The following is a message that the club received from Boroondara Council regarding some recent works that were carried out at Canterbury Sports Ground.
I am writing to update you on recent works undertaken in Canterbury Sports Ground.
You will be aware that part of Council’s normal practice between the summer and winter sporting seasons is to cover cricket pitches with soil and seed, in order to ensure an appropriate playing surface for winter sports. This has taken place in 10 sites including Canterbury Sports Ground.
It was recently identified that soil that was placed on the cricket pitch may have been contaminated with some small amounts of building debris, including some small fragments of cement sheet.
Prensa, environmental assessment experts, were engaged by Council to analyse samples of cement sheet identified at one of the 10 sites and confirmed that it contained asbestos. Prensa advised that “While the imported soil displayed evidence of minor amounts of cement sheet contamination, the asbestos is considered to pose a negligible health risk.”
Council officers then immediately engaged an A-Class licensed asbestos removalist to scour the surface of each of the cricket pitch areas and remove any building waste, including the cement sheet fragments. This work was overseen by Prensa and took place on 16-17 April. As an interim and conservative measure, a liner was then placed over the contaminated top soil on each site as a barrier and a layer of fresh topsoil was applied over the liner to ensure the underlying soil was not exposed. This interim step took place to allow scheduled sporting fixtures to proceed last weekend.
Further works have taken place during the course of this week to completely remove the existing soil used to cover the pitches and replace this with new (clean) top soil. Prensa again supervised these works which are now complete.
Although not all the sites contained contamination that was visible or at the surface, a conservative approach has been taken in undertaking these remediation works at each of the 10 locations.
Based on the advice received from Prensa, I can assure you that the wicket area is safe to use. If you have any questions regarding the above please contact me on 0417 459 269 or Steven Bos, Managing Consultant Presna, on 0413 603 030.
Regards
Mark Dornau
Manager Parks and Gardens
Boroondara Council
If there are any questions on the above, please don’t hesitate to contact the club or Boroondara council.
