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Bruce Bowser makes no secret of his preferred site for a Canadian Football League stadium in the Halifax area.

Bowser, one of three principal partners in Maritime Football Ltd., said Shannon Park was always his top choice.

“I grew up in the Shannon Park community, my father was in the military,” Bowser said at a recent news conference, describing the harbourside Dartmouth site that had been home to a military community for decades before the federal Defence Department declared it surplus in 2003.

The Maritime Football Ltd. partnership wants to build a $190-million, 24,000-seat stadium on a six- to eight-hectare parcel of Shannon Park land.

Still, the proposed site comes with some baggage.

Bruce Mans, an urban planner and landscape architect in Dartmouth, led a 2010 Shannon Park infrastructure assessment project.

“There is a high-tension power line running from the Tufts Cove generating station across the southern end of the Shannon Park peninsula that includes two towers on the site itself,” part of the assessment concluded.

Mans and his team referred to a 2006 analysis done as a precursor to Halifax’s abandoned 2014 Commonwealth Games bid that indicated moving the towers and burying the transmission lines to accommodate a stadium would cost between $20 million and $30 million.

It’s been estimated that such a project today might cost in the vicinity of $50 million.

The Maritime Football group is negotiating with Canada Lands, the federal Crown corporation tasked with redeveloping or selling surplus military properties, to buy a Shannon Park property. Canada Lands acquired approximately 33 hectares of the entire Shannon Park site from DND in 2015.

Chris Millier, director of real estate for Canada Lands, said in an email that the Crown company has been in discussions with Nova Scotia Power and other stakeholders.

“As part of Canada Lands’ development process, we have ongoing discussions with stakeholders, including utilities such as NSP, about our and their plans, both short and long term,” Millier said.

Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman Maeghan Murphy said the utility “has not participated in any discussions regarding a potential CFL stadium.”

Anthony LeBlanc, another principal Maritime Football Ltd. partner, said he is not involved with any NSP discussions either but he had heard rumours that the utility’s infrastructure could be problematic.

“I haven’t been told anything directly but it is just that I have heard from various people that (the infrastructure) might become an issue down the road,” LeBlanc said. “I’m obviously curious but it is not something that I am involved in.”

Spill concerns

Mark Butler of the Ecology Action Centre, a Nova Scotia environmental watchdog, said there is another issue in the area.

Butler said that during a September beach cleanup below the Tufts Cove plant, a large spill of oil was discovered in an adjacent cove.

“There were fairly large areas covered with oil, four or five centimetres thick in areas and if you turned it over, you could smell it,” Butler said of the unexplained spill found in Turtle Grove.

“I agreed with the regulatory authorities that went to take a look at it that it probably didn’t come from the spill at Tufts Cove,” Butler said.

A leaking pipe at the Tufts Cove generating station in August spilled about 5,000 litres of bunker C fuel into Halifax harbour and two weeks later, the utility announced that an additional 19,000 litres had leaked into a containment trench and a water-cooling system.

The Turtle Grove spill is in the thousands of litres, Butler said. He suspects the spill of heavy oil happened recently but it remains a mystery where the spill came from and who is responsible for cleaning it up.

“Nobody really wants to take responsibility for it. But it’s there and just because there is nobody’s name on it doesn’t mean that it’s not an environmental issue.”

Remediation work to remove contaminated soil from a portion of the 12 hectares of land the Millbrook First Nation will acquire in Shannon Park is expected to cost the federal government in the area of $5 million, reports say.

“Any environmental work required on our property will be fully assessed and conducted in full compliance with municipal, provincial and federal regulations,” Millier said. “There is no work required at this time.”

Millier categorized the Canada Lands discussions with Maritime Football as preliminary.

“When HRM and this private developer approached Canada Lands to consider this new use on a portion of the Shannon Park site, we stated that public support must be secured for this project and that the project must be supported by HRM and the province before we consider changes to our current development concept. Our understanding is that HRM is undertaking a business case analysis for this proposal and will be carrying out public consultations as part of this process.

“Upon completion of that work, Canada Lands will be in a better position to assess the implications for development plans.”

Jacques Dube, chief administrative officer of Halifax Regional Municipality, told a regional council meeting in late October, that staff will bring a detailed business case back to council within six months that will include evaluations on the need for a stadium, cost and benefits estimates and partnership opportunities. The analysis will include a recommendation to council on whether it should proceed or not proceed with the project.

For his part, LeBlanc said Maritime Football will only be purchasing land when it is development-ready.

“The conversations that we’re having is that if and when we were to purchase the land, it would be ready to be built on,” LeBlanc said.

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