Late last year, a tanker truck carry 40,000 litres of Diesel fuel rolled over, spilling all of its contents onto the road and into nearby catch basins. Fire Department and Operations Department staff successfully contained and recaptured approximately 30,000 litres of fuel. Ongoing ground water and soil testing indicated that the missing fuel had actually leaked into the ground around the catch basins. Environmental contractors and the Ministry of the Environment continued to work on excavating the area, ensuring that no further contamination would leak into the nearby creek.

There have been numerous delays, that include finding multiple underground leaks that were not anticipated, and some insurance company issues.

It appears that all of these issues have now been dealt with. The contractor has sent final soil samples to the MOE, and if they come back clean;  the final remediation will commence.

Once they get the “all clean” from MOE, they anticipate that they will have one lane open , North Bound from Gilmore Road to the Travel Centre. Vehicles exiting the travel centre, will be required to head north to Bowen Road to access the QEW.

This will allow the contractor to rebuild the ramp from Petit, to Gilmore/QEW Toronto bound, including replacing all of the curbs and median that were removed.

A complete opening is still a few weeks away.

We will continue to monitor the progress and advise if there are any changes to the time line.

Larry Coplen
Fire Chief/CEMC Larry Coplen, CMM III, Fire Service Executive, Fire Trg Specialist, Emergency Mgt Professional
Fort Erie Fire Department