Soil Management Facility - Pilot Project - NCC Woodroffe Campus - Ottawa, ON

While developing and improving its assets, such as shorelines, recreational pathways and buildings, the National Capital Commission (NCC) generates large volumes of clean excess soil during construction. Although reusing clean soil from one project site to another is often considered, it is not always possible for two principal reasons. The first being the timing or phasing between projects doesn't align to allow direct soil transfer from one site to another. The second being space limitation at the receiving site, where there may be no room for stockpiling. These restrictions often make it impossible for the NCC to reuse soil between its own projects. As such, the NCC often sends excess clean soil to a landfill or non-NCC site from one project, while purchasing and importing new soil for another site, resulting in wasted financial capital and resources.

To add to the NCC's new challenge, on January 1st, 2021, Ontario's new On-Site and Excess Soil Regulation (O.Reg. 406/19) came into force. Under the new regulation, the province stipulates that by the end of 2025, Ontario landfills will no longer be able to accept clean soil. The province is aiming to ensure clean soil remains a resource, discouraging waste.

To improve its soil management practices and promote a more sustainable approach to its construction projects, the NCC will create an Excess Soil Management Facility on its lands to temporarily hold excess clean soil for use on future NCC project.

This initiative will be used to storage clean soil from a project generating excess, until another site is ready to use it. This facility will help divert clean soil from landfills, allowing the NCC to comply with new Ontario Regulations in the future.

An approximately 10-acre (40,000m2) parcel of commercial land within the NCC's storage and maintenance campus was chosen as the preferred site. The site is in the south-west corner of the of campus, located at 1740 Woodroffe Avenue, Ottawa, ON. The site was chosen as it is primarily unoccupied, close to main roads and is over 1km from the closest residential dwelling. A portion of the parcel is occupied by two large, abandoned chicken sheds, named buildings 420 and 421. These sheds will be demolished by the NCC using a green approach to make room for the soil.

The demolition work will begin in the fall of 2023 and is expected to last six (6) weeks. The work will be carried out outside of the bird nesting period, which ends on August 28. No Tree cutting is planned to accommodate the facility. Light grading work will be required to ensure proper drainage. The operation of the soil management facility will begin in late fall 2023. Once in place, the soil piles will be covered with tarps, preventing bird, amphibian and reptile nesting during the spring and summer.

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Latest update

August 27, 2023 – The public comment period on the project is closed. The National Capital Commission is considering comments received to help inform its determination on whether the carrying out of the project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.

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Contacts

National Capital Commission
Environmental Assessment
40 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5A8
Email: IA-EI@ncc-ccn.ca


  • Location

    • Greenbelt (Ontario)

  • Nature of Activity

    • Soil management

  • Assessment Status

    Completed

  • Start Date

    2023-07-28

  • Proponent

    National Capital Commission

  • Authorities

    • National Capital Commission

  • Assessment Type

    Project on federal lands

  • Reference Number

    85803
Disclaimer

This map is for illustrative purposes. The markers represent the approximate locations based on available data. More than one marker may be identified for a given assessment.

 

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...within 200 kilometres
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