A developer building condos on contaminated Burnaby land is blaming the owners of nearby lots once used for dry-cleaning businesses and suing them for the cost of cleaning up the contamination. 

In B.C. Supreme Court documents, I4PG Hastings Street Inc., which is building a new lowrise condo development at 4437 Hastings St., says the land is a “contaminated site” under the Environmental Management Act.

The company claims dry-cleaning chemicals and petroleum products have migrated onto the Burnaby Heights land from 4429 and 4362 Hastings St., both of which have been used for dry-cleaning businesses.

“The contaminants have migrated to the plaintiff’s site, and continue to migrate to the plaintiff’s site, thereby damaging and contaminating the plaintiff’s site, including, without limitation, causing contamination of the groundwater and soil of the plaintiff’s site and resulting in contaminated vapour plumes,” states a June 3, 2021 notice of civil claim.

The developer admits its land also used to have dry-cleaning businesses on it (Swan Brothers, Ltd., Cleaners and Dyers from about 1960 to 1962 and Empress Cleaners from 1985 to 1986) but claims both those businesses were depots only, where customers could pick up and drop off clothes that had been dry-cleaned at plants elsewhere.

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