the massive hole (it goes quite far down)
In the morning ~ 10am, April 16th

Today a backhoe was in the field, next to the Roerich Garden, digging a hefty rectangular hole about 3 metres deep down to the rock. I took some photos and spoke to the workers. It seems to be the beginning of the soil samples the city is doing of that lot. They get their samples from near the rock, found metres below the surface of the soil. The property is still being negotiated in courts for, and is (according to Helen Fotopulos) almost settled. Once the land is bought, before anything is built, the soil must be cleaned. I imagine the city must first determine the level of contaminants, (explaining the back hoe) before they propose a soil detoxification strategy (which basically doesn’t exist), and then how to proceed in their development plan. From what I understand, soil detoxification procedures must adhere to Health Canada norms. Health Canada and the city share the costs of clean up. With Health Canada it is very hard to change their standard procedures, unless, of course… they can be convinced that mushrooms are just as efficient as standard (more destructive practices)…and cheaper! So many options when using phytoremediation, but it is generally not recognized by our government.

Stay tuned for our soil remediation workshop-experiment that Sprout Out Loud hopes to host later this summer.
Not sure what this thing was doing- it seemed unrelated…

The workers got annoyed with me after I started talking to them about my project and how we wanted to conserve a section of the field, and keep it wild. They were doing their job 🙂

An overhead shot is on its way in the next few days…

Its 8pm, end of the day and the hole has been filled. ( ‘X’ marks the spot ).