With two weeks to go before the biggest event Kitchener’s McLennan Park has ever hosted, a new problem has been found at the site – methane gas.
That may not seem like much of a surprise, given that the park was built overtop a former landfill, but the problem is where it was found.
Specifically, high methane levels were detected in a drainage pipe at the site – meaning the gas was in turn being released into the atmosphere.
“The methane collection system that the region has for the landfill is designed specifically to collect that. The drainage tile isn’t,” Jim Witmer, Kitchener’s director of operations, tells CTV News.
The discovery of the methane was made two weeks before tens of thousands of people are expected to flood the park for Big Music Fest, by crews doing prep work in advance of the festival.
Running July 11 to 13 in its first year in Kitchener, Big Music Fest headliners include Bryan Adams, Aerosmith and Styx.
Bob Gallagher doesn’t have tickets for Big Music Fest, but lives close enough to McLennan Park that he’ll likely be able to hear it.
He does bring his grandchildren to the park, and says he’s concerned to hear the methane issues that gripped the neighbourhood several years ago may have returned.
“I’d rather not be bringing kids to a play area that has methane leaking into it,” he says.
City officials say the public was never in danger from the methane.
The affected drainage pipes are being removed to correct the problem. Witmer says the pipes were buried too deep to effectively collect water in the first place.
