Chemical Buffer

The City of Saskatoon identified chemical buffers around existing chemical operations up in the north end of the city in their provincially registered Official Community Plan.

After this, the City began selling this land to builders who subsequently put up structures and in filled with businesses.

The problem is that the City neglected to properly inform these land purchasers that this land exists within a safety buffer required around these chemical facilities.

The City could have also informed businesses and landowners at different stages of the process from development permit, building permit, and even in the business license stage, yet they have failed to do so.

The chemical plants are very well run, safety-oriented operations. They have done nothing wrong. Yet now the burden is falling on them to try to inform people that they need to be reasonably prepared in the unlikely event of a catastrophic chemical release which would be considered lethal.

The City created zoning bylaws in these areas to deny public assembly and retail operations so as to limit the risk to unsuspecting citizens.

This assumes that the regular inhabitants of this area are familiar with the risks and basic procedures to protect themselves, but this is still lacking.

What has happened is that the City has approved various retail operations within this buffer where no additional safety procedures have been put in place for these unsuspecting citizens. This clearly breaches the zoning bylaw as public assembly and retail are not discretionary uses but are completely prohibited.

The City also went ahead and put their new Chief Mistawasis Bridge right through the chemical buffers of both chemical plants without as much as a warning light on the East River bank to halt traffic if there was ever an emergency. Further, Mayor Clark went and had a very large public event right on the bridge during its opening and this contravenes the Health and Safety Act as this is a distinct threat to public safety. It also contravenes Saskatoon’s own Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw which do not allow for public assembly in this area. The day of the bridge opening, there were no special shelters constructed and ready in the event that some emergency took place and they had to evacuate people off the bridge to shelter them immediately. There was no way emergency services could have saved the people that attended this event if something went wrong. This is either extreme arrogance or extreme ignorance on the part of the City Administration and Mayor Clark. The City administration and specifically Mayor Clark have gone to great lengths to avoid talking about this ever since. Hopefully that changes now.