behalf of Bayshore—and the City’s head of economic development to push a mixed-use residential project on the contaminated site, before the extent of the risks to public health were known.

Former mayor of St. Catharines Walter Sendzik, left, fishing in the Caribbean with controversial developer Robert Megna in 2015, a year after he bought the former GM lands.

(Facebook)

Demolition of the site began in 2018 and within about 12 months ground to a halt. By then most of the valuable materials had been removed and sold off and residents were left with a partially demolished glaring eyesore in the middle of the city. Piled high with mountains of debris and covered with open pits of sludge, the sprawling abandoned site raised questions about potential risks to environmental and human health.

The extent of contamination beneath the GM site could soon be known as the City has been ordered to release critical environmental studies.

(MTE Consultants)

The former GM site is surrounded by homes and businesses on three sides and Twelve Mile Creek. By identifying the presence or absence of contamination in the soil and groundwater, the Phase II ESA will provide information of vital importance to the citizens of St. Catharines. This includes a clear picture of the contamination that could potentially impact human or environmental health. Because soil contamination often migrates, given enough time, it is reasonable to expect chemicals will continue to leak from the site (the Province has already shown PCBs from the property have been detected nearby). 

After receiving complaints from residents in 2020 the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) responded with assurances the site was regularly monitored and therefore there was no reason for concern. The MOE was forced to back down from that statement after citizen requests to see the reports from the monitoring visits revealed the site is not “regularly” monitored. In fact, in a scheduled visit in 2019 staff from the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of the Environment met at the site to do an inspection, but  when they arrived they refused to enter the site because of the high risk level. Protracted citizen advocacy eventually forced the testing of the site and the discovery that significant and continuous leakage of chemical contaminants was occurring. The MOE could not answer how long the leakage had been happening.

Residents have demanded information on the locations and concentrations of toxic chemicals but elected officials at City Hall and senior staff have instead repeatedly failed to provide the critical testing documents. 

Glenn Brooks and his partner Susan Rosebrugh live in a house that abuts the GM property. In 2020 he was diagnosed with breast cancer, a cancer he attributes to living next door to the site. The couple has become vocal in their activism demanding transparency and a clean up of the site. They feel the City has continuously failed them and the neighbourhood as a whole.  

When citizens asked the City for the ESA reports, the municipality had to inform GM of the request. The company resisted releasing the documents and put forward an argument to keep them away from the public, claiming the release of the documents could harm GM’s reputation.

The City was faced with a choice: side with residents and push to make the documents public, a choice that would isolate GM in its fight to protect its reputation; or they could join GM, bolster their arguments and leave citizens isolated. Decision makers inside City Hall chose to side with GM. They lost.  

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Editor’s note: Once The Pointer receives the information in the coming days we will publish all the details and make the source material widely available. 

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