On eve of election, province covers $12.3M in Wheatley blast costs

Article content

WHEATLEY, ONT. — The provincial government is covering millions of dollars spent by the Municipality of Chatham-Kent over the past year to address potential dangers remaining from a gas explosion that rocked Wheatley’s downtown in August 2021.

Chatham-Kent received the lion’s share — $12.3 million — of the more than $16 million in funding announced by the province on Monday to support emergency management needs in communities facing oil and gas related issues.

Article content

It also was announced that $3.8 million is being invested — as part of the second year of Ontario’s legacy oil and gas wells action plan — to help nine municipalities across Southwestern Ontario enhance local emergency preparedness and risk prevention.

An Aug. 26, 2021, blast was linked to toxic hydrogen sulphide gas seeping through the ground in downtown Wheatley. It destroyed two buildings, damaged others and injured 20 people.

Speaking at the end of Monday’s council meeting, chief administrator Michael Duben called it a “really good news day” for Chatham-Kent as he discussed the $12.3 million in funding.

Most of the money has already been spent, covering costs such as the $4.5 million needed to acquire the dozen or so properties destroyed in the blast, he said.

The province initially provided $3 million to buy the properties, Duben said.  Part of this week’s announcement makes the municipality “whole” for the cost of buying the properties, along with demolition costs.

“Those 12 or 13 properties that we purchased ultimately was all done on the province’s dime,” Duben said.

Article content

Article content

The funding also covers $2.6 million for emergency management costs that included having firefighters onsite, hazardous materials services and the fencing around the site, he said.

Duben noted $1 million of the funding will go toward site revitalization, which is being done by the Wheatley task force, made up of local citizens.

There had been ongoing discussions over cost recovery, “but, hopefully, most of you realized we were pretty confident that it would be paid for by the province,” he said.

A more than three-year-long emergency order for Wheatley’s downtown area officially ended on Oct. 31. But some monitoring continues.

Director of public works Ryan Brown said a technical report is available at

www.letstalkchatham-kent.ca/wheatley-updates.

“We’re very optimistic that the overwhelming issues with gas that we’ve had on the site is over,” he said.

Monitoring is continuing into the spring when a consultant will provide further direction, Brown said.

“If everything’s status quo,” he said, there may be a recommendation to remove the equipment and plug the last remaining water well on the site. Or there may be a suggestion to keep the equipment onsite to monitor the situation longer, he said.

Article content

“Our government recognizes the significant and ongoing challenges that southwestern Ontario municipalities face in managing oil and gas related issues,” Graydon Smith, Ontario’s minister of natural resources, said in a media release.

“We will continue to work alongside municipal partners to make progress under our legacy oil and gas wells action plan, assist in reducing local risks and strengthening emergency preparedness.”

Since 2021, the province has invested more than $39 million to support investigation, recovery and monitoring activities in Chatham-Kent, including support for eligible businesses and residents, the ministry said.

“The proactive management and prevention of oil and gas related issues are essential to ensuring public safety,” MPP Trevor Jones (PC — Chatham-Kent—Leamington), who was Ontario’s associate minister of emergency preparedness and response until this week’s election call, said in the news release.

“This funding is extremely important to the people of Wheatley, a strong community that has experienced so much during the last few years,” Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff said in a statement.

Article content